Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
Category: Science
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“Merely a subject! Merely a subject!” he replied with a wave of his hand.
“What will become of her?” I insisted.
“What difference does it make?” he demanded. “I bought her with a batch of prisoners of war. I do not even recall from what country my agent obtained them, or from whence they originated. Such matters are of no import.”
“She was alive when you bought her?” I demanded.
“Yes. Why?”
“You—er—ah—killed her, then?”
“Killed her! No; I preserved her. That was some ten years ago. Why should I permit her to grow old and wrinkled? She would no longer have the same value then, would she? No, I preserved her. When Xaxa bought her she was just as fresh and young as the day she arrived. I kept her a long time. Many women looked at her and wanted her face and figure, but it took a Jeddara to afford her. She brought the highest price that I have ever been paid.
“Yes, I kept her a long time, but I knew that some day she would bring my price. She was indeed beautiful and so sentiment has its uses—were it not for sentiment there would be no fools to support this work that I am doing, thus permitting me to carry on investigations of far greater merit. You would be surprised, I know, were I to tell you that I feel that I am almost upon the point of being able to produce rational human beings through the action upon certain chemical combinations of a group of rays probably entirely undiscovered by your scientists, if I am to judge by the paucity of your knowledge concerning such things.”
“I would not be surprised,” I assured him. “I would not be surprised by anything that you might accomplish.”
chapter III
VALLA DIA
I LAY AWAKE a long time that night thinking of 4296-E-2631-H, the beautiful girl whose perfect body had been stolen to furnish a gorgeous setting for the cruel brain of a tyrant. It seemed such a horrid crime that I could not rid my mind of it and I think that contemplation of it sowed the first seed of my hatred and loathing for Ras Thavas. I could not conjure a creature so utterly devoid of bowels of compassion as to even consider for a moment the frightful ravishing of that sweet and lovely body for even the holiest of purposes, much less one that could have been induced to do so for filthy pelf.
So much did I think upon the girl that night that her image was the first to impinge upon my returning consciousness at dawn, and after I had eaten, Ras Thavas not having appeared, I went directly to the storage room where the poor thing was. Here she lay, identified only by a small panel, bearing a number: 4296-E-2631-H. The body of an old woman with a disfigured face lay before me in the rigid immobility of death; yet that was not the figure that I saw, but instead, a vision of radiant loveliness whose imprisoned soul lay dormant beneath those greying locks.
The creature here with the face and form of Xaxa was not Xaxa at all, for all that made the other what she was had been transferred to this cold corpse. How frightful would be the awakening, should awakening ever come! I shuddered to think of the horror that must overwhelm the girl when first she realized the horrid crime that had been perpetrated upon her. Who was she? What story lay locked in that dead and silent brain? What loves must have been hers whose beauty was so great and upon whose fair face had lain the indelible imprint of graciousness! Would Ras Thavas ever arouse her from this happy semblance of death?—far happier than any quickening ever could be for her. I shrank from the thought of her awakening and yet I longed to hear her speak, to know that that brain lived again, to learn her name, to listen to the story of this gentle life that had been so rudely snatched from its proper environment and so cruelly handled by the hand of Fate. And suppose she were awakened! Suppose she were awakened and that I——A hand was laid upon my shoulder and I turned to look into the face of Ras Thavas.
“You seem interested in this subject,” he said.
“I was wondering,” I replied, “what the reaction this girl’s brain would be were she to awaken to the discovery that she had become an old, disfigured woman.”
He stroked his chin and eyed me narrowly. “An interesting experiment,” he mused. “I am gratified to discover that you are taking a scientific interest in the labours that I am carrying on. The psychological phases of my work I have, I must confess, rather neglected during the past hundred years or so, though I formerly gave them a great deal of attention. It would be interesting to observe and study several of these cases. This one, especially, might prove of value to you as an initial study, it being simple and regular. Later we will let you examine into a case where a man’s brain has been transferred to a woman’s skull, and a woman’s brain to a man’s. There are also the interesting cases where a portion of diseased or injured brain has been replaced by a portion of the brain from another subject; and, for experimental purposes alone, those human brains that have been transplanted to the craniums of beasts, and vice versa, offer tremendous opportunities for observation. I have in mind one case in which I transferred half the brain of an ape to the skull of a man, after having removed half of his brain, which I grafted upon the remaining part of the brain in the ape’s skull. That was a matter of several years ago and I have often thought that I should like to recall these two subjects and note the results. I shall have to have a look at them—as I recall it they are in vault L-42-X, beneath building 4-J-21. We shall have to have a look at them some day soon—it has been years since I have been below. There must be some very interesting specimens there that have escaped my mind. But come! let us recall 4296-E-2631-H.”
“No!” I exclaimed, laying a hand upon his arm. “It would be horrible.”
He turned a surprised look upon me and then a nasty, sneering smile curled his lips. “Maudlin, sentimental fool!” he cried. “Who dare say no to me?”
I laid a hand upon the hilt of my long-sword and looked him steadily in the eye. “Ras Thavas,” I said, “you are master in your own house; but while I am your guest treat me with courtesy.”
He returned my look for a moment but his eyes wavered. “I was hasty,” he said. “Let it pass.” That, I let answer for an apology—really it was more than I had expected—but the event was not unfortunate. I think he treated me with far greater respect thereafter; but now he turned immediately to the slab bearing the mortal remains of 4296-E-2631-H.
“Prepare the subject for revivification,” he said, “and make what study you can of all its reactions.” With that he left the room.
I was now fairly adept at this work which I set about with some misgivings but with the assurance that I was doing right in obeying Ras Thavas while I remained a member of his entourage. The blood that had once flowed through the veins of the beautiful body that Ras Thavas had sold to Xaxa reposed in an hermetically sealed vessel upon the shelf above the corpse. As I had before done in other cases beneath the watchful eyes of the old surgeon I now did for the first time alone. The blood heated, the incisions made, the tubes attached and the few drops of life-giving solution added to the blood, I was now ready to restore life to that delicate brain that had lain dead for ten years. As my finger rested upon the little button that actuated the motor that was to send the revivifying liquid into those dormant veins, I experienced such a sensation as I imagined no mortal man has ever felt.
I had become master of life and death, and yet at this moment that I stood there upon the point of resurrecting the dead I felt more like a murderer than a saviour. I tried to view the procedure dispassionately through the cold eye of science, but I failed miserably. I could only see a stricken girl grieving for her lost beauties. With a muffled oath I turned away. I could not do it! And then, as though an outside force had seized upon me, my finger moved unerringly to the button and pressed it. I cannot explain it, unless upon the theory of dual mentality, which may explain many things. Perhaps my subjective mind directed the act. I do not know. Only I know that I did it, the motor started, the level of the blood in the container commenced gradually to lower.
Spell-bound, I stood watching. Presently the vessel was empty
. I shut off the motor, removed the tubes, sealed the openings with tape. The red glow of life tinged the body, replacing the sallow, purplish hue of death. The breasts rose and fell regularly, the head turned slightly and the eyelids moved. A faint sigh issued from between the parting lips. For a long time there was no other sign of life, then, suddenly, the eyes opened. They were dull at first, but presently they commenced to fill with questioning wonderment. They rested on me and then passed on about that portion of the room that was visible from the position of the body. Then they came back to me and remained steadily fixed upon my countenance after having once surveyed me up and down. There was still the questioning in them, but there was no fear.
“Where am I?” she asked. The voice was that of an old woman—high and harsh. A startled expression filled her eyes. “What is the matter with me? What is wrong with my voice? What has happened?”
I laid a hand upon her forehead. “Don’t bother about it now,” I said, soothingly. “Wait until some time when you are stronger. Then I will tell you.”
She sat up. “I am strong,” she said, and then her eyes swept her lower body and limbs and a look of utter horror crossed her face. “What has happened to me? In the name of my first ancestor, what has happened to me?”
The shrill, harsh voice grated upon me. It was the voice of Xaxa and Xaxa now must possess the sweet musical tones that alone would have harmonized with the beautiful face she had stolen. I tried to forget those strident notes and think only of the pulchritude of the envelope that had once graced the soul within this old and withered carcass.
She extended a hand and laid it gently upon mine. The act was beautiful, the movements graceful. The brain of the girl directed the muscles, but the old, rough vocal cords of Xaxa could give forth no sweeter notes. “Tell me, please!” she begged. There were tears in the old eyes, I’ll venture for the first time in many years. “Tell me! You do not seem unkind.”
And so I told her. She listened intently and when I was through she sighed. “After all,” she said, “it is not so dreadful, now that I really know. It is better than being dead.” That made me glad that I had pressed the button. She was glad to be alive, even draped in the hideous carcass of Xaxa. I told her as much.
“You were so beautiful,” I told her.
“And now I am so ugly?” I made no answer.
“After all, what difference does it make?” she inquired presently. “This old body cannot change me, or make me different from what I have always been. The good in me remains and whatever of sweetness and kindness, and I can be happy to be alive and perhaps to do some good. I was terrified at first, because I did not know what had happened to me. I thought that maybe I had contracted some terrible disease that had so altered me—that horrified me; but now that I know—pouf! what of it?”
“You are wonderful,” I said. “Most women would have gone mad with the horror and grief of it—to lose such wondrous beauty as was yours—and you do not care.”
“Oh, yes, I care, my friend,” she corrected me, “but I do not care enough to ruin my life in all other respects because of it, or to cast a shadow upon the lives of those around me. I have had my beauty and enjoyed it. It is not an unalloyed happiness I can assure you. Men killed one another because of it; two great nations went to war because of it; and perhaps my father lost his throne or his life—I do not know, for I was captured by the enemy while the war still raged. It may be raging yet and men dying because I was too beautiful. No one will fight for me now, though,” she added, with a rueful smile.
“Do you know how long you have been here?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “It was the day before yesterday that they brought me hither.”
“It was ten years ago,” I told her.
“Ten years! Impossible.”
I pointed to the corpses around us. “You have lain like this for ten years,” I explained. “There are subjects here who have lain thus for fifty, Ras Thavas tells me.”
“Ten years! Ten years! What may not have happened in ten years! It is better thus. I should fear to go back now. I should not want to know that my father, my mother too, perhaps, were gone. It is better thus. Perhaps you will let me sleep again? May I not?”
“That remains with Ras Thavas,” I replied; “but for a while I am to observe you.”
“Observe me?”
“Study you—your reactions.”
“Ah! and what good will that do?”
“It may do some good in the world.”
“It may give this horrid Ras Thavas some new ideas for his torture chamber—some new scheme for coining money from the suffering of his victims,” she said, her harsh voice saddened.
“Some of his works are good,” I told her. “The money he makes permits him to maintain this wonderful establishment where he constantly carries on countless experiments. Many of his operations are beneficent. Yesterday a warrior was brought in whose arm was crushed beyond repair. Ras Thavas gave him a new arm. A demented child was brought. Ras Thavas gave her a new brain. The arm and the brain were taken from two who had met violent deaths. Through Ras Thavas they were permitted, after death, to give life and happiness to others.”
She thought for a moment. “I am content,” she said. “I only hope that you will always be the observer.”
Presently Ras Thavas came and examined her. “A good subject,” he said. He looked at the chart where I had made a very brief record following the other entries relative to the history of Case No. 4296-E-2631-H. Of course this is, naturally, a rather free translation of this particular identification number. The Barsoomians have no alphabet such as ours and their numbering system is quite different.
The thirteen characters above were represented by four Toonolian characters, yet the meaning was quite the same—they represented, in contracted form, the case number, the room, the table and the building.
“The subject will be quartered near you where you may regularly observe it,” continued Ras Thavas. “There is a chamber adjoining yours. I will see that it is unlocked. Take the subject there. When not under your observation, lock it in.” It was only another case to him.
I took the girl, if I may so call her, to her quarters. On the way I asked her her name, for it seemed to me an unnecessary discourtesy always to address her and refer to her as 4296-E-2631-H, and this I explained to her.
“It is considerate of you to think of that,” she said, “but really that is all that I am here—just another subject for vivisection.”
“You are more than that to me,” I told her. “You are friendless and helpless. I want to be of service to you—to make your lot easier if I can.”
“Thank you again,” she said. “My name is Valla Dia, and yours?”
“Ras Thavas calls me Vad Varo,” I told her.
“But that is not your name?”
“My name is Ulysses Paxton.”
“It is a strange name, unlike any that I have ever heard, but you are unlike any man I have ever seen—you do not seem Barsoomian. Your colour is unlike that of any race.”
“I am not of Barsoom, but from Earth, the planet you sometimes call Jasoom. That is why I differ in appearance from any you have known before.”
“Jasoom! There is another Jasoomian here whose fame has reached to the remotest corners of Barsoom, but I never have seen him.”
“John Carter?” I asked.
“Yes, the Warlord. He was of Helium and my people were not friendly with those of Helium. I never could understand how he came here. And now there is another from Jasoom—how can it be? How did you cross the great void?”
I shook my head. “I cannot even guess,” I told her.
“Jasoom must be peopled with wonderful men,” she said. It was a pretty compliment.
“As Barsoom is with beautiful women,” I replied.
She glanced down ruefully at her old and wrinkled body.
“I have seen the real you,” I said gently.
“I hate to think of my face,�
� she said. “I know it is a frightful thing.”
“It is not you, remember that when you see it and do not feel too badly.”
“Is it as bad as that?” she asked.
I did not reply. “Never mind,” she said presently. “If I had not beauty of the soul, I was not beautiful, no matter how perfect my features may have been; but if I possessed beauty of soul then I have it now. So I can think beautiful thoughts and perform beautiful deeds and that, I think, is the real test of beauty, after all.”
“And there is hope,” I added, almost in a whisper.
“Hope? No, there is no hope, if what you mean to suggest is that I may some time regain my lost self. You have told me enough to convince me that that can never be.”
“We will not speak of it,” I said, “but we may think of it and sometimes thinking a great deal of a thing helps us to find a way to get it, if we want it badly enough.”
“I do not want to hope,” she said, “for it will but mean disappointment for me. I shall be happy as I am. Hoping, I should always be unhappy.”
I had ordered food for her and after it was brought Ras Thavas sent for me and I left her, locking the door of her chamber as the old surgeon had instructed. I found Ras Thavas in his office, a small room which adjoined a very large one in which were a score of clerks arranging and classifying reports from various departments of the great laboratory. He arose as I entered.
“Come with me, Vad Varo,” he directed. “We will have a look at the two cases in L-42-X, the two of which I spoke.”
“The man with half a simian brain and the ape with a half human brain?” I asked.
He nodded and preceded me towards the runway that led to the vaults beneath the building. As we descended, the corridors and passageways indicated long disuse. The floors were covered with an impalpable dust, long undisturbed; the tiny radium bulbs that faintly illuminated the sub-barsoomian depths were likewise coated. As we proceeded, we passed many doorways on either side, each marked with its descriptive hieroglyphic. Several of the openings had been tightly sealed with masonry. What gruesome secrets were hid within? At last we came to L-42-X. Here the bodies were arranged on shelves, several rows of which almost completely filled the room from floor to ceiling, except for a rectangular space in the centre of the chamber, which accommodated an ersite topped operating table with its array of surgical instruments, its motor and other laboratory equipment.