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should have a new king; but there would be no difference. His name would 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 only a few live that there may be a
successor to him when he dies. The others he kills."
"
"
Why does he keep more than one?" queried the girl.
Sometimes accidents occur," replied Ghek, "and all the kings that a swarm has
saved are killed. When this happens the swarm comes and obtains 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 was Luud; but
Luud has lived a long time and not many of the others are left."
"
"
"
"
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 remain strong and
useful. When they can no longer be of service to us, either through age or
sickness, we leave them in the fields and the banths come at night and get them."
"How horrible!" she exclaimed.
"
Horrible?" he repeated. "I see nothing horrible about that. The rykors are but
brainless flesh. They neither see, nor feel, nor hear. They can scarce move but for
us. If we did not bring them food they would starve to death. They are less
deserving of thought than our leather. All that they can do for themselves is to
take food from a trough and put it in their mouths, but with us--look at them!"
and he proudly exhibited the noble figure that he surmounted, palpitant with life
and energy and feeling.
"
"
How do you do it?" asked Tara of Helium. "I do not understand it at all."
I will show you," he said, and lay down upon the floor. Then he detached himself
from the body, which lay as a thing dead. On his spider legs he walked toward
the girl. "Now look," he admonished her. "Do you see this thing?" and he extended
what appeared to be a bundle of tentacles from the posterior part of his head.
"There is an aperture just back of the rykor's mouth and directly over the upper
end of his spinal column. Into this aperture I insert my tentacles and seize the
spinal cord. Immediately I control every muscle of the rykor's body--it becomes
my own, just as you direct the movement of the muscles of your body. I feel what
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