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 of 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 sometime 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 chords 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 War Lord. 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.
Ras Thavas searched out the subjects of his strange experiment and
together we carried the human body to the table. While Ras Thavas
attached the tubes I returned for the vessel of blood which reposed upon
the same shelf with the corpse. The now familiar method of
revivification was soon accomplished and presently we were watching the
return of consciousness to the subject.
The man sat up and looked at us, then he cast a quick glance about the
chamber; there was a savage light in his eyes as they returned to us.
Slowly he backed from the table to the floor, keeping the former between
us.
“We will not harm you,” said Ras Thavas.
The man attempted to reply, but his words were unintelligible gibberish,
then he shook his head and growled. Ras Thavas took a step towards him
and the man dropped to all fours, his knuckles resting on the floor, and
backed away, growling.
“Come!” cried Ras Thavas. “We will not harm you.” Again he attempted to
approach the subject, but the man only backed quickly away, growling
more fiercely; and then suddenly he wheeled and climbed quickly to the
top of the highest shelf, where he squatted upon a corpse and gibbered
at us.
“We shall have to have help,” said Ras Thavas and, going to the doorway,
he blew a signal upon his whistle.
“What are you blowing that for?” demanded the man suddenly. “Who are
you? What am I doing here? What has happened to me?”
“Come down,” said Ras Thavas. “We are friends.”
Slowly the man descended to the floor and came towards us, but he still
moved with his knuckles to the pavement. He looked about at the corpses
and a new light entered his eyes.
“I am hungry!” he cried. “I will eat!” and with that he seized the
nearest corpse and dragged it to the floor.
“Stop! Stop!” cried Ras Thavas, leaping forward. “You will ruin the
subject,” but the man only backed away, dragging the corpse along the
floor after him. It was then that the attendants came and with their
help we subdued and bound the poor creature. Then Ras Thavas had the
attendants bring the body of the ape and he told them to remain, as we
might need them.
The subject was a large specimen of the Barsoomian white ape, one of the
most savage and fearsome denizens of the Red Planet, and because of the
creature’s great strength and ferocity Ras Thavas took the precaution to
see that it was securely bound before resurgence.
It was a colossal creature about ten or fifteen feet tall, standing
erect, and had an intermediary set of arms or legs midway between its
upper and lower limbs. The eyes were close together and non-protruding;
the ears were high set, while its snout and teeth were strikingly like
those of our African gorilla.
With returning consciousness the creature eyed us questioningly. Several
times it seemed to essay to speak, but only inarticulate sounds issued
from its throat. Then it lay still for a period.
Ras Thavas spoke to it. “If you understand my words, nod your head.” The
creature nodded.
“Would you like to be freed of your bonds?” asked the surgeon.
Again the creature nodded an affirmative.
“I fear that you will attempt to injure us, or escape,” said Ras Thavas.
The ape was apparently trying very hard to articulate and at last there
issued from its lips a sound that could not be misunderstood. It was the
single word no.
“You will not harm us or try to escape?” Ras Thavas repeated his
question.
“No,” said the ape, and this time the word was clearly enunciated.
“We shall see,” said Ras Thavas. “But remember that with our weapons we
may dispatch you quickly if you attack us.”
The ape nodded, and then, very laboriously: “I will not harm you.”
At a sign from Ras Thavas the attendants removed the bonds and the
creature sat up. It stretched its limbs and slid easily to the floor,
where it stood erect upon two feet, which was not surprising, since the
white ape goes more often upon two feet than six; a fact of which I was
not cognizant at the time, but which Ras Thavas explained to me later in
commenting upon the fact that the human subject had gone upon all fours,
which, to Ras Thavas, indicated a reversion to type in the fractional
ape-brain transplanted to the human skull.
Ras Thavas examined the subject at considerable length and then resumed
his examination of the human subject which continued to evince more
simian characteristics than human, though it spoke more easily than the
ape, because, undoubtedly, of its more perfect vocal organs. It was only
by exerting the closest attention that the diction of the ape became
understandable at all.
“There is nothing remarkable about these subjects,” said Ras Thavas,
after devoting half a day to them. “They bear out what I had already
determined years ago in the transplanting of entire brains; that the act
of transplanting stimulates growth and activity of brain cells. You will
note that in each subject the transplanted portions of the brains are
more active—they, in a considerable measure, control. That is why we
have the human subject displaying distinctly simian characteristics,
while the ape behaves in a more human manner; though if longer and
closer observation were desirable you would doubtless find that each
reverted at times to his own nature—that is the ape would be more
wholly an ape and the human more manlike—but it is not worth the time,
of which I have already given too much to a rather unprofitable
forenoon. I shall leave you now to restore the subjects to anaesthesia
while I return to the laboratories above. The attendants will remain
here to assist you, if required.”
The ape, who had been an interested listener, now stepped forward. “Oh,
please, I pray you,” it mumbled, “do not again condemn me to these
horrid shelves. I recall the day that I was brought here securely bound,
and though I have no recollection of what has transpired since I can but
guess from the appearance of my own skin and that of these dusty corpses
that I have lain here long. I beg that you will permit me to live and
either restore me to my fellows or allow me to serve in some capacity in
this establishment, of which I saw something between the time of my
capture and the day that I was carried into this laboratory, bound and
helpless, to one of your cold, ersite slabs.”
Ras Thavas made a gesture of impatience. “Nonsense!” he cried. “You are
better off here, where you can be preserved in the interests of
science.”
“Accede to his request,” I begged, “and I will myself take over all
responsibility for him while I profit by the study that he will afford
me.”
“Do as you are directed,” snapped Ras Thavas as he quit the room.
I shrugged my shoulders. “There is nothing for it, then,” I said.
“I might dispatch you all and escape,” mused the ape, aloud, “but you
would have helped me. I could not kill one who would have befriended
me—yet I shrink from the thought of another death. How long have I lain
here?”
I referred to the history of his case that had been brought and
suspended at the head of the table. “Twelve years,” I told him.
“And yet, why not?” he demanded of himself. “This man would slay me—why
should I not slay him first.”
“It would do you no good,” I assured him, “for you could never escape.
Instead you would be really killed, dying a death from which Ras Thavas
would probably think it not worth while ever to recall you, while I, who
might find the opportunity at some later date and who have the
inclination, would be dead at your hands and thus incapable of saving
you.”
I had been speaking in a low voice, close to his ear, that the
attendants might not overhear me. The ape listened intently.
“You will do as you suggest?” he asked.
“At the first opportunity that presents itself,” I assured him.
“Very well,” he said, “I will submit, trusting to you.”
A half hour later both subjects had been returned to their shelves.