body stilled; she died. The creature in whose dreaming mind I watched this scene was serenely, greatly satisfied at this death. So I gathered was the man mountain.
As I watched, her body was removed by red-masked attendants and replaced by another living beauty from the surface. The scene began again in the dreamer's mind; he enjoyed it greatly.
This god was mad. Somewhere in the depths his private hell was functioning. These captives were destined for his peculiar pleasures. Many of them were women. The others were technical engineers, the best minds an ad for trained men at a fantastically high salary had brought. How long had this been going on? The sleeping creature did not know; all his life so far as I knew.
But such things could not go on without men's knowledge, you say. Well, having used the ray machinisms and knowing their power and seeing such things, I say they can and do go on. For no one could approach a listening ray mech without its operator hearing. No person could think or do a thing other than the operator willed if he were watched and ruled by an Odin's ray. The caverns do exist. I was there.
It suddenly occurred to me that I might be in danger from these goofy Hobloks or from the will-less men who served the formless master in the Hoblok's dream. And once they located me, away would go all my dreams of ancient books and the formula for eternal life which the legends so repeatedly attribute to them. I could not fail! The whole future of man would depend on my search, were it successful, for any bit of their ancient science could change the whole course of earth science. If they spotted me on a ray I would have short shrift I knew from the dreams of killing that filled their sleeping minds.
I decided to attempt to see this private Hell with the giant ray at which I sat. It was the safest way to learn what it was all about. Certainly I could not proceed on my search without knowing where it lay and how to avoid falling into the growth monster's hands.
A couple of hours patient searching of the depths with the amazingly penetrative ray finally revealed one of the workrooms where the red-masked servants of the monster stood guard over the enslaved engineers. I quickly understood their slavery, for a strong generator of thought waves filled the room with a command, abstract but powerful; stronger than any thought they themselves could possibly generate.
"Work and construct from these ancient machines powerful pleasure machines for my enjoyment," were the thought waves.
Thus these highly trained men from the surface, brought into the presence of this strong thought command, worked at the construction of pleasure nerve stimulators for the mountain of pink flesh. Worked till they dropped, only to get up and work again.
Reading the minds of the red-masked men who stood about like guards I found little but a habit of obedience to commands from their master. They had very little mental activity; had been practically robots since children.
So that huge Thing of flesh that had once been something like a man was perpetually bathed in hundreds of high-power stimulative pleasure rays. His was a tremendous energy devoted to ways of feeling ever greater sensuous pleasure; pleasure which, to him, consisted in stimulating a woman till life energy killed her by its intensity. Here in this underworld he had found ways of getting a steady supply of prisoners and an ever greater amount of pleasure stimulating force rays. I did not like this Thing whom his slaves called Mula. No, I did not like him.
So after more protracted fishing with the mighty mechanism I had activated, but was finding difficulty in learning to use accurately, I finally brought Mula himself into direct focus, saw him vast on the center of the screen, smelt the sweat from that soft, enormous, hundred tons of corrupt growth. I heard the thought that ran through the awful head of him. Listen carefully and I will try to tell you what a thing like that thinks.
"The growth which has come upon me depends entirely on certain kinds of rays which the ancients knew how to make. My robots are fast developing similar devices to the one which made me into this mighty life and then wore out to leave me to grow old, never to move toward pleasure in others' death. Ah, the sweet agonies of these creatures desiring love—love—and getting more desire of love till their flutter-
