Irish Cream and Chocolate Cheesecake
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I was soon appraisedimageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> border="0"
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of the subject of their conversation, as, calling to Sola, Tars Tarkas
signed for her to send me to him. I had by this time mastered the
intricacies of walking under Martian conditions, and quickly responding to
his command I advanced to the side of the incubator where the warriors
stood.
As I reached their side a glance showed me
that all but a very few eggs had hatched, the incubator being fairly alive
with the hideous little devils. They ranged in height from three to four
feet, and were moving restlessly about the enclosure as though searching
for food.
As I came to a halt before him, Tars Tarkas pointed
over the incubator and said, "Sak." I saw that he wanted me to repeat my
performance of yesterday for the edification of Lorquas Ptomel, and, as I
must confess that my prowess gave me no little satisfaction, I responded
quickly, leaping entirely over the parked chariots on the far side of the
incubator. As I returned, Lorquas Ptomel grunted something at me, and
turning to his warriors gave a few words of command relative to the
incubator. They paid no further attention to me and I was thus permitted
to remain close and watch their operations, which consisted in breaking an
opening in the wall of the incubator large enough to permit of the exit of
the young Martians.
On either side of this opening
the women and the younger Martians, both male and female, formed two solid
walls leading out through the chariots and quite away into the plain
beyond. Between these walls the little Martians scampered, wild as deer;
being permitted to run the full length of the aisle, where they were
captured one at a time by the women and older children; the last in the
line capturing the first little one to reach the end of the gauntlet, her
opposite in the line capturing the second, and so on until all the little
fellows had left the enclosure and been appropriated by some youth or
female. As the women caught the young they fell out of line and returned
to their respective chariots, while those who fell into the hands of the
young men were later turned over to some of the women.
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I saw that the ceremony, if it could be dignifiedThe work of rearing young, green Martians consists
by such a name, was over, and seeking out Sola I found her in our chariot
with a hideous little creature held tightly in her
arms.
solely in teaching them to talk, and to use the weapons of warfare with
which they are loaded down from the very first year of their lives. Coming
from eggs in which they have lain for five years, the period of
incubation, they step forth into the world perfectly developed except in
size. Entirely unknown to their mothers, who, in turn, would have
difficulty in pointing out the fathers with any degree of accuracy, they
are the common children of the community, and their education devolves
upon the females who chance to capture them as they leave the
incubator.
Their foster mothers may not even have
had an egg in the incubator, as was the case with Sola, who had not
commenced to lay, until less than a year before she became the mother of
another woman's offspring. But this counts for little among the green
Martians, as parental and filial love is as unknown to them as it is
common among us. I believe this horrible system which has been carried on
for ages is the direct cause of the loss of all the finer feelings and
higher humanitarian instincts among these poor creatures. From birth they
know no father or mother love, they know not the meaning of the word home;
they are taught that they are only suffered to live until they can
demonstrate by their physique and ferocity that they are fit to live.
Should they prove deformed or defective in any way they are promptly shot;
nor do they see a tear shed for a single one of the many cruel hardships
they pass through from earliest infancy.