The Chessmen of Mars Read online

  CHAPTER V

  THE PERFECT BRAIN

  The song that had been upon her lips as she entered died there--frozenby the sight of horror that met her eyes. In the center of the chambera headless body lay upon the floor--a body that had been partiallydevoured--while over and upon it crawled a half a dozen heads upontheir short, spider legs, and they tore at the flesh of the woman withtheir chelae and carried the bits to their awful mouths. They wereeating human flesh--eating it raw!

  Tara of Helium gasped in horror and turning away covered her eyes withher palms.

  "Come!" said her captor. "What is the matter?"

  "They are eating the flesh of the woman," she whispered in tones ofhorror.

  "Why not?" he inquired. "Did you suppose that we kept the rykor forlabor alone? Ah, no. They are delicious when kept and fattened.Fortunate, too, are those that are bred for food, since they are nevercalled upon to do aught but eat."

  "It is hideous!" she cried.

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, but whether in surprise, inanger, or in pity his expressionless face did not reveal. Then he ledher on across the room past the frightful thing, from which she turnedaway her eyes. Lying about the floor near the walls were half a dozenheadless bodies in harness. These she guessed had been abandonedtemporarily by the feasting heads until they again required theirservices. In the walls of this room there were many of the small, roundopenings she had noticed in various parts of the tunnels, the purposeof 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 wereseveral of the creatures with heads and bodies assembled, while manyheadless bodies lay about near the walls. Here her captor halted andspoke to one of the occupants of the chamber.

  "I seek Luud," he said. "I bring to Luud a creature that I captured inthe fields above."

  The others crowded about to examine Tara of Helium. One of themwhistled, whereupon the girl learned something of the smaller openingsin the walls, for almost immediately there crawled from them, likegiant spiders, a score or more of the hideous heads. Each sought one ofthe recumbent bodies and fastened itself in place. Immediately thebodies reacted to the intelligent direction of the heads. They arose,the hands adjusted the leather collars and put the balance of theharness in order, then the creatures crossed the room to where Tara ofHelium stood. She noted that their leather was more highly ornamentedthan that worn by any of the others she had previously seen, and so sheguessed that these must be higher in authority than the others. Nor wasshe mistaken. The demeanor of her captor indicated it. He addressedthem as one who holds intercourse with superiors.

  Several of those who examined her felt her flesh, pinching it gentlybetween thumb and forefinger, a familiarity that the girl resented. Shestruck down their hands. "Do not touch me!" she cried, imperiously, forwas she not a princess of Helium? The expression on those terriblefaces did not change. She could not tell whether they were angry oramused, whether her action had filled them with respect for her, orcontempt. 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. "Dothese frightful creatures intend to devour me?" she cried.

  "That is for Luud to say," he replied, and then he leaned closer sothat his mouth was near her ear. "That noise you made which you calledsong pleased me," he whispered, "and I will repay you by warning younot to antagonize these kaldanes. They are very powerful. Luud listensto them. Do not call them frightful. They are very handsome. Look attheir 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 hischest.

  "No, not this," he explained, touching his body; "this is a rykor; butthis," and he touched his head, "is a kaldane. It is the brain, theintellect, the power that directs all things. The rykor," he indicatedhis body, "is nothing. It is not so much even as the jewels upon ourharness; no, not so much as the harness itself. It carries us about. Itis true that we would find difficulty getting along without it; but ithas less value than harness or jewels because it is less difficult toreproduce." He turned again to the other kaldanes. "Will you notifyLuud that I am here?" he asked.

  "Sept has already gone to Luud. He will tell him," replied one. "Wheredid you find this rykor with the strange kaldane that cannot detachitself?"

  The girl's captor narrated once more the story of her capture. Hestated facts just as they had occurred, without embellishment, hisvoice as expressionless as his face, and his story was received in thesame manner that it was delivered. The creatures seemed totally lackingin emotion, or, at least, the capacity to express it. It was impossibleto judge what impression the story made upon them, or even if theyheard it. Their protruding eyes simply stared and occasionally themuscles of their mouths opened and closed. Familiarity did not lessenthe horror the girl felt for them. The more she saw of them the morerepulsive they seemed. Often her body was shaken by convulsive shuddersas she looked at the kaldanes, but when her eyes wandered to thebeautiful bodies and she could for a moment expunge the heads from herconsciousness the effect was soothing and refreshing, though when thebodies lay, headless, upon the floor they were quite as shocking as theheads mounted on bodies. But by far the most grewsome and uncanny sightof all was that of the heads crawling about upon their spider legs. Ifone of these should approach and touch her Tara of Helium was positivethat she should scream, while should one attempt to crawl up herperson--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 whichTara of Helium had entered the chamber. "What is your name?" Hisquestion 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 ofBarsoom!

  "Wait!" she cried. "It makes much difference who I am. If you areconducting me into the presence of your jed you may announce ThePrincess Tara of Helium, daughter of John Carter, The Warlord ofBarsoom."

  "Hold your peace!" commanded Sept. "Speak when you are spoken to. Comewith me!"

  The anger of Tara of Helium all but choked her. "Come," admonishedGhek, and took her by the arm, and Tara of Helium came. She was naughtbut a prisoner. Her rank and titles meant nothing to these inhumanmonsters. They led her through a short, S-shaped passageway into achamber entirely lined with the white, tile-like material with whichthe interior of the light wall was faced. Close to the base of thewalls were numerous smaller apertures, circular in shape, but largerthan those of similar aspect that she had noted elsewhere. The majorityof these apertures were sealed. Directly opposite the entrance was oneframed in gold, and above it a peculiar device was inlaid in the sameprecious metal.

  Sept and Ghek halted just within the room, the girl between them, andall three stood silently facing the opening in the opposite wall. Onthe floor beside the aperture lay a headless male body of almost heroicproportions, and on either side of this stood a heavily armed warrior,with drawn sword. For perhaps five minutes the three waited and thensomething appeared in the opening. It was a pair of large chelae andimmediately thereafter there crawled forth a hideous kaldane ofenormous proportions. He was half again as large as any that Tara ofHelium had yet seen and his whole aspect infinitely more terrible. Theskin of the others was a bluish gray--this one was of a little bluertinge and the eyes were ringed with bands of white and scarlet, as wasits mouth.

  From each nostril a band of white and one of scarlet extended outwardhorizontally the width of the f
ace.

  No one spoke or moved. The creature crawled to the prostrate body andaffixed itself to the neck. Then the two rose as one and approached thegirl. 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 carriedme I knew not where. I came down into the valley at night for food anddrink. The banths came and drove me to the safety of a tree, and thenyour people caught me as I was trying to leave the valley. I do notknow why they took me. I was doing no harm. All I ask is that you letme 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; mygreat-grandfather is a jeddak; my grandfather a jed; and my father isWarlord of all Barsoom. You have no right to keep me and I demand thatyou liberate me at once."

  "None who enters Bantoom ever leaves," repeated the creature withoutexpression. "I know nothing of the lesser creatures of Barsoom, of whomyou speak. There is but one high race--the race of Bantoomians. AllNature exists to serve them. You shall do your share, but not yet--youare too skinny. We shall have to put some fat upon it, Sept. I tire ofrykor. Perhaps this will have a different flavor. The banths are toorank and it is seldom that any other creature enters the valley. Andyou, Ghek; you shall be rewarded. I shall promote you from the fieldsto the burrows. Hereafter you shall remain underground as everyBantoomian longs to. No more shall you be forced to endure the hatedsun, or look upon the hideous sky, or the hateful growing things thatdefile the surface. For the present you shall look after this thingthat you have brought me, seeing that it sleeps and eats--and doesnothing 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 washorrified by contemplation of the fate that awaited her--a fate fromwhich it seemed, there was no escape. It was only too evident thatthese creatures possessed no gentle or chivalric sentiments to whichshe could appeal, and that she might escape from the labyrinthine mazesof their underground burrows appeared impossible.

  Outside the audience chamber Sept overtook them and conversed with Ghekfor a brief period, then her keeper led her through a confusing web ofwinding tunnels until they came to a small apartment.

  "We are to remain here for a while. It may be that Luud will send foryou again. If he does you will probably not be fattened--he will useyou for another purpose." It was fortunate for the girl's peace of mindthat 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 ifgiven the opportunity and if she could win the friendship of one of thecreatures, her chances would be increased proportionately. All duringthe ordeal, for such it was to the overwrought girl, Ghek stood withhis eyes fixed upon her.

  "It is wonderful," he said, when she had finished; "but I did not tellLuud--you noticed that I did not tell Luud about it. Had he known, hewould have had you sing to him and that would have resulted in yourbeing kept with him that he might hear you sing whenever he wished; butnow 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 anddislike the same things. If I discover something new and like it I knowthat all kaldanes will like it. That is how I know that Luud would likeyour 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 otherwisehe and I are identical, and why not? Did not Luud produce the egg fromwhich 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 theswarm of Moak are from Moak's eggs."

  "Oh!" exclaimed Tara of Helium understandingly; "you mean that Luud hasmany wives and that you are the offspring of one of them."

  "No, not that at all," replied Ghek. "Luud has no wife. He lays theeggs 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 singto me later."

  "I promise," she said.

  "We are not like the rykors," he began. "They are creatures of a loworder, like yourself and the banths and such things. We have nosex--not one of us except our king, who is bi-sexual. He produces manyeggs from which we, the workers and the warriors, are hatched; and onein every thousand eggs is another king egg, from which a king ishatched. Did you notice the sealed openings in the room where you sawLuud? Sealed in each of those is another king. If one of them escapedhe would fall upon Luud and try to kill him and if he succeeded weshould have a new king; but there would be no difference. His namewould 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 onlya few live that there may be a successor to him when he dies. Theothers he kills."

  "Why does he keep more than one?" queried the girl.

  "Sometimes accidents occur," replied Ghek, "and all the kings that aswarm has saved are killed. When this happens the swarm comes andobtains 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 wasLuud; but Luud has lived a long time and not many of the others areleft."

  "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 remainstrong and useful. When they can no longer be of service to us, eitherthrough age or sickness, we leave them in the fields and the banthscome at night and get them."

  "How horrible!" she exclaimed.

  "Horrible?" he repeated. "I see nothing horrible about that. The rykorsare but brainless flesh. They neither see, nor feel, nor hear. They canscarce move but for us. If we did not bring them food they would starveto death. They are less deserving of thought than our leather. All thatthey can do for themselves is to take food from a trough and put it intheir mouths, but with us--look at them!" and he proudly exhibited thenoble figure that he surmounted, palpitant with life and energy andfeeling.

  "How do you do it?" asked Tara of Helium. "I do not understand it atall."

  "I will show you," he said, and lay down upon the floor. Then hedetached himself from the body, which lay as a thing dead. On hisspider legs he walked toward the girl. "Now look," he admonished her."Do you see this thing?" and he extended what appeared to be a bundleof tentacles from the posterior part of his head. "There is an aperturejust back of the rykor's mouth and directly over the upper end of hisspinal column. Into this aperture I insert my tentacles and seize thespinal cord. Immediately I control every muscle of the rykor's body--itbecomes my own, just as you direct the movement of the muscles of yourbody. I feel what the rykor would feel if he had a head and brain. Ifhe is hurt, I would suffer if I remained connected with him; but theinstant one of them is injured or becomes sick we desert it foranother. As we would suffer the pains of their physical injuries,similarly do we enjoy the physical pleasures of the rykors. When yourbody becomes fatigued you are comparatively useless; it is sick, youare sick;
if it is killed, you die. You are the slave of a mass ofstupid flesh and bone and blood. There is nothing more wonderful aboutyour carcass than there is about the carcass of a banth. It is onlyyour brain that makes you superior to the banth, but your brain isbound by the limitations of your body. Not so, ours. With us brain iseverything. Ninety per centum of our volume is brain. We have only thesimplest of vital organs and they are very small for they do not haveto 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 belowthe levels to which we can take the rykors is a vast network of burrowswhere the real life of the kaldane is lived. There the air-breathingrykor would perish as you would perish. There we have stored vastquantities of food in hermetically sealed chambers. It will lastforever. Far beneath the surface is water that will flow for countlessages after the surface water is exhausted. We are preparing for thetime we know must come--the time when the last vestige of theBarsoomian atmosphere is spent--when the waters and the food are gone.For this purpose were we created, that there might not perish from theplanet 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, butI will try to explain it. Barsoom, the moons, the sun, the stars, werecreated for a single purpose. From the beginning of time Nature haslabored arduously toward the consummation of this purpose. At the verybeginning things existed with life, but with no brain. Graduallyrudimentary nervous systems and minute brains evolved. Evolutionproceeded. The brains became larger and more powerful. In us you seethe highest development; but there are those of us who believe thatthere is yet another step--that some time in the far future our raceshall develop into the super-thing--just brain. The incubus of legs andchelae and vital organs will be removed. The future kaldane will benothing but a great brain. Deaf, dumb, and blind it will lie sealed inits buried vault far beneath the surface of Barsoom--just a great,wonderful, beautiful brain with nothing to distract it from eternalthought."

  "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 wouldbe infinitely more wonderful."