"It's a museum," I exclaimed. "A great collection of the living forms that have existed in this dying universe-preserved here for countless ages, perhaps, out of the past."
As I spoke, though, there were coming down toward us from the far end of the great hall two serpent-creatures who seemed the custodians of this strange collection. Our guards addressed to them a few hissing commands, and the two turned, seemed to survey the cases about them, while we stared in perplexity. Then one turned toward a niche inset in the wall, in which rested two transparent containers or tubes of liquid, one of bright red and the other of green, and a long, slender metal needle that was apparently a hypodermic of some sort. Thrusting the needle into the red liquid, the serpent-creature holding it advanced to the case nearest us, which contained only the double-headed insect-creature. He swung the side of the case open, and then, with a swift jab, inserted the needle in the body of the thing inside.
There was a moment of silence, and then, to our amazement and horror, the insect-thing moved, its eyes roving from side to side, its limbs twitching. The thing was alive! The two serpent-creatures stepped toward the case, as it came to life, holding death-beam tubes toward it and addressing it in hissing tones. Apparently it was of some intelligence, for in response to those orders it stepped outside the case, down the hall toward another case which was all but filled by other strange shapes. Into this it stepped, at the command of the two, and then the one with the needle filled it with the green fluid, and inserted this in turn into the thing's body. At once that body stiffened, ceased to move, the thing becoming as rigid and unlife-like in appearance as before, its eyes staring stonily ahead in all the appearance of death.
Horror filled me at the sight, horror that sickened me, for I saw now that the things about us, the countless strange shapes in these rows of cases, were all as alive and conscious as ourselves, their life and intelligence unharmed but their bodies thrown into a state of rigid suspended animation by the insertion of the green fluid into them, a fluid that must be like the poisons with which some insects are able to keep their captured prey alive and unmoving indefinitely, a fluid that suspended all animation instantly and that could only be neutralized by the injection of the opposing red fluid, though always the victim remained conscious and alive. Alive! These myriad alien shapes about us-rigid and motionless, yet living and conscious, living perhaps for ages in that living death-my brain reeled at the thought. I turned to Korus Kan, sick with horror, but then stopped short, stiffened. For now the serpent-creature grasping the metal needle and the tube of green fluid was coming toward us.
All the horror of the fate intended for us burst across my brain in one flash of awful comprehension, then, and a strangled cry broke from me. "They're going to keep us here too." I cried, pointing with trembling hand. "Keep us here as strange beings-in living death in this museum of strange beings."
A moment we stood, in horror-stricken silence, and then as the full awfulness of the thing reserved for us penetrated the brains of my companions they uttered a medley of hoarse shouts of rage and horror and as one leapt forward upon the serpent-creatures with the fluid-tubes and upon our guards.
I think that we expected no better than death in that moment, for the death-beam tubes of the guards were full upon us, but I think too that we all preferred a swift, clean death to the horror of living death that awaited us in this museum of hell. But the very motive that made us desire death prevented the guards from loosing it upon us, preferring to follow their orders and place us in the collection about us rather than annihilate us. For instead of loosing the rays, as we sprang, they, leapt to meet us, at the same time giving utterance to loud, hissing cries of alarm.
Our guards outnumbered us, and though we leapt upon them with all the energy of horror and despair, striving to wrest the death-tubes from their grasp, they coiled about and held us, while into the great hall from the big corridor outside there rushed in answer to their alarm other scores of serpent-creatures, leaping likewise upon us. Wearied as we were and outnumbered by five to one, our struggle, though fierce, was of short duration, and then we were held completely by the creatures about us, while toward us again came the two serpent-creatures with the metal needle and two liquid-tubes. First toward me they came, dipping the needle into the green liquid and then stabbing it into my arm.
I shrank deeply as the sharp needle pierced my skin, but the next moment ceased to shrink, as through me there ran a wave of cold, a flood of utter iciness that held me motionless, unable to move. No muscle of mine, down to the smallest, could I control, lying there staring straight ahead, unmoving, unwinking, unbreathing even. My lungs, my heart, my blood, all had stopped moving in the instant that the poison flooded through me, yet my brain was as clear or clearer than ever, coldly clear, as though attached to it was no body whatever. My senses, though, still functioned, and though all power of motion had left me I could still see and hear as clearly as ever. It was as though my brain had been suddenly lifted from the mass of flesh that was my body, and endowed with a strange, lifeless life of its own.
Now the guards rose from me, leaving me lying motionless and rigid, and turned toward Korus Kan, who was being held down by others. His metal body seemed to puzzle them for an instant, and then they solved the problem by injecting the needle of green fluid into the nerve-tissues at the edge of his eyes, from which it would spread instantly to the other living organs cased by his metal body. Another moment and he too lay like me, rigid and powerless to move, our eyes meeting in an unchanging, stony stare. Within minutes more the green fluid had been injected into the last of our score of followers, and we had all become but rigid living statues, our consciousness and senses alone unaffected. Then by the serpent-creatures we were set into the transparent case from which the double-headed insect-thing had been moved to make way for us, were placed in a sitting position with backs against the case's sides, and then it was closed and the guards passed out of the big hall, leaving in it only the two serpent-creatures who were its custodians.
Rigid, unmoving, unbreathing, yet with consciousness, mind and senses as clear as ever, living brains cased in bodies that were helpless and motionless, I think that no position of any in all time could have been more terrible than ours. Had consciousness been suspended also, with the powers of our bodies, the captivity we suffered would have been but a dreamless sleep, at least; but to allow our consciousness and intelligence to remain, our bodies severed from our control-that was a torture that surely none other could ever equal. Statue-like we sat there, while hour followed hour, gazing always in the same direction with unmoving and unwinking eyes. Certainly no wonder would it have been had we gone mad in the first hours of that ghastly, terrible imprisonment. As the hours, the days, dragged past, though, I bent all my mental efforts toward the keeping of my sanity, and though at times my brain reeled beneath our terrible predicament, I desperately forced my thoughts into other channels. From where I sat I could gaze out into the great corridor outside the room, and that at least gave me something moving to contemplate, as through it swept the never-ceasing hordes of the serpent-people, a rush of activity that dwindled never until the rising of the darkest of the three suns marked the coming of the night, the sleep-period of the serpent-people. The light of that darker sun was so far dimmer than that of the other two that as this world turned between the three one-third of each day was spent in a dusky red darkness, a strange night in which all activity in the vast serpent-city about us seemed to cease, only our room's two serpent-guards and some others here and there outside remaining alert, our two room-guards being replaced at the beginning of each night by two others who alternated with them in their duties.