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05 - At The Earth's Core - Edgar Rice Burroughs · Classic Adventure Books Library

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  Chapter five Slaves. As we descended the broad staircase which led to the main
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  avenue of Phutra, I caught my first sight of the dominant race of the
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  inner world. Involuntarily, I shrank back as one of the creatures approached to
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  inspect us. A more hideous thing it would be impossible to imagine. The
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  all powerful Mahars of Pellucidar are great reptiles, some six or eight feet in
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  length, with long, narrow heads and great round eyes. Their beak like
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  mouths are lined with sharp white fangs, and the backs of their huge lizard
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  bodies are serrated into bony ridges from their necks to the end of their long
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  tails. Their feet are equipped with three webbed toes, while from the four
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  feet membranous wings, which are attached to their bodies just in front of the
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  hind legs, protruded at an angle of forty five degrees toward the rear,
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  ending in sharp points several feet above their bodies. I glanced at Perry as
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  the thing passed me to inspect him. The old man was gazing at the
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  hard creatures with wide, astonished eyes. When it passed on. He turned
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  to me a Rampherhnkus of the middle Olitic David, He said, but gad,
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  how enormous. The largest remains we've ever discovered have never indicated a size
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  greater than that attained by an ordinary crow. As we continued on through the
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  main avenue of Phutra, we saw many thousand of the creatures coming and going
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  upon their daily duties. They paid but little attention to us. Phutra is
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  laid out underground with a regularity that indicates remarkable engineering skill. It is hewn
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  from solid limestone strata. The streets are broad and of a uniform height of
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  twenty feet At intervals. Tubes pierced the roof of this underground city, and
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  by means of lenses and reflectors transmit the sunlight softened and diffused to dispel what
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  would otherwise be Simerian darkness. In like manner, air is introduced. Perry
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  and I were taken with Ghak to a large public building, where one of
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  the Sagoths who had formed our guard explained to Maharan official the circumstances surrounding our
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  capture. The method of communication between these two was remarkable in that no spoken
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  words were exchanged. They employed a species of sign language. As I was
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  to learn later, the Mahars have no ears, not any spoken language among
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  themselves. They communicate by means of what Perry says must be a sixth sense,
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  which is cognizant of a fourth dimension. I never did quite grasp him,
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  though he endeavored to explain it to me. Upon numerous occasions. I
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  suggested telepathy, but he said no, that it was not telepathy, since
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  they could only communicate when in each other's presence. Nor could they talk with
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  the Sagoths or the other inhabitants of Pellucidar by the same method they used to
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  converse with one another. What they do, said Perry, is to project
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  their thoughts into the fourth dimension when they become appreciable to the sixth sense of
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  their listener. Do I make myself quite clear, you do not, Perry,
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  I replied. He shook his head in despair and returned to his work.
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  They had set us to carrying a great accumulation of Maharan literature from one
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  apartment to another, and there arranging it upon shelves. I suggested to Perry
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  that we were in the public library of Phutra, but later, as he
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  commenced to discover the key, to their written language. He assured me that
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  we were handling the ancient archives of the race. During this period, my
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  thoughts were continually upon Dian the Beautiful. I was, of course glad that
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  she had escaped the Mahars, and the fate had been suggested by the Sagoth,
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  who had threatened to purchase her. Upon our arrival at Phutra, I
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  often wondered if the little party of fugitives had been overtaken by the guards who
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  had returned to search for them. Sometimes I was not so sure, But
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  I should have been more contented to know that Dian was here in Phutra than
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  to think of her at the mercy of Hooja. The sly one Ghak,
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  Perry and I often talked together of possible escape, But the Sarian was so
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  steeped in his life long belief that no one could escape from the Mahars except
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  by a miracle, that he was not much aid to us. His attitude
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  was of one who waits for the miracle to come to him. At my
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  suggestion, Perry and I fashioned some swords of scraps of iron, which we
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  discovered among some rubbish in the cells where we slept, for we were permitted
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  almost unrestrained freedom of action within the limits of the building to which we had
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  been assigned. So great were the number of slaves who waited upon the inhabitants
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  of Phutra, that none of us was apt to be overburdened with work,
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  nor were our masters unkind to us. We hid our new weapons beneath the
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  skins which formed our beds, and then Perry conceived the idea of making bows
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  and arrows, weapons apparently unknown within Pellucidar. Next came shields, but these
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  I found it easier to steal from the walls of the outer guard room of
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  the building. We had completed these arrangements for our protection after leaving Phutra.
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  When the Sagoths who had been sent to recapture the escaped prisoners, returned with
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  four of them, of whom Hooja was One Diane and two others had eluded
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  them. It so happened that Hooja was confined in the same building with us.
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  He told Ghak that he had not seen Diane or the others after releasing
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  them within the dark grotto. What had become of them. He had not
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  the faintest conception they might be wandering yet lost within the labyrinthine tunnel, if
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  not dead from starvation, I was now still further apprehensive as to the fate
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  of Diane, And at this time, I imagine, came the first realization
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  that my affection for the girl might be prompted by more than friendship. During
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  my waking hours, she was constantly the subject of my thoughts, and when
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  I slept, her dear face haunted my dreams more than ever. I was
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  determined to escape the Mahars Parry, I confided to the old man, if
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  I have to search every inch of this diminutive world, I am going to
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  find Dian, the beautiful and right the wrong that I unintentionally did her.
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  That was the use I made for Perry's benefit. Diminutive world. He scoffed,
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  you don't know what you're talking about, my boy, and then he
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  showed me a map of Pellucidar, which he had recently discovered among the manuscript
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  he was arranging. Look, he cried, pointing to it. This is
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  evidently water in all this land. Do you notice the general configuration of the
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  two areas where the oceans are upon the outer crust is land. Here,
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  these relatively small areas of ocean follow the general lines of the continents of the
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  outer world. We know that the crust of the globe is five hundred miles
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  in thickness, then the inside diameter of Pellucidar must be seven thousand miles,
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  and the superficial area one hundred sixty five million, four hundred and eighty thousand
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  square miles three fourths of this is land. Think of it a land area
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  of one hundred and twenty four million, one hundred and ten thousand square miles.
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  Our own world contains but fifty three million square miles of land, the
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  balance of its surface being covered by water. Just as we often compare nations
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  by their relative land areas, so if we compare these two worlds in the
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  same way, we have the strange anomaly of a larger world within a smaller
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  one. Where with invest Pellucidar, would you search for your Diane without stars
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  or moon or changing sun, How could you find her even though you knew
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  where she might be found? The proposition was a corker. It quite took
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  my breath away, but I found that it left me all the more determined
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  to attempt it. If Ghak will accompany us, we may be able to
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  do it. I suggested Perry, and I sought him out and put the
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  question straight to him. Ghak, I said, we are determined to escape
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  from this bondage. Will you accompany us? They will set the thipdars upon
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  us, he said, and then we shall be killed. But he hesitated.
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  I would take the chance if I thought that I might possibly escape and
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  return to my own people. Could you find your way back to your own
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  land, asked Perry. And could you aid David in his search for Diane?
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  Yes? But how persisted Perry. Could you travel to strange country without
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  heavenly bodies or a compass to guide you? Ghak didn't know what Perry meant
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  by heavenly bodies or a company us, but he assured us that you might
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  blindfold any man of Pellucidar and carry him to the farthest corner of the world.
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  Yet he would be able to come directly to his own home again by
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  the shortest route. He seemed a surprised to think that we found anything wonderful
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  in it. Perry said, it must be some sort of homing instinct,
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  such as is possessed by certain breeds of earthly pigeons. I didn't know,
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  of course, but it gave me an idea. Then Diane could have found
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  her way directly to her own people, I asked, surely, replied Ghak,
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  unless some mighty beast of prey killed her. I was for making the
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  attempted escape at once, but both Perry and Ghak counseled waiting for some propitious
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  accident which would insure us some small degree of success. I didn't see what
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  accident could befall a whole community in a land of perpetual daylight, where the
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  inhabitants had no fixed habits of sleep. Why, I am sure that some
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  of the Mahars never sleep, while others may, at long intervals crawl into
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  the dark recesses beneath their dwellings and curl up in protracted slumber. Perry says
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  that if a Mahar stays awake for three years, he will make up all
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  his lost sleep in a long year's snooze. That may all be true,
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  But I never saw but three of them asleep. It was the sight of
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  these three that gave me a suggestion for our means of escape. I had
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  been searching out far below the levels that we slaves were supposed to frequent,
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  possibly fifty feet beneath the main floor of the building, among a network of
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  corridors and apartments, when I came suddenly upon three mahars curled up upon a
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  bed of skins. At first I thought they were dead, but later their
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  regular breathing convinced me of my error. Like a flash, the thought came
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  to me of the marvelous opportunity these sleeping reptiles offered as a means of eluding
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  the watchfulness of our captors and the Sagoth guards. Hastening back to Perry,
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  where he pored over a musty pile of to me meaningless hieroglyphics, I explained
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  my plan to him. To my surprise, he was horrified. It would
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  be murder. David, he cried, to kill a reptilian monster, I
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  asked, in astonishment. Here they are not monsters, David, he replied,
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  Here they are the dominant race. We are the monsters. The lower
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  orders. In Pellucidar, evolution has progressed along different lines that upon the outer
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  Earth. These terrible convulsions of nature time and time again wiped out the existing
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  species. But for this fact, some monster of the Saurozoic epoch might rule
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  today. Upon our own world. We see here what might well have occurred
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  in our own history, had conditions been what they have been. Here.
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  Life within Pellucidar is far younger than upon the outer crust. Here man has
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  but reached a stage analogous to the stone age of our own world's history.
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  But for countless millions of years these reptiles have been progressing. Possibly it is
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  the sixth sense, which I am sure they possess, that has given an
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  advantage over the other and more frightfully armed of their fellows. But this we
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  may never know. They look upon us as we look upon the beasts of
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  our fields. From their written records that other races of Mahars feed upon men.
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  They keep them in great droves, as we keep cattle. They breed
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  them most carefully, and when they are quite fat, they kill and eat
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  them. I shuddered, What is there horrible about it? David the old
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  man asked, They understand us no better than we understand the lower animals of
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  our own world. Why I have come across here? Varied learned discussions of
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  the questions as to whether gilaks, that is, men have any means of
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  communication. One writer claims that we do not even reason that our every act
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  is mechanical or instinctive. The dominant race of Pellucidar David have not yet learned
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  that men converse among themselves or reason. Because we do not converse as they
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  do. Is beyond them to imagine that we converse at all. It is
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  thus that we reason in relation to the brutes of our own world. They
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  know that the Sagoths have a spoken language, but they cannot comprehend it or
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  how it manifests itself, since they have no auditory apparatus. They believe that
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  the motion of the lips alone convey the meeting. That the Sagoths can communicate
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  with us is incomprehensible to them. Yes, David, he concluded, it
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  would entail murder to carry out your plan very well, then, Perry,
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  I replied, I shall become a murderer. He got me to go over
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  the plan again most carefully, and for some reason which was not the time
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  clear to me, insisted upon a very careful description of the apartments and quarters.
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  I just explored. I wonder, David, he said, at length,
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  as you are determined to carry out your wild scheme, if we could
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  not accomplish something of very real and lasting benefit for the human race of Pellucidar.
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  At the same time, listen, I have learned much of a most
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  surprising nature from these archives of the Mahars, that you may not appreciate my
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  plan. I shall briefly outline the history of the race. Once the males
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  were all powerful, but ages ago, the females, little by little assumed
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  the mastery. For other ages, no noticeable change took place in the race
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  of Mahars. It continued to progress of the intelligent and beneficent rule of the
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  ladies. Science took vast strides. This was especially true of the sciences which
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  we know as biology and eugenics. Finally, a certain female scientist announced the
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  fact that she had discovered a method whereby eggs might be fertilized by chemical means
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  after they were laid. All true reptiles, you know, are hatched from
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  eggs. What happened immediately the necessity for males ceased to exist. The race
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  was no longer dependent upon them. More ages elapsed, until at the present
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  time we find a race consisting exclusively of females. But here is the point.
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  The secret of this chemical formula is kept by a single race of Mahars.
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  It is in the city of Phutra, And unless I am greatly in
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  error, I judge from your description of the vaults through which she passed to
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  day that it lies hidden in the cellar of this building. For two reasons,
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  they hide it away and guard it jealously. First because upon it depends
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  the very life of the race of the Mahars, and second, owing to
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  the fact that, when it was public property, as at first, so
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  many were experimenting with it that the danger of over population became very grave.
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  David, if we can escape and at the same time take with us this
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  great secret, what will we not have accomplished for the human race within Pellucidar.
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  The very thought of it fairly overpowered me. Why we two would be
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  the means of placing the men of the inner world in their rightful place among
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  created things. Only the Sagoths would then stand between them and absolute supremacy.
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  And I was not quite sure, but that the Sagoths owed all their power
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  to the greater intelligence of the Mahars. I could not believe that these gorilla
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  like beasts were the mental superiors of the human race of Pellucidar. Why,
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  Perry, I exclaimed, you and I may reclaim a whole world. Together,
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  we can lead the races of men out of the darkness of ignorance into
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  the light of advancement and civilization. At one step, we may carry them
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  from the age of stuf Own to the twentieth century. It's marvelous, absolutely
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  marvelous, just to think about it, David said the old man. I
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  believe that God sent us here for just that purpose. It shall be my
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  life work to teach them his word, to lead them into the light of
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  His mercy. While we are training their hearts and hands in the ways of
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  culture and civilization. You are right, Perry, I said, And while
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  you are teaching them to pray, I'll be teaching them to fight. And
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  between us we'll make a race of men that will be an honor to us
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  both. Ghak had entered the apartment some time before we concluded our conversation,
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  and now he wanted to know what we were so excited about. Parry thought
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  we had best not tell him too much, and so I only explained that
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  I had a plan for escape. When I had outlined it to him.
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  He seemed about as horror struck as Perry had been, but for a different
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  reason. The Hairy One only considered the horrible fate that would be ours were
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  we discovered. But at last I prevailed upon him to accept my plan as
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  the only feasible one, And when I had assured him that I would take
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  all the responsibility for it were we captured, he accorded a reluctant assent end
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  of Chapter five.