Free The Door to Saturn by Clark Ashton Smith Page B

were used as reference in repairing any of the metal organs and members which might have suffered damage. Tloongs engaged in such labors of restoration were to be seen toiling like plastic surgeons; and ever and anon a new subject for their ministrations entered, displaying injuries of mysterious origin, which occurred oftener about the head than any other part, and were like the ravages of some corroding acid. Also, new frames were being made for those who had tired of the old ones; and new heads of enormous capacity for brains that had outgrown their former tenements.
    Here Volmar and his crew underwent one of the strangest of all their experiences in the red world. They were led before certain of the beings in this section of the laboratory, who forth with made an incredibly minute examination of their bodily structure. These beings differed from most of the Tloongs in that they possessed two sets of eyes. One of the sets was dull and lifeless during the first half of the examination but lit up with a blinding luster when all the external parts had been examined closely. Numerous life-size drawings and diagrams of each man were made on huge sheets of a parchment-like material; and when the drawings began to reveal every bone, muscle, nerve, and internal organ, it was clear that the second set of eyes owned by the examiners was similar or superior to the X-ray in its visual powers. It was a weird ordeal, and the men felt as if they were being dissected. They surmised that the Tloongs were merely gratifying their biologic curiosity regarding the formation of beings who differed so basically from themselves. The true reason was beyond the wildest dreams and maddest theorizings of the earth-men.
    After the examination was completed and the drawings were all made and filed away in special cabinets, the men were shown through other parts of the laboratory, where they saw the chemical genesis of new plant-growths, and the minerals that grew visibly beneath rays designed to promote the integration of the required atomic patterns. Their guides continued, as on the previous day, to instruct them in the language by naming every object and class of person encountered; and in this way their vocabulary was materially enriched, despite the difficulty of simulating the flute-like or horn-like intonations of the Tloongs.
    After this tour of inspection, the earthlings were taken back to the Alcyone once more, and were permitted another term in which to eat, sleep, and otherwise recuperate. Every day, during the weeks that followed, they were conducted on other tours, some of which were quite extensive and were made possible in one diurnal period only by the use of passenger-bearing projectiles drawn by magnetic force through underground tubes. They were even shot through the great shaft which penetrated the world, and saw the multiform wonders of the antipodes. They soon formed a general idea of the conditions of life among the Tloongs, and, after weeks of linguistic study, were able to converse in a limited manner with their hosts.
    These people, they found, were exempt from all the ordinary biological needs and desires. In their pre-metallic stage, they had respired, eaten, drunk and propagated themselves in a fashion not so widely dissimilar to that of other animal types. But now they needed nothing more in the way of nourishment than the mysterious ruby-colored fluid in which their brains floated; and through which they could seemingly convey the impulse of any desired action to their metal members, and could receive most if not all of the sense-impressions transmittable by physical nerves. Indeed, it appeared that some of them were the owners of faculties which implied a radio-like extension of hearing, sight, and tactility.
    Their lives were devoted wholly to invention and research. The infinite grotesqueries which they devised and created, the vast gardens and forests which they tended, the animal monstrosities which they bred in