"Yes," he said, "I will talk to you for a while; give you broad outline of my purpose. And when I have finished you will know why I have wanted you here so badly, Master Leithgow."

He began, and, as never before, he hid nothing of his monstrous ambition, his extraordinary preparations. With mounting fear his captives listened to his well-modulated voice as it proceeded logically from point to point. He had fine feeling for the dramatic, knew well the value of climax and pause; but his use of them was here unconscious, for he spoke straight from his dark and feline heart.

For the first time in the Affair of the Brains, the tiger was showing his claws.

"For a long time," Ku Sui said, "we four gathered here have fought each other. All over s.p.a.ce our conflict has ranged, from Earth to beyond Saturn. I suppose there never have been more bitter enemies; I know there has never been a greater issue. I said we four, but I should have said we _two_, Master Leithgow. Captain Ca.r.s.e has commanded a certain respect from me, the respect one must show for courage, fine physical coordination and a remarkable instinct and capacity for self-preservation--but, after all, he is primarily only like the black here, Friday, and a much less splendid animal. It is a _brain_ that receives my respect! A brain! Genius! I do not fear Ca.r.s.e: he is only an adventurer; but your brain, Master Leithgow, I respect.

"For, naturally, brains will determine the future of these planets around us. The man with the most profound and extensive scientific knowledge united to the greatest audacity--remember, audacity!--can rule them every one!"

He paused and looked into the eyes of the Master Scientist. Pointedly he said:

"You, Master Leithgow, have the brains but not the audacity. I have the audacity _and_ the brains--now that you are here."

Cold p.r.i.c.kles of fear chased down Ca.r.s.e's and the scientist's spine at this obscure threat. Some of their reaction must have shown in their faces, for the Eurasian permitted himself a brief, triumphant smile and added:

"You shall know just what I mean in but a few minutes. Right now, in this very laboratory, the fate of the planets is being decided!"

Hawk Ca.r.s.e licked his dry lips.

"Big words!" he said.

"Easily proved, Captain Ca.r.s.e, as you'll see. What can restrain the man who can instantly command Earth's master-minds of scientific knowledge, the man who has both a considerable brain of his own to call on and the mightiest brains in existence, all coordinated for perfect, instant effectiveness. Why, with these brains working for him, he can become omnipotent; there can be but feeble resistance to his steps toward universal power! Only chance, unpredictable chance, always at work, always powerful, can defeat him--and my audacity allows me to disregard what I cannot antic.i.p.ate."

"You talk riddles," answered Leithgow. "You do not explain your intended means. What you imply you can do with brains is utterly impossible."

"Impossible? Ever a foolish word, Master. You know that the brain has always been my special study. As much as ten years ago, I was universally recognized as the greatest expert in my specialty. But I tell you that my knowledge of the subject was as nothing then to what it is now. I have been very busy these last ten years. Look!"

With a graceful sweep of a hand he indicated the four coolie-guards and his four white-smocked a.s.sistants.

"These men of mine," he continued, "do they appear normal, would you say? Or, rather, mechanicalized; lacking in certain things and thereby gaining enormously in the values which can make them perfect servitors?

I have removed from their minds certain superficial qualities of thought. The four men in white were, a few years ago, highly skilled surgeons, three of them brain specialists and noted for exceptional intellects and bold, pioneering thinking. I needed them and took them, diverting them from their natural state, in which they would have resisted me and refused my commands. Certain complicated adjustments on their brains--and now their brains are mine, all their separate skill at my command alone!"

Leithgow sat back suddenly, astonishment and horror on his face. His lips parted as if to speak, then closed tightly together again. At last he uttered one word.

"Murderer!"

Dr. Ku smiled. "In a sense, yes. But let me go on.

"The reshaping of these mentalities and of the mentalities of all my coolies, were achievements, and valuable ones; but I wanted more. I wanted much more. I wanted the great, important part of all Earth's scientific knowledge at my fingertips, under my control. I wanted the exceptional brains of Earth, the brains of rare genius, the brains that lived like lonely stars, infinitely removed from the common herd. And more than that, I wanted them _always_; I wanted them _ageless_. For I had to seal my power!"

The Eurasian's words were coming more rapidly now, though the man's thoughts and tone were still under control; and Ca.r.s.e, sitting there silently, felt that the climax was being reached; that soon something unthinkable, something of dread, would be revealed. The voice went on:

"These brains I wanted were not many--only six in all. Most of them you knew, Master Leithgow, these men who const.i.tuted the cream of Earth's scientific ability. Professor Estapp, the good-looking young American; Dr. Swanson, the Swede; Master Scientist Cram--the great English genius Cram, already legendary, the only other of that rank beside yourself; Professor Geinst, the hunchbacked, mysterious German; and Dr.

Norman--Dr. Sir Charles Esme Norman, to give him his English t.i.tle. I wanted these men, and I got them! All except you, the sixth!"

Again Dr. Ku Sui smiled in triumph. To Eliot Leithgow his smile was unspeakable.

"Yes," the elderly scientist cried out, "you got them, you murderer!"

"Oh, no, no, Master Leithgow, you are mistaken. I did not kill them. Why should I be stupid as to do that? To these men I wanted so badly? No, no. Because these five scientists disappeared from Earth suddenly, without trace, without hint of the manner of their going, the stupid Earthlings believe they were killed! Stupid Earthlings! Abducted, of course; but why a.s.sume they were killed? And why, of all people, decide that Master Scientist Eliot Leithgow had something to do with their disappearance? I confess to having planted that evidence pointing to you, but if they had the sense of a turnip they would know that you were incapable of squashing a flea, let alone destroying five eminent brothers in science! You, jealous, guilty of five _crimes pa.s.sionel!

Pour le science!_ Credulous Earthlings! Incredible Earthlings! And here are you, a hunted man with a price on your head!

"So for ten years you have thought I murdered those five men? No, no.

They were very much alive for eight years and very troublesome prisoners. It took me eight years to solve the problem I had set myself.

"You will meet them in a minute--the better part of them. You'll see for yourself that they are very usefully alive. For I succeeded completely with them. _I have sealed my power!_"

His silk pajamalike clothing rustled loud in the strained silence as he turned to the screen behind him. For some obscure reason the perfume about him, flowers of tsin-tsin, seemed to grow in their nostrils.

"Observe!" he said, and lifted it aside. An a.s.sistant threw a switch on a nearby panel. The unnatural quiet in the laboratory was resumed.

"The ultimate concentration of scientific knowledge and genius! The gateway to all power!"

CHAPTER IX

_The Brain Speaks_

A case lay revealed.

At first, while it was unlit, it seemed nothing more than that: a case like those gla.s.s-sided and gla.s.s-topped ones found in museums, a case perhaps three feet high, three feet deep and five feet in width. Under this gla.s.s upper part of the case was an enclosed section a little more than a foot in depth. The whole structure was supported at each corner by short strong metal legs. And that was all.

But, second by second, as the captives took in these details, a change came over the interior. No doubt it was the result of the increasing action of some electrical current loosed by the throwing of the switch; the whole insides of the gla.s.s case little by little lightened, until it became apparent it was full of a strange liquid that seemed of itself to have the property of glowing with soft light. As this light increased, a row of five shadowy bulks the size of footb.a.l.l.s began to take form between what looked, from where the men sat, like a forest of fibers of silk.

In a few more seconds a miracle of complicated wiring came into visibility. The silk fibers were seen to be wires, threads of silver gossamer that interconnected the five emerging bulks in a maze of ordered complexity. Thousands interlaced the interior; hundreds were gathered in each of five close bunches that sprouted from the floor of the case and then spread, fanwise, to various groupings of delicate liquid-immersed instruments.

In several seconds more Eliot Leithgow and Hawk Ca.r.s.e were staring with horror at what the now brilliantly glowing liquid revealed the five shapes to be. As one man they rose, went to the cabinet and gazed with terrible fascination.

"Brains!" exclaimed Leithgow. "Human brains! But not alive--surely not alive!"

"But yes," contradicted the triumphant Eurasian. "Alive."

Five human brains lay all immersed in the glowing case, each resting in a shallow metal pan. There were pulsings in narrow gray tubes which led into their under-sides--theatrical evidence that the brains held imprisoned there were, as the Eurasian had said, alive--most strangely, unnaturally and horribly alive. Stark and cruelly naked they lay there, pulsing with life that should not have been.

"Yes, alive!" repeated Ku Sui. "And never to die while their needs are attended!"