Astounding Stories, June, 1931 Part 9

Barter entered, and his face was a study as his eyes met those of Bentley. Bentley noticed that Barter held that whip in his hand, uncoiled and ready for action.

What was this that Barter was saying?

"I warn you, Bentley, that if anything happens to me you are doomed.

If I am killed it means a horrible end for you."

Bentley tried to answer him, tried to speak, but something appeared to have gone wrong with his vocal cords, so that all that came from his lips was a senseless gibberish that meant nothing at all. He recalled the odor of violets, Barter's enigmatic good-night utterance with reference to violets, and wondered if their odor, stealing into the room where he had gone on guard over Ellen, had had anything to do with paralyzing his powers of speech.

"I see you haven't discovered, Bentley," said Barter after a moment of searching inspection of Bentley. "Look at yourself!"

Surprised at this puzzling command, Bentley slowly looked down at his chest. It was broad and hairy, huge as a mighty barrel, and his arms hung to the floor, the hands half closed as though they grasped something. Horror held Bentley mute for a moment. Then he raised his eyes to Barter, to note that the scientist was smiling and rubbing his hands with immense satisfaction.

Bentley started across the floor toward a mirror near Barter's bed. He refused to let his numbed brain dwell upon the instant recognition of his manner of progress. For he moved across the floor with a peculiar rolling gait, aiding his stride with the bent knuckles of his hands pressed against the floor.

He fought against the horror that gripped him. He feared to look into the mirror, yet knew that he must. He reached it, reared to his full height, and gazed into the gla.s.s--at the reflection of Manape, the great ape of the cage!

Instantly a murderous fury possessed him. He whirled on Barter, to scream out at the man, to beg him to explain what had happened, why this ghastly hallucination gripped him. But all he could do was bellow, and smash his mighty chest with his fists, so that the sound went cras.h.i.+ng out across the jungle--to be answered almost at once by the drumming of other mighty anthropoids outside, beyond the clearing which held the awful cabin of Caleb Barter.

He started toward Barter, still bellowing and beating his chest. His one desire was to clutch the scientist and tear him limb from limb, and he knew that his mighty arms were capable of ripping the scientist apart as though Barter had been a fly.

"Back, you fool!" snarled Barter. "Back, I say!"

The long lash of the whip cracked like a revolver shot, and the lash curled about the chest and neck of Bentley. It ripped and tore like a hot iron. It struck again and again. Bentley could not stand the awful beating the scientist was giving him. In spite of all his power he found himself being forced back and back.

He stepped into the cage, cowered back against its side. Barter darted in close, shut the door and fastened it. Then he stood against the bars, grinning.

"Nod your head if you can understand me, Bentley," he said.

Bentley nodded.

"I told you I would yet prove to the world the greatness of Caleb Barter," said the scientist. "And you will bear witness that what I have to tell is true. Would you like to know what I have done?"

Again, slowly and laboriously, Bentley nodded his s.h.a.ggy head.

Barter grinned.

"Wonderful!" he said. "You see, you are now Manape. Yesterday you had the brain of a black man, and to exchange your brain with Manape's of yesterday would not have served my purpose in the least. So I had to find an ape of more than average intelligence. That's why I spent so much time in the jungle yesterday. I needed a brain to put in the body of Lee Bentley's--an ape's brain. Your body is a healthy one and I did not think it would die as the savage's did. I was right. It is doing splendidly. It would interest you to see how your body behaves with an ape's brain to direct it. Your other self, whom I call Apeman, is unusually handsome. Miss Estabrook, however, who does not know what has happened, has taken a strange dislike to the other you! Splendid!

I shall study reactions at first hand that will astound the world!

"But remember, whatever your fine brain dictates that you do, don't ever forget that I am the only living person who can put you to rights again--and if I die before that happens, you will continue on, till you die, as Manape!"

Barter stopped there. Bentley stiffened.

From the room where he knew Ellen Estabrook to be came her voice, raised high in a shout of fear.

"Lee! Please! I can't understand you. Please don't touch me! Your eyes burn me--please go away. What in the world has come over you?"

Bentley listened for the reply of the creature he knew was in the other room with Ellen Estabrook.

But the answer was a gurgling gibberish that made no sense at all! His own body, directed by the brain of an ape, could not emit speech that Ellen could understand, because the ape could not speak. The ape's vocal cords, which now were Bentley's, were incapable of speech.

How, if Barter continued to keep Ellen in ignorance of what had happened, would she ever know the horrible truth--and realize the danger that threatened her?

"Don't worry for the moment, Bentley," said Barter with a smile. "I am not yet ready for your other self to go to undue lengths--though I dislike intensely to leave the marks of my whip on that handsome body of yours!"

Barter slipped from the room.

Bentley listened, amazed at the clarity with which he heard every vagrant little sound--until he remembered again that his hearing was that of a jungle beast--until he knew that Barter had entered that other room.

Then came the crackling reports of the whip, wielded mightily by the hands of Barter.

A scream that was half human, half animal, was the result of the las.h.i.+ng. Bentley cringed as he imagined the bite of that lash which he himself had experienced but a few moments before.

"Professor Barter! Professor Barter!" distinctly came the voice of Ellen Estabrook. "Don't! Don't! He didn't mean anything, I am sure. He is sick, something dreadful has happened to him. But he wouldn't really hurt me. He couldn't--not really. Stop, please! Don't strike him again!"

But the sound of the lash continued.

"Stop, I tell you!" Ellen's voice rose to a cry of agonized entreaty.

"Don't strike him again. See, you've ripped his flesh until he is covered with blood! Strike me if you must strike someone--for with all my heart and soul I love him!"

CHAPTER V

_Fumbling Hands_

Now Bentley was beginning to realize to the full the horrible thing that had befallen himself and Ellen Estabrook. He knew something else, too. It had come to him when he had heard Ellen's words next door--telling Barter that she loved the creature Barter was beating, which she thought was Lee Bentley. That creature was Lee Bentley; but only the earthly cas.e.m.e.nt of Lee Bentley. The ruling power of Bentley's body, the driving force which actuated his body, was the brain of an ape.

As for Bentley himself, that part of him of which he thought when he thought of "I," to all intents and purposes, to all outer seeming, had become an ape. His body was an ape's body, his legs were an ape's, everything about him was simian save one thing--the "ego," that something by which man knows that he is himself, with an individual ident.i.ty. That was buried behind the almost non-existent brow of an ape.

In all things save one he was an ape. That thing was "Bentley's"

brain. In all things save one that creature in the room with Ellen Estabrook was Bentley. Bentley, driven to mad behavior by the brain of an ape!

The horror of it tore at Bentley, as he still thought of himself.

"If I were to get out of this cage," he told himself voicelessly, "and were to enter that room with Ellen, she would cower into a corner in terror. She would fly to the arms of that travesty of 'me,' for she thinks it is 'I' in there with her because it _looks_ like me."

Now that Ellen was beyond his reach, more beyond his reach than if she had been dead, he realized how much she meant to him. In the few mad hours of their a.s.sociation they had come to belong to each other with a possessiveness that was beyond words. Thinking then that the travesty in there with her--with Bentley's body--was really Bentley, to what lengths might she not be persuaded in her love? It was a ghastly thing to contemplate.

But what could Bentley do? He could not speak to her. If he tried she would race from him in terror at the bellowing ferocity of his voice.

How could he tell her his love when his voice was such as to frighten the very wild beasts of the jungle?