Why should I

permit her to grow old and wrinkled? She would no longer have the same value

then, would she? No, I preserved her. When Xaxa bought her she was just as fresh

and young as the day she arrived. I kept her a long time. Many women looked at

her and wanted her face and figure, but it took a Jeddara to afford her. She

brought the highest price that I have ever been paid.

"Yes, I kept her a long time, but I knew that some day she would bring my price.

She was indeed beautiful and so sentiment has its uses – were it not for

sentiment there would be no fools to support this work that I am doing, thus

permitting me to carry on investigations of far greater merit. You would be

surprised, I know, were I to tell you that I feel that I am almost upon the

point of being able to produce rational human beings through the action upon

certain chemical combinations of a group of rays probably entirely undiscovered

by your scientists, if I am to judge by the paucity of your knowledge concerning

such things."

"I would not be surprised," I assured him. "I would not be surprised by anything

that you might accomplish."

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 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 someday 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.