He stopped there and fastened his terrible eyes upon her.He did not speak, but his eyes seemed to be boring straight to the center of her brain.She felt an almost irresistible force urging her toward the kaldane.She fought to resist it; she tried to turn away her eyes, but she could not.They were held as in horrid fascination upon the glittering, lidless orbs of the great brain that faced her.Slowly, every step a painful struggle of resistance, she moved toward the horrific monster.She tried to cry aloud in an effort to awaken her numbing faculties, but no sound passed her lips.If those eyes would but turn away, just for an instant, she felt that she might regain the power to control her steps; but the eyes never left hers.They seemed but to burn deeper and deeper, gathering up every vestige of control of her entire nervous system.
As she approached the thing it backed slowly away upon its spider legs.She noticed that its chelae waved slowly to and fro before it as it backed, backed, backed, through the round aperture in the wall.Must she follow it there, too? What new and nameless horror lay concealed in that hidden chamber? No! she would not do it.Yet before she reached the wall she found herself down and crawling upon her hands and knees straight toward the hole from which the two eyes still clung to hers.At the very threshold of the opening she made a last, heroic stand, battling against the force that drew her on; but in the end she succumbed.With a gasp that ended in a sob Tara of Helium passed through the aperture into the chamber beyond.
The opening was but barely large enough to admit her.Upon the opposite side she found herself in a small chamber.Before her squatted Luud.Against the opposite wall lay a large and beautiful male rykor.He was without harness or other trappings.
"You see now," said Luud, "the futility of revolt."The words seemed to release her momentarily from the spell.
Quickly she turned away her eyes.
"Look at me!" commanded Luud.
Tara of Helium kept her eyes averted.She felt a new strength, or at least a diminution of the creature's power over her.Had she stumbled upon the secret of its uncanny domination over her will?
She dared not hope.With eyes averted she turned toward the aperture through which those baleful eyes had drawn her.Again Luud commanded her to stop, but the voice alone lacked all authority to influence her.It was not like the eyes.She heard the creature whistle and knew that it was summoning assistance, but because she did not dare look toward it she did not see it turn and concentrate its gaze upon the great, headless body lying by the further wall.
The girl was still slightly under the spell of the creature's influence--she had not regained full and independent domination of her powers.She moved as one in the throes of some hideous nightmare--slowly, painfully, as though each limb was hampered by a great weight, or as she were dragging her body through a viscous fluid.The aperture was close, ah, so close, yet, struggle as she would, she seemed to be making no appreciable progress toward it.
Behind her, urged on by the malevolent power of the great brain, the headless body crawled upon all-fours toward her.At last she had reached the aperture.Something seemed to tell her that once beyond it the domination of the kaldane would be broken.She was almost through into the adjoining chamber when she felt a heavy hand close upon her ankle.The rykor had reached forth and seized her, and though she struggled the thing dragged her back into the room with Luud.It held her tight and drew her close, and then, to her horror, it commenced to caress her.
"You see now," she heard Luud's dull voice, "the futility of revolt--and its punishment."Tara of Helium fought to defend herself, but pitifully weak were her muscles against this brainless incarnation of brute power.
Yet she fought, fought on in the face of hopeless odds for the honor of the proud name she bore--fought alone, she whom the fighting men of a mighty empire, the flower of Martian chivalry, would gladly have lain down their lives to save.
