The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs Page B

our ancestors from time to time. They saw the beauties and the
advantages of the form that nature had given the red race over
that which the rykor was developing into. By intelligent crossing
the present rykor was achieved. He is really solely the product
of the super-intelligence of the kaldane—he is our body, to do
with as we see fit, just as you do what you see fit with your
body, only we have the advantage of possessing an unlimited
supply of bodies. Do you not wish that you were a kaldane?"
    For how long they kept her in the subterranean chamber Tara of
Helium did not know. It seemed a very long time. She ate and
slept and watched the interminable lines of creatures that passed
the entrance to her prison. There was a laden line passing from
above carrying food, food, food. In the other line they returned
empty handed. When she saw them she knew that it was daylight
above. When they did not pass she knew it was night, and that the
banths were about devouring the rykors that had been abandoned in
the fields the previous day. She commenced to grow pale and thin.
She did not like the food they gave her—it was not suited to her
kind—nor would she have eaten overmuch palatable food, for the
fear of becoming fat. The idea of plumpness had a new
significance here—a horrible significance.
    Ghek noted that she was growing thin and white. He spoke to her
about it and she told him that she could not thrive thus beneath
the ground—that she must have fresh air and sunshine, or she
would wither and die. Evidently he carried her words to Luud,
since it was not long after that he told her that the king had
ordered that she be confined in the tower and to the tower she
was taken. She had hoped against hope that this very thing might
result from her conversation with Ghek. Even to see the sun again
was something, but now there sprang to her breast a hope that she
had not dared to nurse before, while she lay in the terrible
labyrinth from which she knew she could never have found her way
to the outer world; but now there was some slight reason to hope.
At least she could see the hills and if she could see them might
there not come also the opportunity to reach them? If she could
have but ten minutes—just ten little minutes! The flier was
still there—she knew that it must be. Just ten minutes and she
would be free—free forever from this frightful place; but the
days wore on and she was never alone, not even for half of ten
minutes. Many times she planned her escape. Had it not been for
the banths it had been easy of accomplishment by night. Ghek
always detached his body then and sank into what seemed a
semi-comatose condition. It could not be said that he slept, or
at least it did not appear like sleep, since his lidless eyes
were unchanged; but he lay quietly in a corner. Tara of Helium
enacted a thousand times in her mind the scene of her escape. She
would rush to the side of the rykor and seize the sword that hung
in its harness. Before Ghek knew what she purposed, she would
have this and then before he could give an alarm she would drive
the blade through his hideous head. It would take but a moment to
reach the enclosure. The rykors could not stop her, for they had
no brains to tell them that she was escaping. She had watched
from her window the opening and closing of the gate that led from
the enclosure out into the fields and she knew how the great
latch operated. She would pass through and make a quick dash for
the hill. It was so near that they could not overtake her. It was
so easy! Or it would have been but for the banths! The banths at
night and the workers in the fields by day.
    Confined to the tower and without proper exercise or food, the
girl failed to show the improvement that her captors desired.
Ghek questioned her in an effort to learn why it was that she did
not grow round and plump; that she did not even look as well as
when they had captured her. His concern was prompted by repeated
inquiries on the part