"I realize it perfectly," he snapped, "and I see nothing to be deplored in the fact. It means that in a hundred million years man will be developing in brain-capacity and will care nothing for the development of body. To you two crude beings, of what is to me the past, this seems terrible; but to me it is desirable and natural. Turn on the rays again!"
"Don't do it. Art!" cried Dutton. "This madness has gone far enough!"
Pollard's great eyes surveyed us with cold menace. "You will turn on the rays," his thin voice ordered deliberately. "If you do not, it will be but the work of a moment for me to annihilate both of you and go on with this alone."
"You'd kill us?" I said dumfoundedly. "We two, two of your best friends?"
His narrow mouth seemed to sneer. "Friends? I am millions of years past such irrational emotions as friendship. The only emotion you awaken in me is a contempt for your crudity. Turn on the rays!"
THE BRAIN MONSTER
His eyes blazed as he snapped the last order, and as though propelled by a force outside myself, I closed the switch.
The shaft of glowing force again hid him from our view.
Of our thoughts during the following quarter-hour I can say nothing, for both Dutton and I were so rigid with awe and horror as to make our minds chaotic. I shall never forget, though, that first moment after the time had passed and I had again switched off the mechanism.
The change had continued, and Pollard — I could not call him that in my own mind — stood in the cube-chamber as a shape the sight of which stunned our minds.