"09 - Synthetic Men of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

the handsomest men in Helium. I should say, 'Here is the noble Vor Daj, a padwar
of The Warlord's Guard,' and how the women would cluster around you!"
My face really was something to arrest attention. Not a single feature was
placed where it should have been, and all were out of proportion, some being too
large and some too small. My right eye was way up on my forehead, just below the
hair line, and was twice as large as my left eye which was about half an inch in
front of my left ear. My mouth started at the bottom of my chin and ran upward
at an angle of about 45° to a point slightly below my huge right eye. My nose
was scarcely more than a bud and occupied the place that my little left eye
should have had. One ear was close set and tiny, the other a pendulous mass that
hung almost to my shoulder. It inclined me to believe that the symmetry of
normal humans might not be wholly a matter of accident, as Ras Thavas believed.
Tor-dur-bar, with his new body, had wanted a name instead of a number; so John
Carter and Ras Thavas had christened him Tun-gan, a transposition of the
syllables of Gantun Gur's first name. When I told them of my conversation with
Teeaytan-ov they agreed with me that I should keep the name Tor-dur-bar. Ras
Thavas said he would tell Tun-gan that he had grafted a new hormad brain into
his old body, and this he did at the first opportunity.
Shortly thereafter I met Tun-gan in one of the laboratory corridors. He looked
at me searchingly for a moment, and then stopped me. "What is your name?" he
demanded.
"Tor-dur-bar," I replied.
He shuddered visibly. "Are you really as hideous as you appear?" he asked; and
then, without waiting for me to reply, "Keep out of my sight if you don't want
to go to the incinerator or the vats."
When I told John Carter and Ras Thavas about it, they had a good laugh. It was
good to have a laugh occasionally, for there was little here that was amusing. I
was worried about Janai as well as the possibility that I might never regain my
former body; Ras Thavas was dejected because of the failure of his plan to
regain his former laboratory in Toonol and avenge himself on Vobis Kan, the
jeddak; and John Carter grieved constantly, I knew, over the fate of his
princess.
While we were talking there in Ras Thavas's private study an officer from the
palace was announced; and without waiting to be invited, he entered the room. "I
have come to fetch the hormad called Tor-dur-bar," he said. "Send for him
without delay."
"This is an order from the Council of the Seven Jeds," said the officer. He was
a sullen, arrogant fellow; doubtless one of the red captives into whose skull
the brain of a hormad had been grafted.
Ras Thavas shrugged and pointed at me. "This is Tor-dur-bar," he said.
CHAPTER X
I FIND JANAI
SEVEN OTHER HORMADS were lined up with me before the dais on which sat the seven
jeds. I was, perhaps, the ugliest of them all. They asked us many questions. It
was, in a way, a crude intelligence test, for they wished hormads above the
average in intelligence to serve in this select body of monstrous guardsmen. I
was to learn that they were becoming a little appearance conscious, also; for
one of the jeds looked long at me, and then waved me aside.
"We do not want such a hideous creature in the guards," he said.
I looked around at the other hormads in the chamber, and really couldn't see