By RD Rivero

January 25, 2001
 

"Can you imagine language, once clear-cut and exact, softening and guttering, losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again?" - HG Wells ('The Island of Dr. Moreau')
 

[Prologue]

The vast, untamed jungles of Third-Earth were unusually silent that early morning, except for the trickling babble of the brooks and thin, meandering streams that snaked across the fertile land, whose rippled surfaces shimmered in the light of the newly-arisen sun. Owls, tired from their nocturnal hunt, returned to their nests, to their carved-out holes in the sturdy trunks of tall oaks, where their young and unhatched eggs awaited. Scavengers and the stalkers of darkness retired to their dens and caves and hideouts in the dense underbrush.

A small, furry creature made its way from the thicket of green reeds to the edge of the riverbank. It lumbered forward, crawling on the ground on all fours, dragging its knuckles, its tale curved over its back. It reached the edge of the water and stuck its mouth in to drink. Its face was reflected back unto its own eyes, dull brown eyes - the faintest spark of intelligence seemed to radiate from them.

The animal was primate-like in body shape, but it had an odd mixture of feline and human characteristics, too. Its coat was a hotchpotch of thick and thin orange fur, serrated by black stripes. Shinny rows of stitches, like little, interlocked teeth, crisscrossed its limbs and its white underbelly, where the contrasting effect stood out profusely.

It turned its head upward, fluidly, curious and cautious as to the source of the strange noise that rumbled in the air. Fear, born from a lifetime of pain, made it turn out of the openness of the riverbank into the safety of the shades of fallen, mossy trees - a strange, cool mist clung statically to the earth about the hollowed logs. The small animal panted out of breath in the entangled bushes - again it looked up.

The sky had attained a bright shade of blue, while massive clouds adorned the faraway distance - the unnatural sound, the crashing thunder, came from that advancing storm front. It was relieved by its caution, realizing from experience that a light drizzle would be forming in a few hours. Even while the sun broke through the tops of the trees, that dreary fate would be inevitable. No longer thirsty, the creature headed back from the stream to the village, where it would be warm and secure, nestled in its arboreal den.
 

[The ThunderStrike]

Tens of thousands of feet over the ground, the ThunderStrike rushed at top speed headlong across the valley. Bengali sat at the helm in the central pod while Pumyra and Tygra were to his sides. The white tiger adjusted a knob on the dial next to the wheel - he bit his lip while he did so in nervous agitation. He did not enjoy traveling to and from DarkSide, worse still was piloting through that treacherous part of the world. Lynxo was much better at that than he and the old cat's skills in the caverns were unmatched. It was that particular deficiency in his training that meant a longer trip about the Lunatic's realm. Again he adjusted the pitch and a series of dials, taking his eyes away from the forestry unfolding about the vehicle.

"Do you really think they fell for it?" Bengali asked her unexpectedly.

She looked to her right, to him and then back at the arboreal panorama.

"I can't find them on the radar. With any luck they'll think we did go through the cavern- and end up at the other side, where Liono and the rest are waiting," Pumyra said at last.

"That was a spectacular move," Tygra interjected. He had ceased to check his instruments for a time to contemplate the unknown, unexplored valley below and then at that moment his mind roamed elsewhere. He could see it again, the ThunderStrike traversing the dark smoke, the oily fog that permeated DarkSide - that relic of First-Earth's decadent pollution - entering the caverns. Bengali stopped and hid the vehicle in a wide alcove, the lights and engines off. The Thundercats were utterly and completely vulnerable to attack when the Lunatics in their ships entered the canyon and sped heedlessly into the winding passages, oblivious to their enemy's true location. Once enough time and distance had passed, Bengali restarted the vessel and exited from where he had entered only to begin the arduous trek back to Cat's Lair the other way around the planet.

A large, metal case hit the inner wall of his pod in response to another of the white tiger's abrupt course corrections. Tygra was brought back to reality by the alarm of that low thud - his mind returned to study the terrain. Isolated by a ring of tall, white-capped mountains that loomed menacingly along the wide arc of the horizon, the valley was framed above by amassing, heaving clouds and below by sloping forests. A faint smoke oozed from a clearing of black stones, dotted with shrubs where he thought for a fleeting moment that he had seen a brick chimney but when he rubbed his eyes the masonry was gone. No animals, not even birds came close to that patch of ground and yet his worn-out vision had him following neatly carved trails cutting through that spartan land.

Pumyra noticed Tygra's curiosity. "One day we should come back and explore this place," she said but none heard her.

For a singular instant he thought he had seen a troop of ape-like creatures furrowing in the leafy branches of the taller trees. "Hmmm," he mumbled just under his breath. Wordlessly, he derided the primitive life forms. The idyllic scene sent chills of dread and horror down his spine.

"What, Tygra?" Bengali's voice broke the static in his ears.

He adjusted his headset and sat up. "Nothing - I just thought I saw monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Pumyra looked out of her pod.

He grabbed the metal box and set it upon his lap. "At least I thought they were monkeys. Detestable creatures."

"Oh, come on," Bengali added, "there's nothing wrong with animals. You know, many animals here look strangely familiar."

Tygra adjusted himself in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable in his clothes, in his own skin. "Perhaps too familiar," he said, instantly regretting his words. He was not one to open up to others - to expose the deep, dark secrets of his mind. He kicked himself for having said too much and stomped on the flooring of the pod, hoping that no one saw it.

"Ah, don't listen to him, Bengali, he just doesn't like to be remained about where -" her abrupt silence was interrupted by the sound of a loud blip on the radar scope.

Tygra held the case and its dangerous contents close to his chest. He was bitterly tense, already knowing what was going to happen. Their clean get away was no more, their worst fears were gaining on them.

"A Lunatic!" the white tiger shouted. "I can't say which one -"

"Only one ship?" Tygra asked, hiding with concern the guilt he felt for the relief that the distraction of the unexpected situation afforded him.

"Just one - wait -" he dodged the vessel suddenly, violently.

"It's firing at us again," Pumyra said. Her words were followed by another sharp turn.

The ThunderStrike was sinking fast in a vain attempt to lose the enemy amidst the swaggering treetops of the canopy.

"Another Lunatic, I don't believe it!"

At that point he could not tell which of the two were speaking what. His attention was focused entirely upon the strange box on his lap - the box and its infernal contents, the box that he, Bengali and Pumyra were willing to risk their lives for.

The vehicle was shaken violently, smoke began to fill Bengali's pod, his unscratched coughing echoed in Tygra's brain. A shot of blue plasma was fired and the windshield cracked open by the action of a blunt hammer. The dense ash poured out of the gaping hole until at last the white tiger was again in the clear, rehousing his weapon.

Yet another direct hit jostled the vessel - sparks from the breached fuel tanks streaked through the air in a thin line that traced the ship's every move. Tygra was helpless, able only to listen to the chaos that ensued among his companions. The minutes flashed by in seconds - his actions slow and anguished. He had lost the ability to act with reason, he had become what he most feared, what he despised to the deepest levels of his being - a useless -

Pumyra had begun to return fire and Bengali was taking back control of the ThunderStrike when a stray blast seared through the air and whizzed past Tygra's line of sight. He felt himself rise. His pod rocked and with one, last jerk he realized that the shot had broken him free from the main body of the ship. He was falling toward the ground, rushing to his doom.
 

[The Village]

The instant his pod was cut loose from the main body of the vessel, sending him tumbling down the sky, he was hit again by a blast from the yet unseen, unheard and unannounced attackers. What remained of the ThunderStrike, crippled and defenseless, continued on by the slimmest chance of miracles. An arc of white-yellow smoke poured out of the vehicles while streaked through the clouds. The fighting had stopped, the Lunatics had retreated, satisfied that they had taught the Thundercats a lesson not soon forgotten.

Tygra continued to drop uncontrollably. Gaining speed without bound, the great, emerging forces that resulted caused his blood to rush from his head to his chest. His heat beat ferociously but he could not help it - he lost consciousness.

He had no memory of crashing into the trees or of turning over and over repeatedly. One hundred feet above the ground, he came to rest up-side-down entangled in thick branches and flowered vines. The fire continued to rage in the pod - it was its sound and blazing heat that awoke him abruptly. He opened his eyes to a chaotic scene, indescribable to his despondent mind.

His face was covered by the sharp fragments of broken glass from the pod's shattered windshield. The shining bits were held in place on his fur by the blood that oozed from the cuts around the exposed parts of his body. It was not until he had finished removing the shrapnel and had begun checking out his body for broken bones or fractures that he remembered the box. In a thoughtless panic he twisted out of the safety belts of the seat. His harsh actions caused him to fall forward and, acting quickly, he grabbed the controls just in time. Desperately, he held onto the framework of the console, while his feet dangled out of the gapping hole that had been torn away from the fuselage.

Undaunted, the fire continued to heat the interior of the pod. The buttons on the control panel trickled and dripped as thick, multicolored liquids - the goo stung his flesh when stray drops fell hit his arms, his face. At last the very frame itself melted and came away in his grip. Tygra was sent spiraling down and on his rapid descent he hit his head on a tree limb - again his world faded into darkness.
 

By the time the pod exploded - once the fires had breeched into the fuel tanks - Tygra was safe far from the scene. Hours after the ordeal was over the wreckage continued to bellow an arcid, ashy smoke. Soon it would burn itself out - before the late evening drizzle could have its effect. Meanwhile the arboreal inhabitants kept their distance from it as they went about their business.

The air was calm, warm and scented by the open, blue flowers that adorned bushes and vines wrapped around trees. The aroma was soft and idyllic, tranquil. He felt as if he was wrapped in loving arms and he did not want to get up, not even to open his eyes.

A sound came to his ears - a sound that simply did not belong. It seemed akin to speech but it was random, irregular, indiscernible from grunts and yelps. Unable to recover from that jarring disturbance, he had no choice but to awake.

He found himself in a small, cramped room, dimly lit by the sun, or by what slants of sun that could break out through the heavy cloud-cover that had amassed in the otherwise blue skies. The chamber was coated in a white plaster, offset by exposed beams of wood. A dark, aged wood. What bits of furniture he saw - a table and stool, a bucked and the posts of the bed - were made from it. He noticed, too, that those items of comfort were small, only half his size. He was curled in a fetal position on the mattress of stuffed leaves, fresh and green that provided a pleasant scent of its own.

He pulled back the blankets that covered him and turned to the side to try to peer out of the bare, unblocked window. Intertwined fronds of dense vegetation hung down in thin strands from the top of the frame. A strong breeze fluttered them into the room then drew them back out. The lights of the heavens darkened as more clouds clashed violently together.

Fuzzy, indistinct shadows, cast on the plaster of the window sill, hobbled from side to side - the sharp-tongued 'language' came from the bearers of the silhouettes. One of the smallish creatures crawled into the room from the open door. Tygra sat up as best as he could in those cramped quarters and looked across the room attentively at it.

In function it was simian in character - it walked on all fours, dragging its raw knuckles over the wooden planks, curling its prehensile tail above its straight back. Yet it was not like any other primate he had ever seen. The head was too cat-like but it was in the shoulders that its felinity was given away. The fur was alternately thick and thin, alternately red and white in oblong patches throughout the body, bordered by scars and glimmering stitches. The eyes were brown and by the lashes he could have sworn it was Thunderian in origin.

It opened its mouth - toothless - and squeaked.

"Yes?" Tygra asked.

It screamed in response and darted back out the door from where it had entered.

Looking out the window again he caught another pair of Thunderian-like eyes looking at him and when he took notice of them, they, too, darted away, trailing away in that same high-pitched squeak.

"Animals," he said, rolling his eyes and scratching his face. He reeled in pain, only then noticing the bandages and stitches that covered his body.

He got up from the bed, hunched over in the low ceiling. It was only about four feet high. Outside, he stood on a wooden platform, carved into the trunk of the tree. Dangling vines tickled his nose and he turned his head up in a single, fluid movement. Above him were three other tracks built into the tree, each higher than the other. Swinging bridges led from one tier to the next, from one tree to the next, all around the sparse forestry. He found hundreds of little homes and dens in the elms and oaks. He saw sparks of lamps and traces of motion even out into the distance.

It was evidence of intelligence, but he was sure it was not the 'intelligence' of those creatures, those strange, misshapen creatures. The small primates were pets, he told himself and he went on, convinced that he was in a village that had been built for them by a generous and loving master, perhaps. Nothing else could explain how the architecture conformed to their anatomy so perfectly - certainly, he was sure that those things could not have built the place on their own.

The world was silent save for the birds that chirped and flapped their wings in the upper canopy. It was noon or afternoon - he could not tell what time it was or how long he had been out cold. By change he caught sight of the smoke that poured out of his fallen pod. He pointed to it, though he did not understand why he did so.

The sound of wood snapping caught his attention. He looked down - the planks upon which he stood were beginning to give way to his great weight. He realized something else, too - he was naked, stark naked. He panicked and looked back in the room but neither his clothes nor his whip was in the chamber.

The platform was giving way and he had to act fast. He sprinted across the narrow corridor until he reached a spot he was more comfortable with. He jumped from off the ledge, twenty feet, to the ground where he landed on his hands and feet. He stood and turned to head into the shaded, covered parts of the clearing. He called out 'hello' and his name once he felt he was safe to do so but no answer came.

Frustrated, he tried to think of a way out but of the valley but the area was thoroughly unknown and unexplored. He did not know which way to go and besides, he thought, any journey back to Cat's Lair would have taken a week or longer. He had no stores, no supplies or provision and, worse, he did not even have his weapon to defend himself with - and without it he could not contact the rest of the Thundercats.

The shades of late afternoon drew near - the air was tainted by a hint of cold and an all-embracing darkness was cast upon the land.

"They won't leave me behind," he convinced himself on the verge of tears. "Liono will know where I am, he will rescue me."

He thought about the ThunderStrike and his companions. If they could make it home then it would still have taken Panthro a while to fix the vehicle. He gasped, the memories of the attack were missing, corrupt. He had been distracted at the time -

"The box!" Tygra shouted and looked up. He spotted the source of the smoke and ran in that general direction. He hoped the box would still be there, still be around the wreckage there.

Upon the soil were fresh prints and markings - for a second he stared at them. They formed a trail directly to where he was headed. As he studied the torn and battered ground he realized that it was related to him and to his ordeal. He had been dragged by his rescuers into the village, dragged by -

"Impossible," he said.

The creatures, the small primates had been the ones that had moved him for the tracks conformed to what he had seen of them earlier in the room. No where was there a humanoid footprint. Yet that was put to the side, he needed the box, nothing was more important than the box.

"Jagga only knows if it's been damaged!"
 
 
 

[Meeting the Elders]

Tygra immediately set off in the general direction he had gleaned but before he had even made it to the perimeter of the village he was stopped by a troop of those odd primates. That time they came to him on their hind legs and stood just over three feet tall. They had crudely-designed weapons, maces that were thin sticks with a sharp nail that stuck out of the working end. Over twenty of them circled him, wielding their armaments in their gnarled hands.

He took notice of their variety - he saw cats, canines, wolves, bears and even Wollos, reworked Berbils, Warrior Maidens, Mutants. All of them, one after another, reduced as if by sorcery into ape-like forms and yet they retained enough of their true characters, their true natures to give away what they were of might have been. Much to Tygra's dismay, they possessed a certain, advanced knowledge. Just how advanced he could not and would not say but they seemed to know what they were doing.

By poking him with their maces they managed to direct his movement toward a large straw and lumber hut, built upon a platform by the slopes of a cascading stream. It was a large building, with windows and framed walls and a door suitable to let him enter without difficulty. It seemed to be ancient, well used and worn by the elements.

Within, the creatures - who had only grunted to each other as far as he could tell - showed him to a corner. Upon an undersized chair were his clothes, washed and expertly mended. He donned on his outfit quickly, not wanting to be as naked as his hosts. Sitting down, one of the primates, an unarmed Berbil, jumped on his lap without prompt. He was startled and froze while it crawled up his arm to his head. It tended to his facial wounds with its needle-like fingers, picking away the bandages and snipping at the stitches. It smeared a thick, lumpy goo on the bleeding scars. It seemed to him that the substance was moving, squirming but it did not sting and he tried desperately to keep those sensations out of sight, out of mind.

Throughout the exam he had remained still, silent. Once it was done, Tygra took the Berbil-primate-like animal in his hands and lifted it toward the light of the window. It remained as equally as docile while he inspected its body. Like a Berbil it had a soft-alloy metal body. Half-plastic, half titanium, its outer shell was a living polymer. But it was grotesquely distorted - the arms and legs, in particular, had been tortured into their current form. And the addition of the tail was an unanswerable mystery.

He put it down and it crawled to the others. In the time that he had been distracted the remaining creatures had seated themselves on the bare, wooden floor, facing the back wall. They sat differently depending on their origins. The cats were perched on their hind legs, the canines were curled on their sides, the Wollos and humanoids were prostrate on crossed legs.

Out of curiosity, he picked up a male Wollo - or what should have been a male Wollo. It had no visible genitals and only then did it struck him that none of them had sex organs. Perhaps that was why they had left him naked for so long, perhaps they had never seen that before. Bizarre thoughts crossed his mind and then saw it.

What he had mistaken for stitches that crisscrossed the strange primates were, in fact, zippers. Zippers intertwined with pulsating veins. Zippers wrapped around the limbs, the tail and neck, the back along the spine, the front across the abdomen. Searching carefully he found the devices used to open the interlocked teeth buried in deep folds of flesh.

"Hahahaha, hahahaha, hahaha," he giggled and laughed hysterically. He put the subject down - the others had taken no notice, their eyes had not left the back wall.

The smell of burning incense came to him.

He rubbed his eyes, almost asleep and then he was brought back to life. The seemingly secure walls at once came down, exposing him again, as it was. Tygra found himself in the center of vast congregation. Outside, hundreds of those misshaped creatures stared into the shadows of the hut. Around the support columns hung burning torches. The skies continued to darken - it was technically winter on that part of Third Earth and evenings came earlier than usual - and the light of the chained lamps grew more and more intense.

An ancient-looking mutant - a cross between a lizard and a rabbit - approached Tygra with a porcelain bowl. He picked up the dish that was deceptively heavy and set the plate down on his lap. At the same time smaller cups were being passed among the creatures in the hut and the spectators around the enclosure. He examined the food closely - a yellow mush, somewhat loose in consistency, the others ate it heartily with their fingers or directly from the bowls. It seemed to be the only thing that the toothless ones could eat.

He sat motionless, unsure of what to do. He did not know if it was safe for him to consume that concoction or not. The same old, oddly-formed primate returned to his side on all fours and, standing weakly, it indicated to him, with clear and concise hand gestures, that he had to eat the food.

The air was cold suddenly - the faint smell of moisture permeated the stillness, the dying light of the late evening. He shivered - the sky was dark gray, dense with clouds, framed by the swaying tops of tall, green trees. A muffled and distant pang of thunder - it occurred to him that it would rain soon and, somehow, the hanging lanterns attained a warmth that was quite, unexpectedly soothing. For a fleeting moment his worries and troubles vanished.

But their eyes - their eyes - were fixed upon him. The stabbing pressure was blunt against his skin. The elder creature continued to prod him to eat of the bowl and at last he gave in.

He took a morsel of the stuff in his forefingers and brought it to his mouth without thought. It had the sweet taste of fruit with an aftertaste that made him gag to the point of retching. It was a metallic tang, a flavor of pure lead. It had lumps that were hard and crunchy. He mistook them for seeds but they were moving and there were also other solid parts that he could not identify.

Under a nearby torch he looked at yet another handful of the food. The substance was alive - alive with the writhing of twisted insects, hundreds of insects. They tried desperately to crawl out of his hand, out of the bowl but the goo's high viscosity kept them in place. The mad thrashing crushed their bodies and even tore away their legs that though detached continued to thrash wildly, violently.

In disgust, he threw the bowl on the floor where it shattered - its half-living contents squirming in the jiggling mass. He screamed and stood, hitting his head on a wooden beam. He tried to get out but by then the food - the bitter fruit - was having an effect. He tried to think of something and as his inner voice spoke, it degenerated from understandable words to chirping, yelping and howling.

Tygra began to understand them, the quasi-simians and what they were speaking.

Four elder members of the village stood in a semicircle, chanting what they called the laws while the others merely repeated them.

"No kill. No lie. No steal," were among the words he recognized.

He lay across the floor, curled like a dog - his arms wrapped around his head, fighting back the excruciating pain of an emerging migraine. The aching was tormented by the repetitions, the choruses of the laws that the ancient ones recited. He wondered if those were the only words they knew and then the 'laws' took a certain, ominous turn.

"His is the house of the Fruit," one would say.

"His is the hand that gives and takes away," another would follow.

Tygra had not eaten enough of the goo and the effects ceased shortly. A headache and a cramping stomach were all that remained of the experience. The chorus retained its incomprehensible character. Distraught, he turned to the chair, amazed that the others had not taken notice of his actions.
 
 
 

[The Others Appear]

The elders and the others in the hut came around him and, rearmed with those laughable weapons, led him back outside. The throngs of spectators stood away, prostrate, kneeling - worshiping. Desperately, he wanted to get out of there, out of the forests and far from those detestable, offensive, unsanitary creatures - whatever they were. He hated being the object of so much attention, he hated being out so open. And to be revered like a god - it was intolerable. The ignorance and depravity of those things were beyond all enduring.

It had not left him that he had no whip - but only then did he recall the box.

A fine, cool mist spread through the air between the tall trees and the riverbank. He walked across a time-worn trail, etched into the land after generations of use. Dew collected on the crisp, green leaves, the petals of flowers and the delicate filaments of heavy spider webs. The forest was again a live with the sounds of the night - but the nocturnal beasts kept their distance from the fire and the torches that the strange primates totted along with them. He could still see the green reflections of their eyes while they stalked in the cover of the underbrush.

The ground beneath his feet acame to a dead, black ash, spotted, every so often, by tufts of sparse grass. He was stopped and turned to the side. Yet another chair awaited him - that time it had been built to fit him and had been pieced together very recently. He was directed to sit on it and he complied reluctantly, wondering when, if ever, his ordeal would come to an end.

"How embarrassing," he thought, "and if the others were to see me now?"

The abnormal simians gathered around him. They were not timid and, overpowered by their curiosity, they came forward, closer and closer. They touched him and rubbed their bodies against his.

Tygra did not know what to make of that sort of attention. He dismissed it as a sort of worshiping but he could not put it past them to be marking him as theirs with scents secreted from unseen glands. He wanted to leave - desperately - but he was sure that they must have had his whip, hiding it perhaps, perhaps getting ready to give it back to him soon enough.

"As soon as I get my hands on it," he said aloud, "I'll turn invisible and get the hell out of here."

The box - he put his hand over his open mouth. The box that contained the secret power of First-Earth. The box with the knowledge of life and dead. The box that marked the course of evolution of the entire galaxy. The box he was prepared to give up his life to protect from falling into the hands of evil - it was there, right there, before him. An elder Wollo-like primate stood on it with a cane directing the others.

Tygra leaned forward, his arm outstretched, his hand ready to grasp it -

Moonlight broke through the cover of the clouds and illuminated the half-world in its eerie, pallid aura. Trumpet calls filled the night air - he turned his eyes up to glean its source but it was in vain. The alarm was coming from everywhere, from the jungle itself.

The elders and the throngs moved back, apparently used to the events that were then unfolding for the first time to him. Past the meandering stream, where the earth was devoid of life and from where a gray smoke plumed up from a brick chimney, appeared five large figures.

The others were as large as Tygra but their bodies were built like apes. They were human in origin, but distorted, deformed by a cruel, unseen hand - he knew that then - there was an intelligence at work in that valley. Their legs were shorter than their arms, their hands were mangled, the knuckles worn. They had no tails. Their flesh was bare and their naked, sweaty hide only accented their stitches - the zippers that held them together. They were overtly muscular and covered scantily by heavy leather aprons.

The newcomers had brought with them kegs full of that mushy, lumpy gruel that the smaller primates took for food - the younger, stronger specimens of the smaller creatures were already dragging the crates back to the village.

The hooded one - the one he guessed was the leader of the five - walked over the elder who stood on the metal box. The brute picked it up and ripped open the zipper that cut across its stomach. The internal organs bulged out and then were forced out by the savage when it wrung and twisted the still-living simian like a wet rag. The entrails popped in a sea of red blood and shredded organs. The victim fell to the ground, crawling about on its arms in circles. It had not made a sound, not even then, nor had it attempted any resistance.

Tygra was sick to his stomach, watching the sorry sight, hoping the elder primate, Wollo-like creature would die quickly - it had happened so fast that he did not have the time to react.

The leader of the interlopers wiped the gore from his hands on the soil. The hooded brute roared in that wild tongue and the small worshipers that had been gathered about him fled in terror.

He stood, angling closer to the box, thinking he could grab it at the last moment and storm into the forest. At the same time the rest of the large ape-like beasts inched forward. The leader stomped on the head of the elder it had disemboweled. Even though its skull had been shattered and smeared into oblivion, it continued to move but only he took notice.

"I've gone from one level of savagery to another," he said aloud.

Again the hooded thing spoke - that time to Tygra himself. He did not know what to say, he just stood there, dumb, unable to reach the box for the bare-fleshed primates had all but surrounded him. At once they pounded on him and he was surprised by his weakness.

He had no struggle, he did not fight back. As he was beaten to a pulp he reasoned that it must have been a side effect of that stuff he had eaten back at the hut. The metal - he had mistaken it for lead but it may in fact had been something else, something far more sinister. It appeared, too, that they did not want to kill him, only prove that he was not a god.

Tygra was hog-tied and dragged over the gravel, heading up the river to the chimney. One of them held the box but he was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing to have happen. One look back revealed that the smaller primate-like creatures were not following him, they were not moving beyond the border of the forests. When he was completely enveloped in darkness and their dim eyes could not follow him any longer they turned around and headed back to their village.
 

[The Loyal Subject]

It was more than just the cold air that awoke him. It was the smell of ammonia, the telltale odor of disinfectant. Impersonal and deliberate, it grew more and more potent with his every breath until at last it had become completely intolerable.

Tygra sat up on the bed, uncovered but clothed, shivering, his teeth chattering. His eyes gradually accustomed to the dim lights - the dead, flourescent lights that dangled from the ceiling and lent the large room a melancholic dread. The chamber was empty, as far as he could tell. It had no windows, no doors visible and the only sound that came to him was that of the humming of the ventilation units.

He stood, weary but not in pain. He recalled having been beaten by five thugs - primate-like apes - and that he had been weakened by Thundrainium. Even then, not knowing how long ago the events had transpired, he was overcome by a sense of fear and anxiety. He tried to gauge his condition - he was agile and strong once again and his body was not bruised. The cuts and scars on his face were gone.

The pungent air ceased, only to be replaced by a thin mist, an aerosol spray with a not-too-unpleasant aroma with a detectable taste that was not agreeable. It occurred to him that the perfume was a distorted, artificial re-creation of nature. The contrivance tickled his nose and made him sneeze uncontrollably for the space of a minute before even that air stopped spreading.

The lights blazed on and yet the room remained featureless - at least to the naked eye.

Tygra approached the walls. On the one opposite the bed was the outline of a door. Outlines of the faces of rectangular drawers were etched along the remaining murals of the chamber along with a second door. But he found no way of opening them and he wondered if indeed they could be opened.

Almost lost to all hope, he found, at a remote corner, the metal case and his whip. He jumped for joy, fearing that he could have been heard through the walls but not caring. He was too excited but his elation was premature. The whip would not react to his commands and upon further inspection he found that it had been tampered with. The box, too, had scratch marks and deep grooves carved into the frame, indicating that it had been opened - forced open.

He picked up the box and brought it to the head of the bed where the lights were the brightest. He attempted to open the lid and see what irrecoverable damage had been done. The locks snapped and the top angled ajar only enough to reveal an indiscernible slant of darkness. At that very moment the second door he had discovered dematerialized in a thin, brown haze followed by an audible, alarming hiss.

Tygra turned to see - the hall beyond the oblong frame was completely lightless. Standing in the way was a human figure. Dressed in a shiny, black outfit, the stranger entered the room silently. His face carried the expression of stern authority with a hint of annoyance, his beady eyes roamed across the room searching for its lone occupant.

Once completely in the chamber the door reappeared out of the brown mist. A table and a pair of stools formed in the center of the room - all gray metal with silver accents. The man spread his arms over the tabletop and in response plates of food and cups of drink materialized from a sudden, green aura.

"Come," he said in a soft voice, extending his hand over the stools. "It is - breakfast."

Tygra thought for a moment and wondered if the man was either unfamiliar with the language of if he had not spoken it to another for years. He crawled closer to the food, letting the box's lid fall back down in place. "Where am I?" he asked at last.

"You are - in my lair," he answered a second or two later.

The stool before the tiger moved backward to allow him to sit on it.

"It is safe - do not be - afraid."

"Who are you?" Tygra asked, taking his seat. He looked into the man's eyes - the lids almost completely covered them. He wondered if the lights were not too bright.

"I am Dr. Soltan and this valley is my realm," he pointed upward, moving his forefinger in a wide arc as he spoke. He did not seat himself until the Thundercat had.

Tygra removed the doomed, metal lid of one of the plates revealing a puff of hot steam and bowl-full of that yellow, runny gruel. It was missing the insect parts and it did not appear to move but those were about the only things that were different.

"It is called the 'fruit of the gods,'" Soltan said in response to Tygra's apparent reluctance to feed. "It is what we eat here. We all eat it here."

"But it has Thundrainium," he said, looking across the table at the doctor who had only removed the top of his own plate.

Soltan sighed: "Ah, yes, fire rocks. It is a mineral that occurs naturally in the soil of this part of the world. It is in everything."

He looked into that second bowl - it had the insect ingredients and the doctor began to sop it out with a spoon.

"Yes," he continued, "I forgot you ate it already. How - unfortunate - but do not worry. You will no longer feel the effects of the fire rocks."

Tygra's ears perched up under his mane - his hairs, too, began to stand on end.

"I have - fixed you."

The goo drooled from the corners of his lips. He wiped his face with a napkin while the tiger watched. He had no teeth. It was noticeable then while he continued to speak.

"Go on - eat - it is safe."

Tygra looked down to his plate, revolted. He picked up a spoon and dug it into the mush. A sopping, swirling sound followed. He scooped a morsel then wondered aloud:

"What do you mean? Fixed me?"

"Eat."

A short pause followed in which Tygra's eyes did not fall from the full spoon before his face.

"If I wanted you dead then you would not be alive right now."

He ingested the food, intent on swallowing without tasting but taste he did and he was immediately surprised. It had retained its sweet flavor but not the metal after taste. His head did not ache, his consciousness did not waver - as far as he could tell.

"How did you fix me?"

"You were, injured," Soltan said, cleansing his palette with a sip of a dense, clear liquid. "For that I must apologize - it was uncivilized of me. The guards are not used to, strangers but then, what else can you expect from animals?" The tone of his derision seemed oddly familiar - and there was even a hint of humor in it, as if he was sharing an off-color familiarity.

The Thundercat peered across the table at the strange man's contorted expression - his eyes had definitely widened but were still unnaturally shut.

"Animals?" the tiger asked.

"Yes, you've met them. They are my loyal subjects. The Eloi, who live in tree-top villages. The Morlocks, who live down here, with me."

"You are lord over those creatures?"

Soltan laughed: "It's not that simple." Tygra was about to speak but he was cut off. "It'll be explained." The longer the doctor spoke, the better his command of the tongue grew. "You must eat. You have been through many, harrowing adventures lately. Once your mind has rested then I'll let you in on my - secrets." A smile almost came to his face - it quickly vanished.

The doctor became tense and unresponsive and for a time just sat watching Tygra eat, studying his movements, his shape, his body as if taking notes in his head silently.

"I sense the possibility of a deeper intelligence in you -"

"Tygra," he said, filling in the blank. "My name is Tygra."

"Hmmm," he rubbed his chin. "How - appropriate."

"My whip," the Thundercat stammered, recovering his empty dish. It vanished along with the empty cup and utensils.

"Again, my apologies. My guards were unnecessarily cruel. Be assured that I have punished them accordingly."

A flash of light followed his words. A green, horizontal line formed over the table and spread apart in the shape of a rectangle that then lit aglow. It was a holographic display in which he could see the five ape-like thugs from the night before.

"The Morlocks," Tygra said under his breath.

The hooded one was the first to be disciplined. A hand - Soltan's hand - tore open its abdominal zipper. The innards were scarcely visible under the spreading flesh. The hand - that had momentarily gone off-camera - returned, holding a large, bizarre spider that, acting by its own instinct, crawled into the slit that was then promptly closed.

It took effect immediately. The hooded figure screamed in agony - a shriek that could have passed for human. It tried to fall to the floor but the chains around its arms kept it upright. A growing mass crawled under the bare flesh, churning the entrails. Blood oozed from the zipper as the stomach began to inflate.

Tygra tuned away in horror.

"Animals," Soltan said. "Pain and fear are all they know."

The view screen dematerialized.

"You'll want to freshen up," he said, standing by the door. He pointed to the back of the room, by the bed, where another door 'opened' to reveal a bright antechamber. "We have much to discuss, Tygra." The doctor turned to face the dark corridor of the interior of the complex. "As for your box," he began. Tygra's ears perched again, his heart raced. "I found its contents - amusing. The toy was for a child, no? I suppose so. Let's see if we can't find a more suitable alternative."

He vanished - the door materialized after him. Tygra rushed to it and banged on it - his feverish pounding did not even produce a sound in the chamber. He looked back. The table and the stools had vanished, returning to the ethereal substance from whence it had come.

"The fruit was wonderful, I hope I'll have more," he thought and he was startled by the words for he knew they did not come from him. Although the taste did not offend him, he did not like the gruel at all. The way it looked, the way it felt in his mouth made him want to gag but the more he resisted that alien idea, the louder its voice became, the more assured it was that he loved the fruit of the gods.

"No! I don't like it!"

He fell to the floor, his arms twisting around his head.

Tremors, shivers - his body ached. He crawled toward the bright light of the antechamber. Exhausted, he had spent too much energy fighting off the urge and the voice that echoed in his brain.

Silent for a moment, he heard a slight hum. It was not coming from the vents but just when he noticed it the vibration was cut off. His body returned to a calmer, more tranquil state.

He rushed into the newly-opened room that he instantly recognized was a bathroom. He stopped before the sink and turned on the faucet. He splashed cold water onto his face: "Why is this happening to me? For Jagga's sake. I am a Thundercat. That has to count for something - or are we nothing without that sword?"

He looked up but there was no mirror. There were no mirrors anywhere, there were no shiny surfaces upon which to catch his reflection. It was odd, but then, too many things were odd and he did not want to dwell on it any further. Everything would be all right at the end, he convinced himself, Liono would be coming to get him. The others were on their way to the valley already, no doubt.

Soltan.

Tygra found a toothbrush contained in an unopened, plastic sheath. It had a cleansing paste in powder form on the bristles. He activated it with a touch of water and then began to brush his teeth.

Soltan was - strange? Perhaps he had been out of touch with civilized society for too long, perhaps he was mad. The man was unapproachable and monestrous - but he meant well, Tygra was sure of it. The doctor needed company that extended beyond that realm of animals. The creatures had rubbed off on him a touch of their savagery - but underneath it was a man of reason and supreme intelligence. Again, he had to think of the bright side.

The box was damaged, destroyed but life went on - and perhaps it was for the best, perhaps those violent rogues had done humanity a favor, destroying that ancient relic. Still, the wasted knowledge was a shame. But, if the doctor had understood what it was, what it meant and what it had been then, maybe, just maybe, he could be coaxed to divulge its secrets.

The strange, displaced humming resumed - but that time its effects were not as harshly felt.

He had to give Soltan a change before he could judge him. After all, he had 'fixed' his Thundrainium problem. If it was safe enough then the rest of the Thundercats should undergo the procedure. It was to their advantage, he told himself.

Tygra spit into the basin - the flowing stream of water rinsed the mess down the drain. He was stunned to find a lot of blood in the sink. He examined his teeth with his fingers but the bleeding seemed to have stopped and he felt no pain. A couple of molars were loose but he thought nothing of it. He had been beaten and dismissed the effect that way.

He stripped and entered the shower.

"The doctor," he said, "of what?"

He lathered his mane in the warm spray of the showerhead.

Tygra froze in terror. His fingers had roamed about the base of this skull, feeling a series - a row - of cold, metal teeth, tightly interlocked. A sore lump of flesh rounded one of its ends.
 

[The Intelligence Test]

The shock he felt for what he had found on his body wore off in the wake of a flood of other, seemingly more important concerns. But just what those impending reasons were remained inexplicably vague and indistinct in his mind. And, yet, he did not care, he was not bothered by his lethargic intellect, his degrading mental aptitude.

Finished with his shower, he came out of the stall, fur dripping loudly on the floor, water collecting in large pools. A strong current of hot air circulated in response, from gratings on the ceiling to thin slits along the lower portions of the walls. As he dried he reached out to the covered seat of the toilet to grab his clothes - but his hands grabbed at nothing. His uniform was gone. He was about ready to curse aloud but was thankful that he had stopped himself in time. The blowing action then ceased and in the ensuing silence he realized that there was someone or something lurking in the shadows of other room.

"Who's there?" he asked, poking his head out of the steamy bathroom. He did not want to step out any further for he had found no towels or the like to cover himself with. "Hello? Soltan?"

A grunt - a low rumble - answered.

Tygra, seeing no other recourse of action, stepped into the larger room. The lights were off and only the glow from behind him illuminated the immediate vicinity. The air was cold and he shivered stark naked.

He came upon the bed. At the foot of the firm mattress a gnarled, deformed hand appeared out of the darkness, pointing to the pillow where a folded, black uniform waited. He took it with a swift jerk and just as quickly he darted back into the bathroom where he changed into his new clothes. The outfit was similar to the doctor's but tailor-made to fit only the tiger. It was made of leather but it was softer, more plastic. The material was unusual but incredibly comfortable.

Back in the chamber the uniform kept him warm - by what mechanism he was unsure.

The misshapen hand waved and the bathroom door shut in its characteristic hiss, enveloping Tygra in total darkness.

"But now I can't see," he complained dryly and in reply the lights turned on just enough to cast the chamber in an eerie, moonlit glow.

For the first time he could see clearly that the hand belonged to a Morlock, a part humanoid, part ape-like creature. It was even larger than the ones he had seen before - it was bigger than Tygra even though it stood hunched forward, resting on its long, muscular arms. Its skin was a rough hide, coated with a short, frizzy fur and segmented by those zippers.

He felt the one around his own neck and inched forward to ask: "Who are you?"

Without as much as a grunt it turned around and lumbered toward the door, dragging its knuckles part of the way. The main door vanished when it reached it and it entered the outer hall. He hesitated for a moment before he followed it into the corridor. The door reappeared behind him leaving not a trace, not even an etched outline of where it had been.

The halls were dimly lit and only brightened in sections, one at a time, as Tygra treaded through them. He felt the walls along his sides as he walked with outstretched hands. Stone, concrete and metal, he identified them by their various degrees of roughness. It was a certain knowledge he had accumulated after years of being an architect.

He found the engraved forms of other doors, most were 'closed,' if such was the word, but every so often he stumbled upon one that was 'opened.' The unblocked orifices had a denser air stagnant in the area of the bare frame. He detected the presence of a strong magnetic field for the zipper on the base of his skull was tugged ever so slightly while he passed.

With only the aid of touch and weakened vision he was able to gauge the direction in which he was being led but there were certain turns that confused him and sent him out of synch. The last time it happened he looked back to see that another Morlock was following at his heels. It was just as large and as bulky as the first. It was in the light that surrounded Tygra, its eyes covered by a set of dark goggles.

The trek ended at the foot of deep stairwell, in a room that was very brightly lit. Even Tygra's eyes hurt. The escorting guards would not enter but indicated by hand gestures that he was supposed to go in.

The door shut behind him mechanically and he realized that he was in an older part of the complex devoid of most of that highly advanced technology. It was a stately chamber, astute and quaint, in sharp contrast to the impersonal quality of the bed and bathroom that he had come to know. The walls were brimming with well-stocked books, sitting in shelves carved into the wood and rock.

The library ranged from one end of the subject spectrum to another. Tygra gravitated to the section labeled 'science' and took out the first volume he found. It was a treatise regarding time travel, written by none other than Dr. Soltan Dorsag himself. He smiled in amusement then removed another sample. The ancient-looking masterpiece was about sunspot activity, again written by the doctor. He checked the publication dates - not only were they both old but they had been written three thousand years apart.

His mind reeled, his head turned from side to side, examining the spines on each and every book. The author listed was the same everywhere: Dr. Soltan Dorsag. Art, philosophy, music, literature, science - he was the purported creator of them all.

In a light-headed haze he stumbled upon a round, oak table. Under a green-shaded lamp was a thick book, open to a random page. Dying to be read, his eyes skimmed but a phrase or two: "And the spirit of Soltan hovered of the waters and HE said 'Let there be light!' And there was light."
 

A set of doors thrust open as if on-cue. The soft voice that followed was difficult for Tygra to hear: "So you've discovered my books - how do you like them?"

The tiger stood and turned around to see Soltan in the room, next to a large, conference table. The same two guards from before remained motionless at his side while the doctor kept forward. He did not answer, but then no one took notice.

"It took me a long, long time to produce all these works," he said, arcing his pointing finger from one end of the bookcases to the other. "They are like my children in many ways - yes, like the Eloi and the Morlocks. Engineered and manufactures not merely by the hand alone but by the mind too," he gesticulated arched, arthritic hands about his head. "Look at them! They are mute and useless," he reached the round table and peered down on the large book Tygra had found by accident, "they need me to speak for them." He shut the profuse volume and directed the stunned-silent tiger to the conference table.

Upon it the guards had set certain items.

"Your clothes," Soltan said, "were - imperfect, inferior," his voice was accompanied by a peculiar hum but by then not even Tygra paid attention to it anymore. "I replaced them by a more perfect outfit and I'm glad to see it agrees with you."

"The clothes are an improvement. Thank you," he said, not really knowing where those words came from.

Seated at the head of the table, the doctor presented him with the items the Morlocks guards had left on display. The whip, the box, a bowl of that mushy goo, the fruit of the gods concoction and one thing more - a covered surprise.

He spoke: Your whip was very inventive but I think you'll find it has no uses here."

Tygra took it into his shaking hands and examined the weapon. It was indeed his whip but the radio transmitter had been removed and it no longer extended itself or responded to his commands. It was, in short, nothing more than a handle and three, red balls attached to its end.

"The box was a curious toy - I did say that already, didn't I? Although it had been years since I've seen an atomic bomb, I don't think I've ever seen one quite as crude as that one had been." The tiger looked attentively into Soltan's eyes in disbelief. It was for a child, no? A youngster eager to learn the ways of science. Yes, I have things more suitable for that in my lab - I'll let you pick out a replacement from among my instruments, at your leisure, of course." He paused and the uncontrollably glee he had felt ebbed and an expression of stern authority returned to his face. "You must forgive me. It has been a while since I've met someone like you - someone so much like myself. A fellow scientist, an equal capable of understanding me."

Tygra got hold of the box - it was empty.

"I have been shunned and shut out of the world -" he seemed to look at something in the distance - something, a vision perhaps, that only he was aware of.

Tygra put the whip in the box and placed the metal case under the table. One of the guards took it and walked out of the room. The second Morlock followed.

The matter of that concealed item remained.

Soltan slid it forward - it was covered by a red, velvet cloth that gave away nothing of its hidden contents.

"This," he began, "is an intelligence test." He pulled back the sheath. It was a small chessboard, three by three squares. On each corner was a knight: the top two red and numbered '1' and '2,' the bottom two white and numbered '3' and '4,' in clockwise fashion. "I'm sure you've seen chess before," the tiger nodded and sat up. "The knights here move exactly as they do in the regular game, in that 'L'-shape." He moved the figure labeled '1' in an 'L'-shaped path just to make sure that Tygra understood. "Using that fact, you are to move the knights from the corners where they start from to the opposite diagonal. That is, number one is to end up where number three is and number two is to end up where number four is and vice-versa. You are to do that in no more than sixteen moves. Does it sound easy?"

"I suppose so -"

"Ah, but there's more." From a side drawer the doctor pulled out a thick wad of papers and pencils. "You are also to solve the problem mathematically."

"What? Why?" Tygra asked in defiance. He almost got up from the chair but Soltan held him in place with unusual strength.

"A true intellect has no reason to - at least no reason as mere commoners understand it. No, no, it is the love of knowledge and the pursuit of the unknown that drives the true thinking man. I have no patience for the ignorant and for those who have taken the gifts that the great," he was about to speak a word, a certain word but stopped himself short. He paused and continued undaunted, "that the great - lord - has given and wasted them with vice and baseless folly. Why I have chosen to test you and what my plans are for you, you will soon see."

He stepped backwards. His small, almost invisible eyes never left the tiger. The door behind him creaked open.

"You have four hours. You may look through whatever books you want but you're assured you won't find the answers there."

He vanished into the shadows and the doors locked tight after him.

Tygra just sat there at the table, looking at the puzzle, wondering what to do next.
 

[Fruit of the Gods]

Solving the doctor's riddle by hand proved not to be too tedious - it was what else he wanted that threw the tiger in for a loop.

He attempted the physical side first, judging that whatever the abstract solution to the problem was that it would have to be subservient to what was observed. He began by moving the knights labeled '1' and '3,' justifying his reasoning by the fact that they would have to change positions at the end. Yet, past that initial play, he found he could make no further progress. By symmetry, moving '2' and '4' together, too, would lead to the same result. Moving '1' and '4' and then '1' and '2' were equally as frustrating by their failures to advance.

On one of the blank sheets he wrote: "To get to the winning position, I have to move all four pieces together at the same time."

The proposition was daunting and he wondered, curious as to where the thought had come from. The humming and the headache had vanished and he was thinking clearly. "Moving two knights at a time was confusing enough," he said aloud, "but all four of them?" He sat up on the chair and breathed deeply for a moment or two. "Well, if it's not impossible then it can be done."

More than often he thought he was being watched. He would get up from the chair and walk about the library, listening to the silence, trying to pick up the slightest disturbance an interloper might make. He did notice a series of clicks coming from the vents but, on closer inspection, he dismissed the effect to metal fatigue - the temperature in the room fluctuated wildly and the metal fixtures were always expanding and contracting in response, producing distinctive sounds of their own.

He looked down on the mini-chessboard and the answer struck him. The symmetry of the problem was both subtle and startling. He devised a basic system of rules: he would move each knight, one at a time, from '1' to '4' clockwise and as soon as all four were moved one he would call that a turn. At the end of the fourth turn the game would come to an end and the positions of the figures would be their diametric opposites.

"Four turns with four moves per turn yield sixteen moves - the limit Soltan had given."

On a fresh piece of paper he drew a grid, three by three and labeled the figures the way they appeared at the start. Next to the drawing he set up a new grid and labeled it 'moves.' It listed the knights their original positions at one end of the grid and their final positions at the other.

At the physical board he started by moving the first knight one way then the third night the same way but aimed oppositely like a mirror image. He did the same for the second and fourth knights except that he chose a different manner to move them. In total there were two basic types of movements, four in all: two 'L' shapes that were vertical and two 'L' shapes that were horizontal.

He listed the various positions on the grid for each figure. When he finished, he memorized how to solve the problem by hand so exactly that he could do it blind-folded. He even found another solution that was similar to the original and that led to same desired configurations.

His confidence boosted, he tried to find the abstract solution to the puzzle - that was, he or Soltan or both wanted to know why only those two sets of moves were the only solutions to the 'Four Knights' Problem.'

But he had to stretch his legs. Again and again he got up and walked around the chamber, thumbing through tomes of Shakespeare - or at least what he knew was Shakespeare for the plays listed Soltan as their author.

It struck him like a bolt of lightning from the clear, blue sky. He ran back to the table, his fingers combing his mane back violently. The doctor had given him four hours but no watch, no clock, no method to gauge how much time had passed.

In the course of what must have been eternity he tried one way after the other and each succeeding theory - more complicated than the one before it - failed miserably. He tried everything he knew and then, near the end, he realized what he had to do. He would give each knight its own 'equation' - that of a line - and it would describe its motion form the start to the end.

Just as he was setting down the outline for the rules governing those equations, the main doors were thrust open - the four hours were up.

Tygra sat back, still and silent. The bizarre humming returned. The vibration wrung through his head, chattering his teeth. He thought nothing of it, for Soltan was looking over his notes, grunting and mumbling to himself.

"I almost got it," the tiger said.

"I see," the doctor answered. His two, shaded, Morlock guards stood on either side of Tygra, looking down with blank, dead faces.

"If I had more time -"

"I gave you six hours," Soltan said, nearly in tears, "because I pitied you after the ordeal you suffered. I was sure you'd use the time wisely if you thought you didn't have much of it." He shook his head and ut the papers down. In a voice hat sounded like a shadow he said: "So closer, so far."

Tygra stood and the humming intensified. He stepped forward to the doctor and his head felt as though it was about to explode. He tried to speak - but then Soltan lifted his head up to the light, a stone, stern expression painted on his face. The look froze his blood and stunned him silent.

Soltan bit his lip as if fighting the urge to laugh - a struggled he quickly lost. Tygra joined him with a mad cackle of his own. It occurred to him too late, far too late that the doctor was not amused. He was not laughing at something 'funny.'

Tygra stopped first, Soltan followed. Regaining his composure, the doctor excused himself with vague apologies. The doctor looked down at the table, at the plate of food that was empty. The bowl had been liked clean - although to be sure the tiger had no memory of eating it.

"I have something to show you," the man said. "Perhaps you're curious to see where we produce the fruit of the gods?"

Taking the offer in the best stride, he accepted.

Soltan led the way past the doors into what were evidently the private chambers of the complex. He did not attempt to conduct a tour, he had a goal, a destination and he did not stray from his aim. He was perfectly content to let Tygra's curiosity wader for several rooms and connecting halls were open, their interiors partly revealed.

A gray, metal door gave way, opening to a dark, featureless corridor. A bright light glared from its distant end. Their footsteps echoed loudly. Tygra peered behind him to see that the two, ever-vigilant guards were at his back, silently sentient.

"Here is the hatchery," Soltan announced. "Here the whole of the valley's nutritional need is met."

Tygra and the doctor stood at the head of a skeletal staircase. Open before them was a vast chamber, tens of thousands of square feet in area. The walls were dark, gray shale. Long, flourescent lamps hung from the sloped-ceiling. Thick, ash coated-columns supported the roof that curled around a central 'ornament' - an array of ventilation grids and humidifiers that kept the room at a constant temperature throughout.

He pointed to the floor, a dizzying depth below. Tygra saw tables, thousands of tables upon which were large, balls. Writhing globs of white that were seemingly covered by a kind of mucus. Soltan led him down the steps for a closer look.

"What are those things? The fruits?" he asked.

The doctor chuckled, masking, for a moment, the sounds of his guards dragging themselves down the stairs immediately behind. "Those are the females."

He let the tiger approach one of the tables and examine it at his leisure. The orbs were gigantic - three feet in radius - and were evidentially full of things that were alive. He could see their hidden bodies crawling and often caught glimpses of their outlines poking about the underside of the gooey flesh.

"I don't understand. Females? There are just balls, they have no details, no features."

The doctor tapped lightly on the tabletop - it was not metal but plastic that from certain angles allowed the eye to see through it.

Tygra peered down into it and screamed in horror. Beneath the partly-clear plate was a face, part human, part insect. The eyes were black and wrapped around the temples. They had no visible pupils but they did move - they followed him. It had no nose and the mouth was a wide, open hole, surrounded by two, large and protruding mandibles. The interlocked parts were coated by feathery tendrils.

He screamed again - a large, orange tube extended out of the mouth and hit the plate from beneath.

"That's its feeding tube. It's sucking up the liquid nourishment: a mixture of water and fructose that gives the fruit its sweet flavor."

Tygra looked at the doctor completely stunned: "The fruit -"

"It doesn't come from trees - it's produced by this species of insects," Soltan pointed back to the female's submerged head. A small, five-inch creature crawled out of the feeding tube and swam through the buoyant liquid to a hole in the plate, emerging to the air. "It's a male," he said, "it's finished mating." With a clenched fist he pounded on the large insect, crushing it into a green, quivering goo.

A Morlock came to the table with a hose, connecting it to the hole, replenishing the spent syrup.

"The males and females are so utterly different, aren't they? That's how nature made them - but, of course, I added my own, particular improvements." Soltan licked off the entrails of the thing it had killed, savoring the crushed insect as though it was a delicacy. "You see, in her natural environment she would mate with only one or maybe two males."

Tygra was disgusted. Again he looked down into the table - he saw the female's antenna whipping in the water-sugar mixture it was immersed in. He saw the six, segmented legs coming out of the thorax - strangely thin, they were each a foot long. He saw the abdomen spurt out of a thin waist to form that white, throbbing mass, that gross expanded out of the lower body.

"Over a thousand males are in her abdomen, spreading their seed upon her ripened eggs."

A scuffle ensued form a table behind them. Soltan led him by the arm to see that was unfolding. Three other, attending Morlocks stood around a female that the doctor said was ready to hatch. With a cold and impersonal tone he described the procedures as they happened.

"The abdomen, filled beyond the ability to expand further, tears along a seam that runs from the anus to the tenth radial section below the waist. The attendants cover it with a plastic bag and tie it tightly. Only then is the bulge - the ball as you called it - cut free. The female will live to form another egg case."

He continued: "The amputated mass is placed into a large vat and cut open. Those, large, orange orbs are the fertilized eggs. They will be sorted by hand. The female eggs will be stored for future use. The male eggs will be hatched immediately so that they may mate with the rest of the mature females. Once that has been done what is left in the vat will be put to a blender. The abdominal egg case, the males, the unspent seed - those are the ingredients of the fruit of the gods!"

Tygra turned his head and vomited violently.

"Does it shock you? Neither the Eloi nor the Morlocks have teeth and neither are allowed to hunt nor eat flesh. This substance contains all our vital nutrients: water, proteins, sugars, minerals, salts - all that life depends on is here," he said, ladling his cupped hands in the revolting goo that dripped with chunks of mashed insect parts. "Is it any wonder we esteem it so highly?"

"I want to go home," the tiger said, lunging in defiance toward Soltan. "I want to go home. I want to get out of here! You'll let me go at once! You have no right to keep me here against my will." A pair of Morlocks grabbed him from behind and tackled him to the ground.

"Your will?" Soltan asked, amused at himself.

"I have friends and they'll come for me. They'll rescue me!"

The thugs lifted him up to his feet.

The doctor approached him, smiling, giggling: "Your will! There is no will other than mine, there is no power greater my own! You have disappointed me - on many levels."

The humming resumed in Tygra's head.

Liking the gruel that remained on his hands Soltan spoke: "You have failed, Tygra, you are not intelligent enough to remain as you are, as a disgrace. You must face the consequences of your new position, your place in my universe!"

"No! No! You don't have the - AHHH!" The humming increased to the point where its sound overpowered his sense of hearing. It was at that moment that he realized where it was coming from.

Soltan gave the signal - the Morlocks followed, dragging the tiger while the doctor led the way.
 

[Secrets Revealed]

A leather gag was wrapped around Tygra's mouth but he continued to grumble and resist. The Morlocks handled him roughly again but Soltan had told them not to beat him - he did not want to deal with any, further 'complications.' All the while the doctor continued to lecture his impending victim - though the tiger, at first, could catch only fractions of his words, those not distorted by the humming in his skull or by his struggling to break free.

"I have lived alone in this valley for many years," he said, maneuvering through a dark hall - the lights no longer turned on for the tiger's benefit. "Hidden in my cavernous lairs, I began my life as a hermit but I was not always alone. Over time, many have ventured through this land and in the beginning I tolerated the incursions and even looked the other way to the gross abuses. I was too busy studying the arts and experimenting with the sciences, I was too distracted to see what was being done until it was, I thought, too late. I noticed, to my utter dissatisfaction, that the interlopers were rude, nasty people, without enough decency to respect that which was not theirs. And when they invaded my realm beneath the ground I knew then I had to act fast. I could not destroy them, for animal life is sacred, so I had to find something else to do to them."

He let the echo of his words dampen and die in the corridors before he continued.

"Afterwards, sometimes one or two stumbled into my paradise, sometimes entire tribes would try to root themselves into the land. I did not want to be cruel and so in fairness I tested them - their intelligence. Not that puzzle I gave you," he looked back - the Morlocks were carrying the tiger on their backs. "I never use the same question twice, I always tailored the exams to what best suited the subject. Oddly, no one ever passed, no one was smart enough."

A set of heavy doors opened silently after the doctor entered a code in a keypad - the room it led to was lit by blue lamps that produced an eerie, moonlight glow.

"I cannot abide by ignorance, in all its perverted forms. So I fixed them, I fixed everyone who failed me," he said, speaking in a light tone.

The guards dropped Tygra on the cold floor. He arose to his feet. The Morlocks wrapped their bulky arms around his body. In front of him was a metal platform with leather straps and restraints. On a portable frame next to it were numerous, surgical instruments. Hanging from the shadowy ceiling were drilling and sawing apparatuses. Sharp knives and implements of pain glimmered alarmingly.

"Using surgical methods that I've perfected, I turned them into what they deserved to be - the animals that they were all along. Surely, you must have seen my handiwork, my children, as I call them. The Eloi, the Morlocks - or how else did you think they came to exist? If not from these hands that shaped and molded their brains, their bodies," he looked at his hands that he had extended up to his face. He laughed hysterically then turned around to wash them in a deep, wide sink. "I transformed them from Wollos or Berbils or Humans - or whatever else they were originally - into the form that truly fitted them. The ape," he turned around, his eyes were open for the first time. Tygra saw them, they were black, completely black, without a trace of white cornea. "Apes, because for so long they walked about the earth, aping that holy form, that body that the great Soltan himself created after his own image, as if indeed they were thinking men - intelligent." He gasped. "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!"

Amused by the sounds of his words, he walked up to Tygra, holding a scalpel in his gloved hands. The gag was loosed but he did not speak, the humming in his head was too intense - but he did think, it could not stop him from thinking. The Eloi, the peaceful, tree-dwellers who had saved his life and that he had judged harshly. Only then he recognized and regretted his arrogance. Once free and innocent, they had been reduced to their deprived condition, their dignity cut-off and amputated by that madman. Even the Morlocks, yes, even Soltan's mindless brutes he pitied. In their own particular ways, from their customs to their habits, his 'children' retained a certain resemblance of a greater humanity that the master lacked.

The tiger could not hold back his rage disgust any longer: "Soltan! You are the animal! Your arrogance had blinded you - do you really think you're the great lord, the creator, the ultimate judge of the world? Can't you see your own, fatal irony? At last, at the end, you are no better than those 'animals' you hate and loathe. You need them and fear them. Yes, you fear them, the great Soltan - that's why you control them and make them dependant on your fruit of the goods. And you need them because without them here to worship you as their 'god' you would be alone, you'd have no one. You are pitiful -"

"Pitiful?" he said, leaning forward. "Those that I liked, I turned into Morlocks to help me in my endeavors. Those that I hated, the weak, I turned into Eloi, to live up there," he pointed up, "there, in the dungy earth to wallow in its death and filth. The horror, the horror." The doctor whispered into the Tiger's ear, drooling and salivating with every syllable: "I'm going to turn you into one of those - I'm going to shrink you head, tear your brains apart and clobber the mess back together. I'm going to chop your body into little parts, mangle your arms and legs, hahahahahahahaha!" He drew back and trashed the awaiting blade in air. "I'm going to give you a little tail. I'm going to send you up, up, up to the treetop village where you'll crawl into a hole to urinate and defecate in your den. You'll wallow in your own waste like the filthy animal that you are. You'll fit right in, mwahahahaha and spend the whole rest of your miserable life eating your gruel."

He tapped Tygra gently on the check then whispered into his ear again: "Can you image language, once clear-cut and exact, softening and guttering, losing shape and import, becoming mere lumps of sound again? Can you image a world where, step by step, everything decays and deteriorated, sinking deeper and deeper into a realm of flesh without spirit? Haha, hahaha, hahahaha, haha, you will! YOU WILL! YOU WILL!" He arched his head back in ecstasy. "Strap him down!"

The thugs dragged him forward awkwardly. The jostling action caused the gag around his mouth came down to his neck then fall on the floor. He leaned his head toward the doctor as if to speak to him directly and then bit down on his ear, gnawing at the soft flesh relentlessly. He tasted blood - his lips were dripping wet with it.

Soltan screamed in agony. He broke away from the vice grip of the tiger's teeth, staggering backwards, shrieking and wailing, holding together that shredded flesh that remained of his earlobe. The Morlocks reacted chaotically to the unexpected turn of events. They let Tygra go but for a brief moment. He took advantage of their passing weakness and darted to the side of the room, next to the wide sink.

The doctor was under a faucet, washing out his painful wound. Tygra grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and with his claws tore away the fabric to reveal - his eyes widened and he stepped back. Soltan's chest was crisscrossed by rusted zippers, around the arms, the neckline, down the stomach. Horrified, he threw the limp figure across the table where he crashed into a bank of instruments.

Tygra turned around. The guards were back on their feet inching forward. While they dragged their knuckles on the ground he rushed toward them and quickly removed their dark goggles, blinding them. They fell upon each other, writhing in pain.

Soltan was back on his feet. The fabric of his uniform had repaired itself and even his ear was not bleeding anymore - although the torn flesh dangled freely. He was barking orders into a microphone, control-pad. Tygra kicked him in the chest, knocking him flat on his back.

The control pad fell on the floor and rolled away toward the closed doors. Tygra picked it up, unsure how to use it but satisfied that the doctor would not be able to use it against him. The Morlocks had regained their composure - they covered their eyes with one mangled hand while they rushed forward to the tiger, roaring and grunting ferociously.

"Get him!" Soltan commanded, pointing at the tiger as he stood up.

His eyes glowed over in a bright hue of orange-yellow. Thunder crashed from above, its pangs muffled and deadened by distance.

The heavy doors were unlocked but were particularly difficult to open nevertheless. He managed to eke out a crack wide enough for him to crawl through. The Morlocks crashed upon its frame after him, fumbling about its knobs with their gnarled, misshapen hands - it occurred to him just then that only Soltan ever opened those regular, old doors because only he had the dexterity to do so. He vanished deep into the corridor, pushing the various buttons on the instrument he had taken from the doctor - it was his only weapon, if indeed it could have been called that. He felt that his best chance to break free from that dreadful place was to find his way back to the complex's private chambers, where there was more light and where he had seen doors opened to ascending stairs and grated shafts lit by the weak light of the dying sun.
 

[The Rescue]

Dawn. The first, dim rays of sunlight fell snaked across the land. The stillness and silence of the jungles were abruptly stifled by the roar of the heaving engines of the approaching ThunderStrike. Liono piloted the vehicle in the central pod. To his left, Bengali was busy in his pod, adjusting the dials on his control panel. To his right, the remaining pod was empty - brand-new, it had been recently rebuilt and refitted by Panthro.

The vessel landed on the clearing of black, ash-covered pebbles. Fifty feet to its north a tall chimney poured a dense, gray smoke into the cold, violent air. The heavens above were unusually blue. The trees along the valley were unusually green and everywhere, forever brightly-colored flowers blossomed.

Stepping out slowly, for his broken arm was in a sling, the white tiger protested: "We didn't lose Tygra here."

His leader answered tersely: "The sword directed me here - the sword is never wrong."

"What desolation," Bengali commented. He inhaled a whiff of the air arising out of vents carefully hidden in the barren ground. "Smells like a roach colony. No wonder nothing lives here."
 

The Morlocks may have been strong and quite easily able to over-power him but they were also slow and sluggish. They had no real stamina and if given enough resistance they would tire and give up easily. Without Soltan to direct them, on their own they were mindless, ape-like creatures.

Tygra crashed into the hatchery. It was not hard to miss it - not only was it the largest room of the complex, it was the warmest and best lit, too. Countless, unnumbered tables were scattered about him, in each one a fertile, bloated female insect - whose species name he was never told. He could not tell which was the one whose egg case he had seen turn into that putrid goo for all the tables had massive, abdominal orb protruding from them.

Several tables were surrounded by Morlocks. They began to cover the throbbing egg cases in a clear, plastic sheet. They were repeating the grotesque harvesting process. He wondered how quickly those females recovered and how often were their 'fruits' picked.
 

Liono was studying the chimney. He heard a pile of stones tumble and turned around to look at Bengali. "What did you find?"

He was crouched over the dirt, spreading the rocks apart with smooth strokes of his free hand. "A vent."

Liono rushed to his side and helped him uncover the grating. One foot by two, the iron fixture blended perfectly with its surroundings. Hot air seeped steadily up from it. "I can't see anything, but it's definitely important. It means there's a bunker -"

"Where's the way in?"

He paused and, looking about, he took in the vast panorama. The clearing was flat, except where it met the forests. There the land slopeed upward, giving the scene a certain lunaresque quality. He saw a trail and pointed to it.
 

The humming returned to infect his brain. His temples ached. He might have yelled, he might not have, he did not remember. From the distance he saw that one of the attending thugs had turned to face him - or at least try to spot him. It wore those heavy goggles that obscured its vision in the bright chamber. Nevertheless, it continued with its work.

As long as he remained active, moving, as long as he was quicker to react they could not touch him. He sprinted across the room until he came upon the metal staircase. It bothered no one that his rapid ascent echoed loudly in the vast chamber. It occurred to him that they might not know who he was, indeed, that they were mistaking him for the doctor. He was wearing the black outfit that Soltan had perhaps foolishly given him - perhaps in the vain hopes that he had found a friend, another being so much like himself that he could relate to on an intellectual level.

Tygra was repulsed by the very notion that he had anything in common with that madman.

He reached the head of the stair and to his shock he found two Morlocks standing in his way. He screamed and darted back. Only the guard rail kept him from plummeting to his death.
 

The two headed off immediately after having secured the ThunderStrike. They followed a path etched into the earth by the action of cruel forces. Bengali thought he had seen a footprint, but the shape was unusual, deformed. Liono realized that a large, heavy object had been dragged over the rocks.

The trail sunk ever so slightly in a gentle slope and then vanished all together.

"What? But this can't be," he shouted.

"Wait," Liono poked the sword into the ground. He struck a hard, metal slab that echoed hollowly.

They dug up the makeshift cover with their hands. Under a half inch of stones and dead, brittle soil was a flat, monolith, five by ten feet in size. It had a door - rather, the shape of a door - carved on its surface.
 

Again, they did not react to him. They seemed to have no will of their own when they lacked direction. He approached them slowly. They would not get out of his way. He tried to squeeze in between their bodies but they shifted slightly to prevent him from passing. They were not being hostile, but they were not helping him either.

He stepped back cautiously, looking down at the scene below. The attendants were still working on the amputated abdomens, removing the orange-colored eggs by hand. He had no time to waste. He would not make that mistake again. Soltan and the others were hot on his trail and would be coming to get him soon enough.

"If only I still had my whip," he lamented.
 

They did not know what to do. They felt weak, too, unnaturally weak. Groggy, even. The Eye of Thundera came to life and growled in alarm.

"Danger," the lion called, reaching for his weapon. Bengali jerked his body around, trying to see if a hostile interloper was approaching. "Get behind me!" he ordered. He aimed the sword at the horizontal slab and blasted it with a series of shots of plasma.

A hole, large enough for them to pass through, was blown away.

Liono jumped in first. He landed on a steep staircase, tumbling several feet before he came to a stop. He stood and made his way back up to help Bengali crawl in. They descended for several minutes without uttering a word.

In total darkness, the white tiger pulled out a pair of chemical lanterns. "They'll last five hours," he said.

"We'll use one at a time," he said, cracking his. It glowed bright-green, it was warm to the touch but not hot. "No alarms yet - we must have come in unnoticed."
 

Cautiously, he approached one of the Morlocks and studied its face. It was vaguely humanoid, a Warrior Maiden in origin, grossly exaggerated and deformed by the good doctor's hand. Made to dwell forever in the underworld, they had one, fatal flaw. He reached out and quickly grabbed its goggle and flipped them off its head, throwing them back to the tables down in the hatchery.

The Morlock's eyes almost burst out of their sockets. They went white all over. It screamed and darted back into the darkness. The other followed it into the winding passages.

From the vast chamber below he heard a voice calling him. He did not stop to look behind, he had precious little time left. He ran into the hall. His path was clear and unobstructed. The only sounds he heard were the horrible ringing and vibrating in his head, but he was going to put that to an end.
 

"This is built worse than a maze," Bengali said. He was behind Liono while they walked through the halls. The air was unusually cold and heavily scented by an otherwise pleasant odor that tickled their noses.

"Incredible," he pointed him to a wall. A tall, thin rectangle was carved into the stone. "Just like the one we found up top."

"I know - I've been noticed them along the hallway. They're like the patterns of doors that were never built." The white tiger ran his hands across its rough surface. "It's beyond all reason."

The lion grunted and continued onward until he reached the head of a deep, winding set of stairs.

"Why don't you try the sword again?"

"It doesn't show me Tygra anymore," as it had not for almost a day, since the two had started their journey to that unexplored valley. "We don't have a choice," he said.
 

It was Tygra's almost instinctual sense of direction that led him safely back to the doctor's private quarters. He closed doors behind him every time he passed them, making sure they were barricaded as best as he could. For the latest exit he used chains and chairs and whatever other suitable items he could find laying about the various, open rooms.

Panting and out of breath, he entered one of the spare antechambers - it was what he had mistaken for a utility closet. On the floor, huddled in a corner, he began the procedure. With his sharp claws he dug into the knob of sore flesh at the base of his skull. He tore into his skin until he found the apparatus that would open the zipper. He shouted in pain without restraint - he could not hear the squeaks and grunts that were coming from behind the jammed door, or the soft, commanding voice unseen in the shadows.

He ripped the zipper open and again he screamed in agony. He felt his head was going to explode, flashes of red and white sparkled in his eyes. He writhed around in pain, lashing at the walls. He slumped out of the small room, falling on the carpeted flooring of the hall. As he got up, he saw his hands for a moment - they were coated in blood. His back was wet and he slowly, slowly losing consciousness.
 

The greenish lamp he was holding was still glowing strong. "Answer me truthfully. Do you feel weakened?"

Bengali paused for a moment. "I've noticed I've been a bit slow. It could be fatigue, or the cold."

Liono nodded. "We should keep our eyes open. I have a bad feeling about this place but we must go on. For Tygra's sake."
 

Tygra reached into the gapping wound up the back of his neck. He felt the lumpy form of an object that did not belong in his body. He reached it and grasped it around his fingertips. He tugged it with his hands. It came loose but it needed more pulling still. He looked at it, cupped in his hands - it was a machine implanted into him, a metal box, one inch by one inch and very, very thin. It was covered in blood and pus.

He let it go but it did not drop to the floor. It was still attached to his brain by a series of cords. The wires were connected to deep parts of his brain. He tore the tethers with his claws and the little sparks of static drove him mad. He lost his voice for he had screamed so loud.
 

"Did you hear that?" Liono asked.

"It came from down below," Bengali answered, pointing across the winding stairs.

They ran down the steps as fast as they could.
 

The cruel humming had stopped but because he had already lost so much blood he did not notice that the Thundrainium he had ingested and that surrounded him everywhere in everything was having its usual effect on him.
 

"Break the door down!" Soltan bellowed.

Tygra looked to his left. The doors that he had barricaded were already beginning to give way. In a moment or two they would be mangled sheets of metal on the floor with a troop of Morlocks stepping over them. He could already see the doctor's image as the crack that had formed steadily grew wider and wider.

His movements were slow and agonized. His vision was failing quickly. He got up and limped into the first room he found and again blocked the door with a heavy desk that he slid in place with the farce of his body for his arms and legs were at last unreliable.

He found another corridor opening from that room. It was the main corridor, past it were the open double doors of the library. He shut them tight without entering that darkened chamber. He doubled back and hid himself in a room where soft lights flickered.

Within he found monitors, screens that displayed various parts of the valley, the jungle villages and those parts of the complex that were lighted. He stumbled about, trying to barricade that room. He shoved a rack full of monitors in place. Two of the devices fell and shattered but he did not care or notice.

Alone for the moment, he gasped in shock. Taped to the walls, littered on the floor, in desks, stuffed out of drawers were photographs, surveillance shots of him. The ThunderStrike approaching the valley, the vessel being attacked. His pod falling in the sky, crashing in the trees. His rescue by the Eloi, his capture by the Morlocks. He saw the pictures of Dr. Soltan operating on him, installing that device into the base of his skull.

His eyes rolled over as he slumped back on a chair.
 
 
 

"Tygra! Tygra!" a voice yelled, a fist banged on the door of the cramped room. The monitors on the racks vibrated in response. He swivelled on the chair to see. "I know you're in there, Tygra - I followed the blood trail."

The tiger stood, moaning and crawling deep into a corner of the chamber.

"Tygra, if you've lost this much blood. You're going to die if you don't get help," Soltan's voice was tainted by a perverse concern that had nothing to do with his best interest. "Let me help you, Tygra."

"I - I, die," he managed to speak but his voice was guttural. It was animal sound that even shocked him.

"Tygra, you don't understand -"

His hearing faded.
 

"This looks like Tygra's handwriting," Bengali said. He put the second, chemical lamp down on the table and picked up several sheets of used papers.

Liono had been exploring the rest of the dark library. He came to the side of the white tiger and looked at the pages. "What could this mean? It doesn't seem to be finished."

"What are those?" he pointed to the books that the lion had brought with him from the bookshelves.

"Books that I've seen before, in Tygra's office." He set them down next to a miniature chessboard.

"What about them?" he asked, puzzled.

"That just the oddest thing - these books, all these books are written by a Dr. Soltan Dorsag -"

"Did you hear that?" Bengali arose and held his green light before his face.

"Shhh!" Liono said, moving away from the table slowly, silently.

Muffled sounds of footsteps rang from behind them, somewhere in the vast darkness of the library.
 

He felt a certain coldness and looked at his arm and he looked at his left arm. On the wall, next to him, was a grating. Revived, he pulled the iron grid out, ripping it free from the plaster. He looked back on last time - the door was buckling under the Morlocks' persistent pounding.

Tygra crawled into the ventilation shaft - it was cold and damp. He arched his head up in a fluid movement. At the top, a hundred or more feet above him, was an opening to the world outside, capped by another grid. He could see the clouds in the sky, the flashes of lightning. He felt the thunder vibrate the metal walls of the cramped shaft that surrounded him. He felt another disturbance, too.

The door had at last been broken down.

"Get out of there, Tygra, you don't know what you're doing."
 

"I heard it again."

"Look!" Bengali pointed. "Doors. Real doors."

They rushed forward. The doors were made from a heavy metal and were locked or jammed in place. They pounded and shouted 'Tygra! Tygra!'
 

Stuck in the shaft with nowhere to go, he stood and reached up. He felt the inner walls and found a rung, above it another and then yet a third. It was a ladder. He began to laugh and to his own, inner ear he sounded like an ape, grunting.

The Morlocks and Soltan in the room heard him and rushed to the grating that was left gangling, still partly connected to the wall.

Tygra thought heard his name shouted but did nothing about it. He had already climbed several rungs when the spray of cold water hit his face. It was raining up top and the downpour was trickling into the vent.

"No! You fools! Don't hurt him," the doctor ordered. One of his thuds managed to get through the hole into the shaft. "Get down, Tygra, get down."

He could see clearly the upper grid in its every detail. The tiger reached up with one hand. He tried to touch it with his fingers, to grab it and hold on. He did not realize that the cap was still far, far beyond his grasp.

He raised his other arm, arching his back. He lost his balance and began to fall. "Liono!" he shouted as he plummeted.
 

"He's behind the door. Hurry!"

Bengali ducked out of the way, Liono aimed his sword at the heavy, double doors, blasting them into sparkling ash.

The lights in the library tuned on - those behind the battered doors did too. A strange man, dressed in black, stepped forward to meet the two Thundercats. A group of large, half-human, half-ape creatures stood behind him.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I don't believe you were - invited. Ah, you must be those friends Tygra was babbling about." He smiled wryly. "A little too late, though, don't you think?"

"Where is he? Where's Tygra?" Liono shouted.

The man smiled again and turned and stepped to the side. On the floor, behind where he had been, was another ape-like creature. It was small, only four feet tall. It stood on its hind legs for a moment and opened its toothless mouth, squeaking. It fell on all fours, dragging its knuckles on the hardwood floor of the library. It was covered in red and black stripes. Its undercoat was white, starkly contrasting with the zippers that crisscrossed its body.

The creature lumbered itself toward Soltan on mangled, misshapen limbs, its thin tail twirled over and around its back. The madman smiles, pleased at the results of his handiwork. Crawling about his legs like a cat, it rubbed its body against its master.

In the form and body that best suited it, it no longer resisted, it was a loyal subject, a child that ate of the fruit of the gods - it was Tygra and it loved Soltan.