The Lightening Men by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER IV - The Memory Machine

At Thego’s side sat many lesser Lightning Men officials, all of the same disconcerting, colorless translucency. Innumerable slaves of all manner of forms hovered in the background. Some were shaped like Mai — beasts of burden — actually carrying Lightning Men upon their backs. Other slaves tended their masters in different ways. One was scratching an official’s back. Another reached into his master’s pocket for some trivial object. Still another poor beast helped blow an official’s nose.

“Lord!” thought Mai. “World’s champion work-dodgers is right!”

Thego was studying Mai with his green, luminous eyes. Presently he spoke in a cold, hollow voice, and Mai could see the king’s larynx within his throat move up and down with each word.

“For a slave to be apprehended within the sacred chamber of our ancestors,” hissed Thego, “usually means death. But I want you for another purpose.” Thego glanced at something a slave held up beside him.

“Your lightning-ray plate, showing the cellular arrangements within your mind and body,” said Thego, “has just been brought to my attention. You may have what I’ve been looking for — may even contribute something to the greatness of the mighty Thego!”

“I am honored,” replied Mai coldly.

“Ages ago,” continued Thego, “our race consisted of both men and women, active and well muscled. But our women died off when we learned to incubate artificially only the males of our race. Then our scholars decided that material things have no value. They thought that true worth is found only in pure thought—in mind. We knew that natural evolution was developing man’s mind, but at a pitifully slow rate. So we perfected a way to accelerate the evolutionary process.

“We are no longer shackled to the material world. Our specialized slaves perform all our gross material duties for the body. Thus were we launched well toward the realm of pure thought by the invention of the Micro-macro Cell Transformation machine, with which you are already familiar,” said Thego, indicating Mai’s specialized body.

“With this machine we can now acquire from various sources the Four Qualities necessary to carry out man’s evolution to a state of pure thought. Those men you saw encased in the sacred chamber are all great Lightning Men who have, after thousands of years, finally acquired all the Four Qualities. They have retired forever to the realm of infinite thought. That is their paradise. There they are able to project their minds at will throughout space. They are free to soar to unknown heights of pure thought, they can do and see and have anything their minds desire!” A wild, fanatical light shone in Thego’s green eyes.

“But those men in the dungeon?” asked Mai. “They weren’t like you. They are all well developed physically, not translucent.”

“For ages our bodies were never touched by the sun,” Thego explained. “All pigmentation vanished. Under the continual experimentation with cell transformation our body cells lost some of their electrical charge, ceased to be so closely knit. We became translucent. So now, before we begin the quest for infinite thought, we transform our bodies to the most perfect form possible.

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