CHAPTER V
THE PERFECT BRAIN
The song that had been upon her lips as she entered died there--frozen
by the sight of horror that met her eyes. In the center of the chamber
a headless body lay upon the floor--a body that had been partially
devoured--while over and upon it crawled a half a dozen heads upon
their short, spider legs, and they tore at the flesh of the woman with
their chelae and carried the bits to their awful mouths. They were
eating human flesh--eating it raw!
Tara of Helium gasped in horror and turning away covered her eyes with
her palms.
"Come!" said her captor. "What is the matter?"
"They are eating the flesh of the woman," she whispered in tones of
horror.
"Why not?" he inquired. "Did you suppose that we kept the rykor for
labor alone? Ah, no. They are delicious when kept and fattened.
Fortunate, too, are those that are bred for food, since they are never
called upon to do aught but eat."
"It is hideous!" she cried.
He looked at her steadily for a moment, but whether in surprise, in
anger, or in pity his expressionless face did not reveal. Then he led
her on across the room past the frightful thing, from which she turned
away her eyes. Lying about the floor near the walls were half a dozen
headless bodies in harness. These she guessed had been abandoned
temporarily by the feasting heads until they again required their
services. In the walls of this room there were many of the small, round
openings she had noticed in various parts of the tunnels, the purpose
of which she could not guess.
They passed through another corridor and then into a second chamber,
larger than the first and more brilliantly illuminated. Within were
several of the creatures with heads and bodies assembled, while many
headless bodies lay about near the walls. Here her captor halted and
spoke to one of the occupants of the chamber.
"I seek Luud," he said. "I bring to Luud a creature that I captured in
the fields above."
The others crowded about to examine Tara of Helium. One of them
whistled, whereupon the girl learned something of the smaller openings
in the walls, for almost immediately there crawled from them, like
giant spiders, a score or more of the hideous heads. Each sought one of
the recumbent bodies and fastened itself in place. Immediately the
bodies reacted to the intelligent direction of the heads. They arose,
the hands adjusted the leather collars and put the balance of the
harness in order, then the creatures crossed the room to where Tara of
Helium stood. She noted that their leather was more highly ornamented
than that worn by any of the others she had previously seen, and so she
guessed that these must be higher in authority than the others. Nor was
she mistaken. The demeanor of her captor indicated it. He addressed
them as one who holds intercourse with superiors.
Several of those who examined her felt her flesh, pinching it gently
between thumb and forefinger, a familiarity that the girl resented. She
struck down their hands. "Do not touch me!" she cried, imperiously, for
was she not a princess of Helium? The expression on those terrible
faces did not change. She could not tell whether they were angry or
amused, whether her action had filled them with respect for her, or
contempt. Only one of them spoke immediately.
"She will have to be fattened more," he said.
The girl's eyes went wide with horror. She turned upon her captor. "Do
these frightful creatures intend to devour me?" she cried.
"That is for Luud to say," he replied, and then he leaned closer so
that his mouth was near her ear. "That noise you made which you called
song pleased me," he whispered, "and I will repay you by warning you
not to antagonize these kaldanes. They are very powerful. Luud listens
to them. Do not call them frightful. They are very handsome. Look at
their wonderful trappings, their gold, their jewels."
"Thank you," she said. "You called them kaldanes--what does that mean?"
"We are all kaldanes," he replied.
"You, too?" and she pointed at him, her slim finger directed toward his
chest.
"No, not this," he explained, touching his body; "this is a rykor; but
this," and he touched his head, "is a kaldane. It is the brain, the
intellect, the power that directs all things. The rykor," he indicated
his body, "is nothing. It is not so much even as the jewels upon our
harness; no, not so much as the harness itself. It carries us about. It
is true that we would find difficulty getting along without it; but it
has less value than harness or jewels because it is less difficult to
reproduce." He turned again to the other kaldanes. "Will you notify
Luud that I am here?" he asked.
"Sept has already gone to Luud. He will tell him," replied one. "Where
did you find this rykor with the strange kaldane that cannot detach
itself?"
The girl's captor narrated once more the story of her capture. He
stated facts just as they had occurred, without embellishment, his
voice as expressionless as his face, and his story was received in the
same manner that it was delivered. The creatures seemed totally lacking
in emotion, or, at least, the capacity to express it. It was impossible
to judge what impression the story made upon them, or even if they
heard it. Their protruding eyes simply stared and occasionally the
muscles of their mouths opened and closed. Familiarity did not lessen
the horror the girl felt for them. The more she saw of them the more
repulsive they seemed. Often her body was shaken by convulsive shudders
as she looked at the kaldanes, but when her eyes wandered to the
beautiful bodies and she could for a moment expunge the heads from her
consciousness the effect was soothing and refreshing, though when the
bodies lay, headless, upon the floor they were quite as shocking as the
heads mounted on bodies. But by far the most grewsome and uncanny sight
of all was that of the heads crawling about upon their spider legs. If
one of these should approach and touch her Tara of Helium was positive
that she should scream, while should one attempt to crawl up her
person--ugh! the very idea induced a feeling of faintness.
Sept returned to the chamber. "Luud will see you and the captive.
Come!" he said, and turned toward a door opposite that through which
Tara of Helium had entered the chamber. "What is your name?" His
question was directed to the girl's captor.
"I am Ghek, third foreman of the fields of Luud," he answered.
"And hers?"
"I do not know."
"It makes no difference. Come!"
The patrician brows of Tara of Helium went high. It made no difference,
indeed! She, a princess of Helium; only daughter of The Warlord of
Barsoom!
"Wait!" she cried. "It makes much difference who I am. If you are
conducting me into the presence of your jed you may announce The
Princess Tara of Helium, daughter of John Carter, The Warlord of
Barsoom."
"Hold your peace!" commanded Sept. "Speak when you are spoken to. Come
with me!"
The anger of Tara of Helium all but choked her. "Come," admonished
Ghek, and took her by the arm, and Tara of Helium came. She was naught
but a prisoner. Her rank and titles meant nothing to these inhuman
monsters. They led her through a short, S-shaped passageway into a
chamber entirely lined with the white, tile-like material with which
the interior of the light wall was faced. Close to the base of the
walls were numerous smaller apertures, circular in shape, but larger
than those of similar aspect that she had noted elsewhere. The majority
of these apertures were sealed. Directly opposite the entrance was one
framed in gold, and above it a peculiar device was inlaid in the same
precious metal.
Sept and Ghek halted just within the room, the girl between them, and
all three stood silently facing the opening in the opposite wall. On
the floor beside the aperture lay a headless male body of almost heroic
proportions, and on either side of this stood a heavily armed warrior,
with drawn sword. For perhaps five minutes the three waited and then
something appeared in the opening. It was a pair of large chelae and
immediately thereafter there crawled forth a hideous kaldane of
enormous proportions. He was half again as large as any that Tara of
Helium had yet seen and his whole aspect infinitely more terrible. The
skin of the others was a bluish gray--this one was of a little bluer
tinge and the eyes were ringed with bands of white and scarlet, as was
its mouth.
From each nostril a band of white and one of scarlet extended outward
horizontally the width of the face.
No one spoke or moved. The creature crawled to the prostrate body and
affixed itself to the neck. Then the two rose as one and approached the
girl. He looked at her and then he spoke to her captor.
"You are the third foreman of the fields of Luud?" he asked.
"Yes, Luud; I am called Ghek."
"Tell me what you know of this," and he nodded toward Tara of Helium.
Ghek did as he was bid and then Luud addressed the girl.
"What were you doing within the borders of Bantoom?" he asked.
"I was blown hither in a great storm that injured my flier and carried
me I knew not where. I came down into the valley at night for food and
drink. The banths came and drove me to the safety of a tree, and then
your people caught me as I was trying to leave the valley. I do not
know why they took me. I was doing no harm. All I ask is that you let
me go my way in peace."
"None who enters Bantoom ever leaves," replied Luud.
"But my people are not at war with yours. I am a princess of Helium; my
great-grandfather is a jeddak; my grandfather a jed; and my father is
Warlord of all Barsoom. You have no right to keep me and I demand that
you liberate me at once."
"None who enters Bantoom ever leaves," repeated the creature without
expression. "I know nothing of the lesser creatures of Barsoom, of whom
you speak. There is but one high race--the race of Bantoomians. All
Nature exists to serve them. You shall do your share, but not yet--you
are too skinny. We shall have to put some fat upon it, Sept. I tire of
rykor. Perhaps this will have a different flavor. The banths are too
rank and it is seldom that any other creature enters the valley. And
you, Ghek; you shall be rewarded. I shall promote you from the fields
to the burrows. Hereafter you shall remain underground as every
Bantoomian longs to. No more shall you be forced to endure the hated
sun, or look upon the hideous sky, or the hateful growing things that
defile the surface. For the present you shall look after this thing
that you have brought me, seeing that it sleeps and eats--and does
nothing else. You understand me, Ghek; nothing else!"
"I understand, Luud," replied the other.
"Take it away!" commanded the creature.
Ghek turned and led Tara of Helium from the apartment. The girl was
horrified by contemplation of the fate that awaited her--a fate from
which it seemed, there was no escape. It was only too evident that
these creatures possessed no gentle or chivalric sentiments to which
she could appeal, and that she might escape from the labyrinthine mazes
of their underground burrows appeared impossible.
Outside the audience chamber Sept overtook them and conversed with Ghek
for a brief period, then her keeper led her through a confusing web of
winding tunnels until they came to a small apartment.
"We are to remain here for a while. It may be that Luud will send for
you again. If he does you will probably not be fattened--he will use
you for another purpose." It was fortunate for the girl's peace of mind
that she did not realize what he meant. "Sing for me," said Ghek,
presently.
Tara of Helium did not feel at all like singing, but she sang,
nevertheless, for there was always the hope that she might escape if
given the opportunity and if she could win the friendship of one of the
creatures, her chances would be increased proportionately. All during
the ordeal, for such it was to the overwrought girl, Ghek stood with
his eyes fixed upon her.
"It is wonderful," he said, when she had finished; "but I did not tell
Luud--you noticed that I did not tell Luud about it. Had he known, he
would have had you sing to him and that would have resulted in your
being kept with him that he might hear you sing whenever he wished; but
now I can have you all the time."
"How do you know he would like my singing?" she asked.
"He would have to," replied Ghek. "If I like a thing he has to like it,
for are we not identical--all of us?"
"The people of my race do not all like the same things," said the girl.
"How strange!" commented Ghek. "All kaldanes like the same things and
dislike the same things. If I discover something new and like it I know
that all kaldanes will like it. That is how I know that Luud would like
your singing. You see we are all exactly alike."
"But you do not look like Luud," said the girl.
"Luud is king. He is larger and more gorgeously marked; but otherwise
he and I are identical, and why not? Did not Luud produce the egg from
which I hatched?"
"What?" queried the girl; "I do not understand you."
"Yes," explained Ghek, "all of us are from Luud's eggs, just as all the
swarm of Moak are from Moak's eggs."
"Oh!" exclaimed Tara of Helium understandingly; "you mean that Luud has
many wives and that you are the offspring of one of them."
"No, not that at all," replied Ghek. "Luud has no wife. He lays the
eggs himself. You do not understand."
Tara of Helium admitted that she did not.
"I will try to explain, then," said Ghek, "if you will promise to sing
to me later."
"I promise," she said.
"We are not like the rykors," he began. "They are creatures of a low
order, like yourself and the banths and such things. We have no
sex--not one of us except our king, who is bi-sexual. He produces many
eggs from which we, the workers and the warriors, are hatched; and one
in every thousand eggs is another king egg, from which a king is
hatched. Did you notice the sealed openings in the room where you saw
Luud? Sealed in each of those is another king. If one of them escaped
he would fall upon Luud and try to kill him and if he succeeded we
should have a new king; but there would be no difference. His name
would be Luud and all would go on as before, for are we not all alike?
Luud has lived a long time and has produced many kings, so he lets only
a few live that there may be a successor to him when he dies. The
others he kills."
"Why does he keep more than one?" queried the girl.
"Sometimes accidents occur," replied Ghek, "and all the kings that a
swarm has saved are killed. When this happens the swarm comes and
obtains another king from a neighboring swarm."
"Are all of you the children of Luud?" she asked.
"All but a few, who are from the eggs of the preceding king, as was
Luud; but Luud has lived a long time and not many of the others are
left."
"You live a long time, or short?" Tara asked.
"A very long time."
"And the rykors, too; they live a long time?"
"No; the rykors live for ten years, perhaps," he said, "if they remain
strong and useful. When they can no longer be of service to us, either
through age or sickness, we leave them in the fields and the banths
come at night and get them."
"How horrible!" she exclaimed.
"Horrible?" he repeated. "I see nothing horrible about that. The rykors
are but brainless flesh. They neither see, nor feel, nor hear. They can
scarce move but for us. If we did not bring them food they would starve
to death. They are less deserving of thought than our leather. All that
they can do for themselves is to take food from a trough and put it in
their mouths, but with us--look at them!" and he proudly exhibited the
noble figure that he surmounted, palpitant with life and energy and
feeling.
"How do you do it?" asked Tara of Helium. "I do not understand it at
all."
"I will show you," he said, and lay down upon the floor. Then he
detached himself from the body, which lay as a thing dead. On his
spider legs he walked toward the girl. "Now look," he admonished her.
"Do you see this thing?" and he extended what appeared to be a bundle
of tentacles from the posterior part of his head. "There is an aperture
just back of the rykor's mouth and directly over the upper end of his
spinal column. Into this aperture I insert my tentacles and seize the
spinal cord. Immediately I control every muscle of the rykor's body--it
becomes my own, just as you direct the movement of the muscles of your
body. I feel what the rykor would feel if he had a head and brain. If
he is hurt, I would suffer if I remained connected with him; but the
instant one of them is injured or becomes sick we desert it for
another. As we would suffer the pains of their physical injuries,
similarly do we enjoy the physical pleasures of the rykors. When your
body becomes fatigued you are comparatively useless; it is sick, you
are sick; if it is killed, you die. You are the slave of a mass of
stupid flesh and bone and blood. There is nothing more wonderful about
your carcass than there is about the carcass of a banth. It is only
your brain that makes you superior to the banth, but your brain is
bound by the limitations of your body. Not so, ours. With us brain is
everything. Ninety per centum of our volume is brain. We have only the
simplest of vital organs and they are very small for they do not have
to assist in the support of a complicated system of nerves, muscles,
flesh and bone. We have no lungs, for we do not require air. Far below
the levels to which we can take the rykors is a vast network of burrows
where the real life of the kaldane is lived. There the air-breathing
rykor would perish as you would perish. There we have stored vast
quantities of food in hermetically sealed chambers. It will last
forever. Far beneath the surface is water that will flow for countless
ages after the surface water is exhausted. We are preparing for the
time we know must come--the time when the last vestige of the
Barsoomian atmosphere is spent--when the waters and the food are gone.
For this purpose were we created, that there might not perish from the
planet Nature's divinest creation--the perfect brain."
"But what purpose can you serve when that time comes?" asked the girl.
"You do not understand," he said. "It is too big for you to grasp, but
I will try to explain it. Barsoom, the moons, the sun, the stars, were
created for a single purpose. From the beginning of time Nature has
labored arduously toward the consummation of this purpose. At the very
beginning things existed with life, but with no brain. Gradually
rudimentary nervous systems and minute brains evolved. Evolution
proceeded. The brains became larger and more powerful. In us you see
the highest development; but there are those of us who believe that
there is yet another step--that some time in the far future our race
shall develop into the super-thing--just brain. The incubus of legs and
chelae and vital organs will be removed. The future kaldane will be
nothing but a great brain. Deaf, dumb, and blind it will lie sealed in
its buried vault far beneath the surface of Barsoom--just a great,
wonderful, beautiful brain with nothing to distract it from eternal
thought."
"You mean it will just lie there and think?" cried Tara of Helium.
"Just that!" he exclaimed. "Could aught be more wonderful?"
"Yes," replied the girl, "I can think of a number of things that would
be infinitely more wonderful."