Chapter 36

A large eucalyptus tree towered above Tarzan and Captain Mors. There were several on this island but this one sustained their attention due to the many minute figures they saw around it. This tree appears to have been specially planted in a garden whose fence had long fallen into fragments. There was an enclosed greenhouse neaby that seemed part of a larger complex, but it was the eucalyptus that held the two investigaters' curiosity.

Gum nuts were strewn over the ground but these were empty; it was the ones on the branches that had moving pink organisms in them. Mors placed a magnifying glass over a low hanging nut. The figure sleeping inside was humanoid as was the many little figures dancing and playing in the garden. Through the magnifying glass Mors and Tarzan could make out minute humanoid figures jumping from one blade of grass to another like pixies; others were nestling in flower buds; some used large leaves as slides while other climbed up and down the tree.

There was a childlike nature to all of them, even in the larger ones that showed up. The magnifying glass was not required to observe them; they were roughly the size of a pinky finger, and they wore gum nut caps on their heads. A shrill whistle from them, that Mors and Tarzan could just barely hear, summoned a little horse to enter the garden. It was an brown eohippus and it stopped right next to the minute figures. Ten of the little humanoids leaped on to the equine back and seized a handful of fur. At a signal, the little horse galloped off into the wilderness with its many exuberant riders.

Tarzan and Mors moved to the greehouse, having sated their curiosity over the gumnut babies. The entrance was not locked, it just had a complicated opening mechanism that Mors figured out easily.

"Why do you think they did this?" Asked Mors.

"To keep Zinj apes out." Answered Tarzan as he closed the door behind him.

Several garden beds were inside, all had the same type of sprout. Mors grabbed one and yanked it out of the soil. The large root dangling from the sprout had vague human features but was inanimate.

"Mandrake roots" Said Mors as he pressed the plant back into the dirt.

A creak at the far door had both League members rushing the entering presence. Tarzan seized the man while Mors kept the door open. The fear struck man was a tall tubby man in a lab coat; Mors quietened him down as he ushered him back into the complex. Amidst a very putrid smell was the sight of unwashed bathtub shaped vats with stagnant goo in them; eight foot tall glass booths containing decomposing human sized figures and bloodied tables where dissections had clearly been done.

"You're Captain Mors." Said the lab coated man in German. "The Luftpirate."

"Yes and I would like an explanation."

"Well then; I am glad your with us. My name is Professor Jakob ten Brinken."

Mors had heard the name, he was a geneticist who, during the prewar years, conducted biological experiments involving criminals and prostitutes. The end results did not go well for him. Right now he was eyeing Lord Greystoke up and down.

"Who do we have here?" He asked.

"This is Tarzan of the Apes." Answered Mors.

"Well well." Said Jakob. "He is a fine specimen. A man of nurtured primordial savagery and brilliant musculature."

Tarzan did not understand the German language, he was incensed from hearing it and this German professor was ogling him like a prize fur. When a curious hand reached out to touch him, the primordial aggression could no longer be supressed; Tarzan's hand gripped Jakob's throat and would've crushed the life out of him had not Mors bid the ape man to let him go.

Professor Brinken recovered his breathing seconds after his throat was released.

"Wow." He coughed out. "Such strength, such savagery. I could do wonders with him."

"We will talk about that later." Said Mors. "Now I want you to explain what this laboratory is for."

"This facility is where we tried to create life. There have been several unsuccessful attempts to play God here. Totenkopf is obsessed with with creating perfect human beings. No experiment done here came close to achieving that.

"See those tubs with the smelly liquid in them?"

Mors indicated the positive while translating the words into English for Tarzan.

"They are biological culture vats. The proteins mixed were supposed to come together and form a living person. That was a failure.

"Those cylinders contained recently deceased but intact people. They were immersed in conductive fluid and then charged with electrical current to jump start their lives again. Another failure.

"We even tried stitching subjects back together on those tables. You can guess how that went."

"And the eucalyptus tree?" Asked Mors.

"Aah. You have seen the gumnut babies?" Jakob said rhetorically. "They were a success. We created life but those homunculi were useless to us. We shipped a tree over to Fremantle Australia. It was planted in the outback, so now the Australian bush will be infested with gumnut babies. We kept the tree outside as a reminder of our achievments."

"Why the mandrake garden?" Asked Mors.

"My early scientific work involved mandrakes. I only grow them as a hobby now. Totenkopf has found less and less use for my style of work. His achievements have gone way beyond my abilities. I am now just a caretaker for this disused laboratory."

"Did not you create life Professor?" Mors inquired. "Did you not create the woman, Alraune?"

A deep depression seemed to come over Jakob. "Oh. Alraune. She left."

"You mentioned Homunculi professor. Where are the big ones?" Asked Mors.

Jakob ten Brinken took a while to come out of his gloom. "The other scientists made those. The homunculi plantation is just outside this window."

He opened a set of shutters and revealed a panoramic sight that reminded Mors of the Hell depictions in Dante's Inferno. Tarzan winced at the spectacle of a red and pink field. Red like the color of blood and pink like swollen flesh. A little white was there, the color of denuded bone.

It was a field honeycombed with rectangular pits much like graves. There were no tombstones, just markers. All one hundred pits had organic matter heaving and pulsating, some even expanding above the rim. Each pit had what appeared to be an artery connected to it, feeding nutrients to the organism inside.

Men in red coveralls and red helmets patrolled the field ready for action. They could pass for demons.

A rupture at one of the pits was doubled with the roar of a homunculus; it had torn through its womb membrane to feel its first touch of fresh air and sun warmth. This was one of the abominations that terrorised the Western Front. The men in red were clearly wranglers, they approached the newborn horror that was dripping wet with its own placenta. They seized him and pulled him out of the pit, he had already torn free of his umbilical cords. He gave the wranglers little trouble, Jakob informed the onlookers that sedatives were included in the homunculis' nutrition leading up to birth.

The homunculi were lead into a tunnel after birth were they would be conditioned for service on the battlefield.

Mors and Tarzan watched several more such births: one required the wranglers to tear the monster away from his umbilical cord; another was born too small, the wranglers put him down with a syringe; two tore free of their wombs at the same time, the wranglers easily managed one each.

Pit quality was also monitored by the men in red; they could recommend added or reduced nutrients for a particular subject.

The last birth the League members witnessed showed them that it doesn't always go smoothly. When a wrangler approached a particularly loud newborn, it was clear that the sedatives didn't take. The homunculus jumped from his pit and pounced on the man; giving a savage roar as he ripped the flesh from his torso and bit away the organs from his throat before being shot several times by a stationed rifleman.

Mors closed the shutters.