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CHAPTER VIII - CLOSE WORK

Ghek, in his happier days third foreman of the fields of Luud, sat nursing his

anger and his humiliation. Recently something had awakened within him the

existence of which he had never before even dreamed. Had the influence of the

strange captive woman aught to do with this unrest and dissatisfaction? He did

not know. He missed the soothing influence of the noise she called singing. Could

it be that there were other things more desirable than cold logic and undefiled

brain power? Was well balanced imperfection more to be sought after then, than

the high development of a single characteristic? He thought of the great, ultimate

brain toward which all kaldanes were striving. It would be deaf, and dumb, and

blind. A thousand beautiful strangers might sing and dance about it, but it could

derive no pleasure from the singing or the dancing since it would possess no

perceptive faculties. Already had the kaldanes shut themselves off from most of

the gratifications of the senses. Ghek wondered if much was to be gained by

denying themselves still further, and with the thought came a question as to the

whole fabric of their theory. After all perhaps the girl was right; what purpose

could a great brain serve sealed in the bowels of the earth?

And he, Ghek, was to die for this theory. Luud had decreed it. The injustice of it

overwhelmed him with rage. But he was helpless. There was no escape. Beyond

the enclosure the banths awaited him; within, his own kind, equally as merciless

and ferocious. Among them there was no such thing as love, or loyalty, or

friendship--they were just brains. He might kill Luud; but what would that profit

him? Another king would be loosed from his sealed chamber and Ghek would be

killed. He did not know it but he would not even have the poor satisfaction of

satisfied revenge, since he was not capable of feeling so abstruse a sentiment.

Ghek, mounted upon his rykor, paced the floor of the tower chamber in which he

had been ordered to remain. Ordinarily he would have accepted the sentence of

Luud with perfect equanimity, since it was but the logical result of reason; but

now it seemed different. The stranger woman had bewitched him. Life appeared a

pleasant thing--there were great possibilities in it. The dream of the ultimate

brain had receded into a tenuous haze far in the background of his thoughts.

At that moment there appeared in the doorway of the chamber a red warrior with

naked sword. He was a male counterpart of the prisoner whose sweet voice had

undermined the cold, calculating reason of the kaldane.

Silence!" admonished the newcomer, his straight brows gathered in an ominous

frown and the point of his longsword playing menacingly before the eyes of the

The Chessmen of Mars