Arlen crept closer to the scene. He could see the Venusians plainly now. Two of them had three toes, while one had five. The five-toed one was Gheal.
Renzu stood before them, grasping his cane. He would make sharp commands and the Venusians would rise. If they disobeyed, he would strike them with the cane. They would shriek with pain. At last these maneuvers ceased and Renzu turned to McFerson.
"They have to be taught everything," he said. "They have no reflex actions, no emotions, no instinct—nothing that the lowest creatures on earth may have. Yet they have everything that makes those things in the creatures of the earth."
McFerson did not reply. He was watching with staring eyes; eyes filled with horror.
Renzu reached behind a rock. He drew what appeared to be a human skeleton from the shadow. As Arlen looked a second time, he saw that it was not a human skeleton, but an imitation built of the silver rods and wires that Renzu had transported to Venus. The truth was dawning on Arlen, but it was unnecessary now, for Renzu was explaining.
"I have created life, McFerson. I have moulded a human likeness out of protoplasm and fitted it over bones of silver. An electrical device I have made starts the biological processes going and the protoplasm, working with chemical exactitude, reforms itself into glands, organs, muscles and nerves. The product is a beast, inferior to man but superior to the highest animal on earth, except that he is totally devoid of such things as reflexes, instincts, emotions and other survival psychological processes."
As he spoke, Renzu was moulding some of the protoplasm over the framework of bones. Arlen understood now why the silver rods had protruded from the Venusian he had found on the beach. Those pieces of silver had been the creature's bones.
"I made four of the creatures on my previous expedition. Brooks helped me construct three of them, including the creature that attacked and killed Arlen on the beach. I made Gheal myself. Gheal was a masterpiece. He was almost, but not quite human. That is why I took him to earth with me."
"You're inhuman, Renzu!" McFerson managed to say. "You're less human than Gheal!"
"Gheal was more human than you think, McFerson. Brooks, you know, was killed by one of his creations. The same monster that killed Arlen accounted for him. Yet that monster, in some ways, was above average. At least he had the beginnings of an instinct. He wanted to kill. After Brooks was killed, I used his bones for Gheal's skeleton."