I was laid so that I hung a few feet over the edge of a table, suspended sideways in the gripping jaws.
Expecting that death or mutilation were only delayed for a moment, I found myself roused to a vivid consciousness of the moving drama around me. I can see it still, in every detail, as, for several hours, I surveyed it.
War had invaded the laboratory, and it had become a theatre of operations, the most seriously injured bodies in which life still lingered being brought down this great distance for the facilities which it provided.
Those who had sought to postpone the desire of death by searching for curious knowledge in the bodies of other creatures, were now working with a recovered energy to repair those of their younger fellows. Those who had boasted that their youth was of an invincible immortality, were now being carried in, broken or maimed or in divided parts, to be repaired or rejected. And those who were past repair were not cast aside for fire or corruption to feed upon them, but the portions of their bodies which were still sound were used for the repair of their more lightly-injured companions, and for this purpose, (if not immediately required), they were hurried into a freezing-chamber, if possible before life had entirely left them.
I saw a surgeon stoop over a body which had been bitten through at the waist, so that it was almost entirely severed, and give a gesture of negation, on which it disappeared at once in the direction from which bodies, or parts of bodies were being brought and thawed as they were required for the repairing of others; muscles, or bones, or missing organs being grafted upon those who retained sufficient life to connect them.
On the distant surface of the world the fighting must have been of a desperate character, for while I was laid aside and forgotten a succession of wounded, most of them with ghastly injuries, were brought in, till it seemed that the ample floor of the laboratory would be too small to contain them.
One of the last was a woman.
I had only known her before in a moment’s vision, but I could not forget or mistake that flame of life as I had seen it assert defiant youth against the deepest laws of the Universe which conceived it. And the flame of life was still there, and still unconquered, though the body was torn and opened, soiled with filth from the upper surface of the earth which had been the place of its conflict, and discoloured in places to a sulphurous yellow from the action of its antagonist.
It was in tribute to that dominating vitality that the attendants paused in their work, the consciousness of my own peril left my mind, and the dying turned to regard her, as she gave her thought to the surgeon who was bending to observe her injuries.
“The tide is turned,” (and the thought was less a speech than a song of victory), “the tide is turned, and we have found the way that will triumph. Eight of them we have brought down in the place of fighting, on the Grey Beaches of the Amphibians—eight we have brought down, and the rest are scattered. … Tell the women from me that everyone who is above the Youth of Motherhood is to go upward. It is the last order I give them. There are better things than the delights of the Five Approaches. Tell them that I have found death, and I do not fear it.” Her eyes met those of the surgeon who was considering her injuries, and her thought was derisive. “Can you not see that I am spoiled beyond your mending? Am I one who would walk crutched who have been the Centre of Circles? You will pass me very quickly into the Place of Freezing. There are two women that follow whom you may repair from that which is uninjured, if you lose no time in the doing. You will not wait till I die … ?” I was aware of a note of protest in the mind of the surgeon that met her own, and was swept aside, weak as a bird’s wing in the tempest. It was not his protest alone, but that of all, the injured and the attendants, who heard her. There was one thought that broke through like a cry of agony, and called my attention to a wounded form from which it came, which had been carried in behind her. With a surprise of recognition, I knew my captor of the first night—he who had called in sleep for that which he would never gain.
But their thoughts were beaten down by the indignation with which she perceived them. “Do you think to thwart my will because I am fallen?” It seemed that her thought swept the other protests aside to reach the form that was behind her. “You who would have come a thousand miles had I called you? Who would have waited to know my pleasure like a crouching dog. You have followed well where the stings were striking. Will you follow now where I lead you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I will follow.”
There was no further protest. I heard the gates withdrawn, and the two litters, with their living burdens, passed into the Place of Freezing.
I saw that eons pass, but Love and War will continue.
XV
Release
I remained for several hours gripped in that soft inflexible pressure, knowing not what of death or torture or mutilation I must undergo when they had leisure for my insignificance, and watching with an extraordinary mental clarity and aloofness the operations by which they built up the bodies of some of the less hopelessly injured with the limbs or organs of those who were themselves beyond saving.
But the time came when the pincers were lifted once
