long time sinceyou first touched here; your people, that is. I know that you drove theZervs from this city and took it for your own. But that is all."
"It is too much. You cannot leave here." Her voice was sharp, and I wassurprised to learn that she had even considered letting me go free. Itwas encouraging, after the dire pictures the Zervs and Nokomee had drawnfor me of these Schrees.
I looked curiously at them, the Zervs had called them "not human." They_were_ different, as a negro is different from a white, or an Orientalfrom a Finn. Their eyes were wide-set and a little prominent, their earsthinner and smaller, their necks very long and supple--different stillfrom the Zervs. Yet they were a human race. I had misunderstood--or Ihad not yet met those whom the Zervs called Schree.
Carna had knelt beside me, and I murmured to her:
"Are these the Schrees, or something else?"
"These are the high-class Schrees, they are very like the Zervs inappearance. The other classes of the Schrees at sometime in the pastwere changed by medical treatments into a different appearance. It was away of fixing the caste system permanently--understand?" She answered meswiftly, in a whisper, and the woman on the throne frowned as shenoticed our conversation.
Her eyes fixed ours as she said, with a curiously excited inflection, nolonger bored with us: "Take these two to the place of questioning. Iwill supervise the proceeding. I must know what these two intended here,whether others of this man's people understand us."
"We're in for it!" said Carna, and I knew what she meant. Jerked to ourfeet, we were hurried from the big throne room, down a corridor, througha great open door which closed behind us.
That place! It was a laboratory out of Mr. Hyde's nightmares.
Up until now I had accepted the many divergencies and peculiarities ofthe Zervs, the priestly insect-men, the monstrous workers--all thevariance of this colony from space--as only to be expected of anotherplanet's races. I had consciously tried to resist the impact of horroron my mind, had tried to put it aside as a natural reaction and onewhich did not necessarily mean that this expedition from space was ahorrible threat to men. I had tried to accept their ways as notnecessarily monstrous, but as a different way of life that _could_ be asgood a way as our own if I once understood it. There were attractivepoints about the Zervs and even about these Schrees' rulers which boreout this impulse toward tolerance in me.
But in this laboratory--or _abattoir_--some nameless, ominous aura orsmell or electric force--what it was I know not--struck at my alreadystaggering understanding with a final blow.
Now at last I met the real Schrees! I knew without asking. They seemedto me to be an attempt by the peculiar insect-like "priests" to makefrom normal men a creature more like themselves in appearance. Perhapsit had been done from the natural urge to have about them beings morelike themselves than men ... and it was plain that the race of theinsect-like creatures and of men had become inextricably linked--becomea social unity in the past. It was also increasingly plain that thefour-limbed insect creatures had in the beginning been the culturedrace, been the fathers of the science and culture of this race, hadthrough the centuries lost their dominance to the Zervs and the Schree'supper classes--had retained the "priest" role as their own place insociety. It was perhaps at that time that their science had brought theSchree type into existence. There were perhaps a hundred of them at workin the big chamber--a chamber bewilderingly filled with hanging surgicalnon-glare lights, filling the place with a shadowless illumination,revealing great, gurgling bottles of fluid with tubes and gleaming metalrods; pulsing elastic bulbs; throbbing little pumps, with row on row ofgauges and dials and little levers along the walls.
There were a score of ominous-looking operating tables, some occupied,some empty, about them gathered group after group of white-maskedSchrees. These were taller than men, near seven feet, with very bonyarms and legs, a skeletal structure altered into attenuation, withhigh, narrow skulls, great liquid eyes, no brows, hairless skullsshowing bare and pointed above the white surgical masks.
Very like the Jivro caste, yes, but different as men are different frominsect. They walked with a long graceful stride, not hopping as thepriests' class. Their eyes were mournful and liquid with a dog-likesoftness, their hands were snake-quick and long, they looked likesad-faced ghouls busy about the dismemberment of a corpse--a corpse ofsomeone they had loved, and they appearing very sad about the necessity.Such was their appearance; mournful, ghoulish, yet human and warm in arepressed, frustrated way.
The tall, sad-eyed Schrees turned from the preparation of two rigs likedental chairs, except that they were not that at all, but only similarlysurrounded with gadgetry incomprehensible to me. We had stood isolated,waiting, with four guards between us and the door.
As we were each placed in one of these chairs, our wrists and anklesfastened with straps of metal, I expected almost any horrible torture tobe inflicted upon us.
They shot a beam of energy through my head and I heard words, sentences,a rapid expounding of alien grammar and pronunciation which sank deepinto my brain. My memory was being ineradicably written upon with allthe power needed to make of me whatever they wanted. But apparentlytheir only purpose now was to give me a complete understanding of theirlanguage. An hour, two, swept by, and now the heretofore almostunintelligible gibberish about me became to my ears distinct andunderstandable words. I was now acquainted with the tongue of theSchrees, far better than little Nokomee had taught me the somewhatdifferent tongue of the Zervs.
Then they wrapped about my waist and chest a strong net of metal mesh,and I knew that now something strenuous was going to occur, for I couldnot move a muscle because of the complete wrapping of metal mesh.
Now a metal disk was set to swinging in front of my nose so that I couldnot see what they were doing to my companion. I watched the metal disk,and saw behind it the tall swaying figure of the Queen enter andapproach. She stopped a few feet from my chair, and her eyes were intentupon me. Then a light flashed blindingly in the reflecting disk, it wentback and forth faster and faster, and I felt a strong vibration ofenergy pass in a beam through my head, throbbing, throbbing ... darknessengulfed me. It was a darkness that was a black whirlwind of emotion.The sense of the desertion by humankind, by God and mercy andrationality swept through me and overwhelmed my inner self. I will neverforget the utter agony of shrieking pain and loss that formed a whirlingocean of darkness into which I dived....
In this maelstrom of seeming destruction I lost all grip, had no will,was at sea mentally. Into this shrieking hurricane of madness a calmvoice intruded. I recognized a familiar note--it was the ruler herself,her voice no longer bored, but with a cruel curiosity that I knew meantto be satisfied if it killed me.
"Tell me what your people intend to do about the flying saucers theyspeak of in their newspapers?"
"They do not believe they exist; they are told they are delusions," Iheard myself answering. I was surprised to hear my voice, for it camewith no conscious volition on my part.
"That is for the public; that is a lie. But what do the powers behindthe scenes intend to do about them?"
"They are searching for them, to learn all they can about them. They donot understand where they come from, but they have some information.They suspect they are from space, and are afraid of them."
"And they sent you here to learn what you could. They brought you thegolden statuette to help you gain an entry, did they not?"
I tried to resist the impulse to tell the truth, for I could realizethat if she thought I had the power of my government behind me, my fatemight be different than if I did not. I tried to say "yes, they sentme," but I could not! I answered like an automaton:
"No, my government has no knowledge of my expedition. I came purely toget gold and for no other reason. Mining is my business."
She gave a little exclamation of frustration. Then after a pause sheasked:
"Do you think our way of life and your own could live together in peace,could grow to be one?"
Again I made futile efforts to hide my revulsion and fear of them all.It was no use. The flood of force pouring through my head was moreeffective than any truth serum.
"No, to me you are horrors, and my people would never consent to live atpeace with you. You could never conquer us. Until the last of ourcultured members were dead they would resist the horrible practices ofyour culture."
"That is as I surmised," she mused. "But I would have you tell me whythis is so. What is it you find so revolting about us."
"What have you done to my companions? Do you think men want that tohappen to them?"
"That was a punishment for entering here without permission. That wouldnot happen to any but enemies."
"Men could never accept the altering of the shapes of workers, thetinkering with the hereditary form of their children, the artificialgrafting