the support of a complicated system of nerves, muscles,
flesh and bone. We have no lungs, for we do not require air. Far below
the levels to which we can take the rykors is a vast network of burrows
where the real life of the kaldane is lived. There the air-breathing
rykor would perish as you would perish. There we have stored vast
quantities of food in hermetically sealed chambers. It will last
forever. Far beneath the surface is water that will flow for countless
ages after the surface water is exhausted. We are preparing for the
time we know must come--the time when the last vestige of the
Barsoomian atmosphere is spent--when the waters and the food are gone.
For this purpose were we created, that there might not perish from the
planet Nature's divinest creation--the perfect brain."

"But what purpose can you serve when that time comes?" asked the girl.

"You do not understand," he said. "It is too big for you to grasp, but
I will try to explain it. Barsoom, the moons, the sun, the stars, were
created for a single purpose. From the beginning of time Nature has
labored arduously toward the consummation of this purpose. At the very
beginning things existed with life, but with no brain. Gradually
rudimentary nervous systems and minute brains evolved. Evolution
proceeded. The brains became larger and more powerful. In us you see
the highest development; but there are those of us who believe that
there is yet another step--that some time in the far future our race
shall develop into the super-thing--just brain. The incubus of legs and
chelae and vital organs will be removed. The future kaldane will be
nothing but a great brain. Deaf, dumb, and blind it will lie sealed in
its buried vault far beneath the surface of Barsoom--just a great,
wonderful, beautiful brain with nothing to distract it from eternal
thought."

"You mean it will just lie there and think?" cried Tara of Helium.

"Just that!" he exclaimed. "Could aught be more wonderful?"

"Yes," replied the girl, "I can think of a number of things that would
be infinitely more wonderful."

CHAPTER VI

IN THE TOILS OF HORROR

What the creature had told her gave Tara of Helium food for thought.
She had been taught that every created thing fulfilled some useful
purpose, and she tried conscientiously to discover just what was the
rightful place of the kaldane in the universal scheme of things. She
knew that it must have its place but what that place was it was