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diff --git a/22527-h/22527-h.htm b/22527-h/22527-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc1225f --- /dev/null +++ b/22527-h/22527-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4403 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beyond the Vanishing Point, by Ray Cummings + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + h1 { + text-align: center; + text-indent: -6em; + padding-left: 2em; + margin-bottom: 3em; + clear: both; + } + + h2 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; + } + + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } + + + .trans1 {border: solid 1px; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: left;} + + a:link {text-decoration:none;} + a:visited {text-decoration:none;} + + ul {list-style-type: none} + li {font-size: .9em;} + .cpoem {width: 25em; margin: 0 auto;} + + .head1 {text-align: center; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;margin-top: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + + .publ1 {font-size: smaller; text-align: center; margin-top: 7em;} + .publ2 {font-size: smaller; text-align: center;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Beyond the Vanishing Point, by Raymond King Cummings + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Beyond the Vanishing Point + +Author: Raymond King Cummings + +Release Date: September 6, 2007 [EBook #22527] +Last updated: January 22, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<p class="head1">THEY OPENED THE PANDORA'S BOX<br /> +OF ATOMIC TRAVEL</p> + + +<p>When George Randolph first caught sight of Orena, +he was astounded by its gleaming perfection. Here were +hills and valleys, lakes and streams, glowing with the +light of the most precious of metals. And, more astonishing +than that, it was a world of <i>miniature</i> perfection—an +infinitely tiny universe within a golden atom!</p> + +<p>But for Randolph it was also a world aglow with +danger. Somewhere in its tiny vastness were the friends +he had to rescue. Captives of a madman, they had been +reduced to native Orena size; to return to Earth they +needed the growth capsules Randolph was bringing +them. It was up to Randolph to find them—and quickly—for +the longer they stayed tiny, the closer they came to +passing BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT!</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="trans1"><p><b>Transcriber's Note:</b><br /> + +This etext was first published in <i>Astounding Stories</i> March 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. +Minor spelling and typographical errors +have been corrected without note.</p> + +<p>A table of contents, though not present in the original text, has been provided below:</p> + +<ul> + +<li><a href="#CAST_OF_CHARACTERS">CAST OF CHARACTERS</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></li> + +</ul> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="head1"><a name="CAST_OF_CHARACTERS" id="CAST_OF_CHARACTERS"></a>CAST OF CHARACTERS</p> + + +<div class="cpoem"><p class="head1">Franz Polter</p> + +<p>He found a gold mine in a land where there was no +gold.</p> + + +<p class="head1">Dr. Kent</p> + +<p>His scientific studies could mean life or death to an +entire universe!</p> + + +<p class="head1">George Randolph</p> + +<p>He crossed the border into Canada, and found himself +in another world.</p> + + +<p class="head1">Alan Kent</p> + +<p>Twenty feet tall, or two inches high—which should he +be?</p> + + +<p class="head1">Glora</p> + +<p>She was only as large as a thumbnail, but she carried +a gigantic secret.</p> + + +<p class="head1">Babs Kent</p> + +<p>Did she live in a golden cage or a magnificent palace?</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>BEYOND THE<br /> +VANISHING POINT</h1> + + +<h2>by<br /> +RAY CUMMINGS</h2> + + +<p class="publ1">ACE BOOKS, INC.<br /> +23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="publ2">BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT<br /> + +Copyright ©, 1958, by Ace Books, Inc.<br /> + +All Rights Reserved</p> + +<p class="publ1">Printed in U.S.A.</p> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>It was shortly after noon of December 31, 1970, when +the series of weird and startling events began which took +me into the tiny world of an atom of gold, beyond the vanishing +point, beyond the range of even the highest-powered +electric-microscope. My name is George Randolph. I was, +that momentous afternoon, assistant chemist for the Ajax +International Dye Company, with main offices in New York +City.</p> + +<p>It was twelve-twenty when the local exchange call-sorter +announced Alan's connection from Quebec.</p> + +<p>"Hello, George? Look here, you've got to come up here +at once. Chateau Frontenac, Quebec. Will you come?"</p> + +<p>I could see his face imaged in the little mirror on my +desk; the anxiety, tenseness in his voice, was duplicated in +his expression.</p> + +<p>"Well—" I began.</p> + +<p>"You must, George. Babs and I need you. See here...."</p> + +<p>He tried at first to make it sound like an invitation for a +New Year's Eve holiday. But I knew it was not that. Alan +and Barbara were my best friends. They were twins, +eighteen years old. I felt that Alan would always be my best +friend; but for Babs, my hopes, longings, went far deeper, +though as yet I had never brought myself to the point of +telling her so.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to come, Alan. But—"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You've got to George! I can't tell you everything over +the public air. But I've seen <i>him</i>: He's diabolical. I know +it now!"</p> + +<p><i>Him</i>! It could only mean, of all the world, one person!</p> + +<p>"He's here!" he went on. "Near here. We saw him today! +I didn't want to tell you, but that's why we came. It seemed +a long chance, but it's he, I'm positive!"</p> + +<p>I was staring at the image of Alan's eyes; there was horror +in them. And his voice too. "God, George, it's weird! Weird, +I tell you. His looks—he—oh I can't tell you now! Only, come!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I was busy at the office in spite of the holiday season, +but I dropped everything and went. By one o'clock that +afternoon I was wheeling my little sport Midge from its cage +on the roof of the Metropole building, and went into the air.</p> + +<p>It was a cold gray afternoon with the feel of coming snow. +I made a good two hundred and fifty miles at first, taking +the northbound through-traffic lane which today the meteorological +conditions had placed at an altitude of 6,200 feet.</p> + +<p>Flying is largely automatic. There was not enough traffic +to bother me. The details of leaving the office so hastily had +been too engrossing for thought of Alan and Babs. But now, +in my little pit at the controls, my mind flung ahead. They +had located him. That meant Franz Polter, for whom we +had been searching nearly four years. And my memory went +back into the past with vivid vision....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Kents, four years ago, were living on Long Island. +Alan and Babs were fourteen at the time, and I was seventeen. +Even then Babs was something kind of special to me. +I lived in a neighboring house that summer and saw them +every day.</p> + +<p>To my adolescent mind a thrilling mystery hung upon +the Kent family. The mother was dead. Dr. Kent, father of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +Alan and Babs, maintained a luxurious home, with only a +housekeeper and no other servant. Dr. Kent was a retired +chemist. He had, in his home, a laboratory in which he was +working upon some mysterious problem. His children did +not know what it was, nor, of course, did I. And none of us +had ever been in the laboratory, except that when occasion +offered we stole surreptitious peeps.</p> + +<p>I recall Dr. Kent as a kindly, iron-gray haired gentleman. +He was stern with the discipline of his children; but he +loved them, and was indulgent in many ways. They loved +him; and I, an orphan, began looking upon him almost as a +father. I was interested in chemistry. He knew it, and did +his best to help and encourage me in my studies.</p> + +<p>There came an afternoon in the summer of 1966, when +arriving at the Kent home, I ran upon a startling scene. The +only other member of the household was a young fellow of +twenty-five, named Franz Polter. He was a foreigner, born, +I understood, in one of the Balkan Protectorates; he was +here, employed by Dr. Kent as laboratory assistant.</p> + +<p>He had been with the Kents, at this time, two years. Alan +and Babs didn't like him, nor did I. He must have been a +clever, skillful chemist. No doubt he was. But he was, to us, +repulsive. A hunchback, with a short, thick body; dangling +arms that suggested a gorilla; barrel chest; a lump set askew +on his left shoulder, and his massive head planted down with +almost no neck. His face was rugged in feature; a wide +mouth, a high-bridged heavy nose; and above the face a +great shock of wavy black hair. It was an intelligent face; +in itself, not repulsive.</p> + +<p>But I think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was +always something sinister about him, that had nothing to do +with his deformity.</p> + +<p>When I came, that afternoon, Babs and Polter were under +a tree on the Kent lawn. Babs, at fourteen, with long black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +braids down her back, bare-legged and short-skirted in a +summer sport costume, was standing against the tree with +Polter facing her. They were about the same height. To my +youthful imaginative mind rose the fleeting picture of a +young girl in a forest menaced by a gorilla.</p> + +<p>I came upon them suddenly. I heard Polter say:</p> + +<p>"But I lof you. And you are almos' a woman. Some day +you lof me."</p> + +<p>He put out his thick hand and gripped her shoulder. She +tried to twist away. She was frightened, but she laughed.</p> + +<p>"You—you're crazy!"</p> + +<p>He was suddenly holding her in his arms, and she was +fighting him. I dashed forward. Babs was always a spunky +sort of girl. In spite of her fear now, she kept on struggling, +and she shouted:</p> + +<p>"You—let me go, you—you hunchback!"</p> + +<p>He did let her go; but in a frenzy of rage he hauled back +his hand and struck her in the face. I was upon him the +next second. I had him down on the lawn, punching him; +but though at seventeen I was a reasonably husky lad, the +hunchback with his thick, hairy gorilla arms proved much +stronger. He heaved me off. The commotion had brought +Alan and without waiting to find out what the trouble was, +he jumped on Polter. Between us, I think we would have +beaten him pretty badly. But the housekeeper summoned +Dr. Kent and the fight was over.</p> + +<p>Polter left for good within an hour. He did not speak to +any of us. But I saw him as he put his luggage into the +taxi which Dr. Kent had summoned. I was standing silently +nearby with Babs and Alan. The look he flung us as he +drove away carried an unmistakable menace—the promise +of vengeance. And I think now that in his warped and +twisted mind he was telling himself that he would some +day make Babs regret that she had repulsed his love.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>What happened that night none of us ever knew. Dr. +Kent worked late in his laboratory; he was there when Alan +and Babs and the housekeeper went to bed. He had written +a note to Alan; it was found on his desk in a corner of the +laboratory next morning, addressed in care of the family +lawyer to be given Alan in the event of his death. It said +very little. Described a tiny fragment of gold quartz rock +the size of a walnut which would be found under the giant +microscope in the laboratory; and told Alan to give it to the +American Scientific Society to be guarded and watched very +carefully.</p> + +<p>This note was found, but Dr. Kent had vanished! There +had been a midnight marauder. The laboratory was on the +lower floor of the house. Through one of its open windows, +so the police said, an intruder had entered. There was +evidence of a struggle, but it must have been short, because +neither Babs, Alan, the housekeeper, nor any of the neighbors +had heard anything. And the fragment of golden quartz was +gone!</p> + +<p>The police investigation came to nothing. Polter was found +in New York. He withstood the police questions. There was +nothing except suspicion upon which he could be held, and +he was finally released. Immediately thereafter, he disappeared.</p> + +<p>Neither Alan, Babs nor I saw Polter again. Dr. Kent had +never been heard from to this day, four years later when +I flew to join the twins in Quebec. And now Alan told me +that Polter was up there! We had never ceased to believe +that Dr. Kent was alive, and that Polter was the midnight +marauder. As we grew older, we began to search for Polter. +It seemed to us, that if we could once get our hands on +him, we could drag from him the truth which the police +had failed to get.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<p>The call of a traffic director in mid-Vermont brought +me back from these memories. My buzzer was clanging; +a peremptory halting signal day-beam came darting up at +me from below. It caught me and clung. I shouted down +at it.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" I gave my name and number and +all the details in one breath. Above everything I had no +wish to be halted now. "What's the matter? I haven't +done anything wrong."</p> + +<p>"The hell you haven't," the director roared. "Come +down to three thousand. That lane's barred."</p> + +<p>I dove obediently and his beam followed me. "Once +more, like that, young fellow—" But he went busy with +somebody else and I didn't hear the end of his threat.</p> + +<p>I crossed into Maine in mid-afternoon. It was already +twilight. The sky was solid lead and the landscape all up +through here was gray-white with snow in the gathering +darkness. I passed the City of Jackman, crossing full over +it to take no chances of annoying the border officials; and +a few miles further, I dropped to the glaring lights of +International Inspection Field. The formalities were soon +finished. I was ready to take-off when Alan rushed at me.</p> + +<p>"George! I thought I could connect here." He gripped +me. He was wild-eyed, incoherent. He waved his taxiplane +away. "I'm going with you, George. I'm almost out of my +mind. I can't—I don't know what's happened to her. She's +gone, now—"</p> + +<p>"Who's gone? Babs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." He pushed me into my plane and climbed in +after me. "Don't talk. Get us up! I'll tell you then. I +shouldn't have left."</p> + +<p>When we were up in the air, I swung on him. "What +are you talking about? Babs gone?"</p> + +<p>I could feel myself shuddering with a nameless horror.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know what I'm talking about, George. I'm +about crazy. The Quebec police think I am, anyway. I've +been raising hell with them for an hour. Babs is gone! I can't +find her. I don't know where she is."</p> + +<p>He finally calmed down enough to tell me what happened. +Shortly after his radiophone to me in New York, +he had missed Babs. They had had lunch in the huge +hotel and then walked on the Dufferin Terrace—the famous +promenade outside looking down over the Lower City, +the great sweep of the St. Lawrence River and the gray-white +distant Laurentian mountains.</p> + +<p>"I was to meet her inside. I went in ahead of her. But +she didn't come. I went back to the Terrace but she was +gone. She wasn't in our rooms. Nor the library, the lobby—anywhere."</p> + +<p>But it was afternoon, in the public place of a civilized +city. In the daylight of the Dufferin Terrace, beside the +long ice toboggan slide, under the gaze of skaters on the +ice-rink and several hundred holiday merrymakers, a young +girl could hardly be murdered, or kidnapped, without +attracting attention! The Quebec police thought the young +American unduly excited about his sister, who was missing +only an hour. They would do what they could, if by dark +she had not rejoined him. They suggested that doubtless +the young lady had gone shopping.</p> + +<p>"Maybe she did," I agreed. But in my heart, I felt differently. +"She'll be waiting for us in the Hotel when we get +there, Alan."</p> + +<p>"But I'm telling you we saw Polter this morning. He +lives here—not thirty miles from Quebec. We saw him on +the Terrace after breakfast. Recognized him immediately +of course."</p> + +<p>"Did he see you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. He was lost in the crowd in a minute.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +But I asked a young French fellow if he knew him. He +did know him, as Frank Rascor. That must be the name +he wears now. He's a famous man up here—well known, +immensely rich. I didn't know if he saw us or not. What +a fool I was to leave Babs alone, even for a minute."</p> + +<p>We were speeding over a white-clad valley with a little +frozen river winding down its middle. Night had almost come. +The leaden sky was low above us. It began snowing. The +lights of the small villages along the river were barely visible.</p> + +<p>"Can you land us, Alan?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, surely. At the Municipal Field just beyond the +Citadel. We can get to the Hotel in five minutes."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It was a flight of only half an hour. During it, Alan told +me about Polter. The hunchback, known now as Frank +Rascor, owned a mine in the Laurentians, some thirty +miles from Quebec City—a fabulously productive mine +of gold. It was an anomaly that gold should be produced +in this region. No vein of gold-bearing rock had been found, +except the one on Polter's property. Alan had seen a +newspaper account of the strangeness of it; and on a +hunch had come to Quebec, being intrigued by the description +of the mine owner. He had seen Frank Rascor on +the Dufferin Terrace, and recognized him as Polter.</p> + +<p>Again my thoughts went back into the past. Had Polter +stolen that missing fragment of golden quartz the size of a +walnut which had been beneath Dr. Kent's microscope? We +always thought so. Dr. Kent had some secret, some great +problem upon which he was working. Polter, his assistant, +had evidently known, or partially known, its details. And +now, four years later, Polter was immensely rich, with a +"gold mine" in mountains where there was no other evidence +of gold!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>I seemed to see some connection. Alan, I knew, was groping +with a dim idea, so strange he hardly dared voice it.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, it's weird, George. The sight of him. Polter—heavens, +one couldn't mistake that build—and his face, his +features, just the same as when we knew him."</p> + +<p>"Then what's so weird?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"His age." There was a queer solemn hush in Alan's voice. +"George, when we knew Polter, he was about twenty-five, +wasn't he? Well, that was four years ago. But he isn't twenty-nine +now. I swear it is the same man, but he isn't around +thirty. Don't ask me what I'm talking about. I don't know. +But he isn't thirty. He's nearer fifty! Unnatural! Weird! I +felt it, and so did Babs, just that brief look we had of him."</p> + +<p>I didn't answer. My attention was on managing the plane. +The lights of Levis were under us. Beyond the City cliffs, +the St. Lawrence lay in its deep valley; the Quebec lights, +the light-dotted ramparts with the Terrace and the great +fortresslike Hotel showed across the river.</p> + +<p>"Better take the stick, Alan. I don't know where the field +is. And don't you worry about Babs. She'll be back by now."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But she was not. We went to the two connecting rooms +in the tower of the Hotel which Alan and Babs had engaged. +We inquired with half a dozen phone calls. No one had seen +or heard from her. The Quebec police were sending a man +up to talk with Alan.</p> + +<p>"Well, we won't be here," Alan called to me. He was +standing by the window in Babs' room; he was trembling +too much to use the phone. I hung up the receiver and went +though the connecting door to join him.</p> + +<p>Babs' room! It sent a pang through me. A few of her +garments were lying around. A negligee was laid out on the +large bed. A velvet boudoir doll—she had always loved them—stood +on the dresser. Upon this Hotel room, in one day, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +had impressed her personality. Her perfume was in the air. +And now she was gone.</p> + +<p>"We won't be here," Alan was repeating. He gripped me at +the window. "Look." In his hand was an ugly-looking, smokeless, +soundless automatic of the Essen type. "And I've got +another one for you. Brought them with me."</p> + +<p>His face was white and drawn, but his hands had steadied. +The tremble was gone out of his voice.</p> + +<p>"I'm going after him, George! Now! Understand that? Now? +His place is only thirty miles from here, out there in the +mountains. You can see it in the daylight—a wall around +his property and a stone castle which he built in the middle +of it. A gold mine? Hell!"</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be seen now out of the window but +the snow-filled darkness, the blurred lights of Lower Quebec +and the line of dock lights five hundred feet below us.</p> + +<p>"Will you fly me, George?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>I was the one trembling now; the cool feel of the automatic +which Alan thrust into my hand seemed suddenly to +crystallize Babs' peril. I was here in her room, with the +scent of her perfume around me, and this deadly weapon +was needed! But the trembling was gone in a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, Alan. No use talking to the police. I gave +them all the information—a description of her, what you said +she was wearing. No sense dragging Polter's name into it, +with nothing tangible to go on. The police won't ransack the +castle of a rich man just because you can't find your sister. +Come on. You can tell me what this place is like as we go."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Bundled in our flying suits we hurried from the Hotel, +climbed the Citadel slope and in ten minutes were in the air. +The wind sucked at us. The snow now was falling with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +thick, huge flakes. Directed by Alan, I headed out over this +ice-filled St. Lawrence, past the frozen Ile d'Orleans, toward +Polter's mysterious mountain castle.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Alan burst out, "I know what father's secret +was! I can piece it together now, from little things that +were meaningless when I was a kid. He invented the electro-microscope. +You know that. The infinitely small fascinated +him. I remember he once said that if we could see far +enough down into smallness, we would come upon human +life!"</p> + +<p>Alan's low, tense voice was more vehement than I had +ever heard it before. "It's clear to me now, George. That +little fragment of golden quartz which he wanted me to be +so careful of contained a world with human inhabitants! +Father knew it, or suspected it. And I think the chemical +problem on which he was working aimed for some drug. +I know it was a drug they were compounding, Polter said +so once, a radioactive drug; I remember listening at the door. +A drug, George, capable of making a human being infinitely +small!"</p> + +<p>I did not answer when momentarily Alan paused. So +strange a thing. My mind whirled with it; struggled to +encompass it. And like the meaningless individual pieces of +a puzzle, dropping so easily into place when the key piece +is fitted, I saw Polter stealing that fragment of gold; abducting +Dr. Kent—perhaps because Polter himself was not fully +acquainted with the secret. And now, Polter up here with +a fabulously rich "gold mine." And Babs, abducted by him, +to be taken—where?</p> + +<p>It set me shuddering.</p> + +<p>"That's what it was," Alan reiterated. "And Polter, here +now with what he calls a 'mine.' It isn't a mine, it's a laboratory! +He's got father too, hidden God knows where! And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +now Babs. We've got to get them, George! The police can't +help us! It's just you and me, to fight this thing. And it's +diabolical!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, +between Orleans and the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a +moment showed dimly white through the murk to our left, +a great hanging veil of ice higher than Niagara. Further +ahead, the lights of the little village of St. Anne de Beaupré +were visible with the gray-black towering hills behind them.</p> + +<p>"Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne. +We pass this side of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing +roars like a tower siren."</p> + +<p>I cut in the muffler and switched off our wing-lights. It was +illegal but we were past all thought of that. We were both +desperate; the slow prudent process of acting within the +law had nothing to do with this affair. We both knew it.</p> + +<p>Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this +night blizzard our muffled engine couldn't be heard.</p> + +<p>Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"</p> + +<p>We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead—a wild +mountainous country stretching northward to the foot of +Hudson Bay. The blizzard was roaring out of the North and +we were heading into it. I saw, on what seemed like a dome-shaped +hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level, +a small cluster of lights which marked Polter's property.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Fly over it once, George," Alan said. "Low—we can +chance it. And find a place to land near the walls."</p> + +<p>We presently had it under us. I held the plane at five +hundred feet, and cut our speed to the minimum of twenty +miles an hour facing the gale, though it was sixty or seventy +when we turned. There were a score or two of hooded ground +lights. But there was little reflection aloft, and in the murk +of the snowfall I felt we could escape notice.</p> + +<p>We crossed, turned and went back in an arc following +Polter's curved outer wall. We had a good view of it. A +weird enough looking place, here on its lonely hilltop. No +wonder the wealthy "Frank Rascor" had attained local +prominence!</p> + +<p>The whole property was irregularly circular, perhaps a mile +in diameter covering the almost flat dome of the hilltop. +Around it, completely enclosing it, Polter had built a stone +and brick wall. A miniature of the Great Wall in China! We +could see that it was fully thirty feet high with what evidently +were naked high-voltage wires protecting its top. There were +half a dozen little gates, securely barred, with doubtless a +guard at each of them.</p> + +<p>Within the walls there were several buildings: a few small +stone houses suggesting workmen's dwellings; an oblong +stone structure with smoke funnels which looked like a +smelter; a huge domelike spread of translucent glass over +what might have been the top of a mineshaft. It looked more +like the dome of an observatory—an inverted bowl fully a +hundred feet wide and equally as high, set upon the ground. +What did it cover?</p> + +<p>And there was Polter's residence—a castlelike brick and +stone building with a tower not unlike a miniature of the +Chateau Frontenac. We saw a stone corridor on the ground +connecting the lower floor of the castle with the dome, which +lay about a hundred feet to one side.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>Could we chance landing inside the wall? There was a +dark, level expanse of snow where we could have done it, +but our descending plane doubtless would have been discovered. +But the mile-wide inner area was dark in many +places. Spots of light were at the little wall-gates. There +was a glow all along the top of the wall. Lights were on in +Polter's house; they slanted out in yellow shafts to the +nearby white ground. But for the rest, the whole place was +dark, save a dim glow from under the dome.</p> + +<p>I shook my head at Alan's suggestion that we land inside +the walls. We had circled back and were a mile or so off +toward the river. "The trees—and you saw guards down there. +But that low stretch outside the gate on this side...."</p> + +<p>A plan was coming to me. Heaven knows it was desperate +enough, but we had no alternative. We would land and +accost one of the gate guards. Force our way in. Once +inside the wall, on foot in the darkness of this blizzard, we +could hide; slip up to that dome. Beyond that my imagination +could not go.</p> + +<p>We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of +the gates. We left the plane and plunged into the darkness.</p> + +<p>It was a steady upward slope. A packed snowfield was +underfoot, firm enough to hold our weight, with a foot or so +of loose, soft snow on its top. The falling flakes whirled +around us. The darkness was solid. Our helmeted leather-furred +flying suits were soon shapeless with a gathering white +shroud. We carried our Essens in our gloved hands. The +night was cold, around zero I imagine, though with that +biting wind it felt far colder.</p> + +<p>From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up.</p> + +<p>"There it is, Alan. Easy now! Let me go first." The wind +tore away my words. We could see the narrow rectangle +of bars at the gate, with a glow of light behind them.</p> + +<p>"Hide your gun, Alan." I gripped him. "Do you hear me?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Let me go first. I'll do the talking. When he opens the +gate, let me handle him. You—if there are two of them—you +take the other."</p> + +<p>We emerged from the darkness, into the glow of light by +the gate. I had the horrible feeling that a shot would greet +us. A challenge came, at first in French and then in English.</p> + +<p>"Stop! What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"To see Mr. Rascor."</p> + +<p>We were up to the bars now, shapeless hooded bundles +of snow and frost. A man stood in the doorway of a lighted +little cubby behind the bars. A black muzzle in his hand was +leveled at us.</p> + +<p>"He sees no one. Who are you?"</p> + +<p>Alan was pressing at me from behind. I shoved him back, +and took a step forward. I touched the bars.</p> + +<p>"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaperman from Montreal +I must see Mr. Rascor."</p> + +<p>"You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece +is there—out there to the left. Bare your face; he talks to +no one without the face image."</p> + +<p>The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only +his extended hand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible.</p> + +<p>I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't +you open the gate? It's cold out here. We have important +business. We'll wait with you."</p> + +<p>Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby +doorway was the open darkness within the wall. A scuffed +path leading inward from the gate showed for a few feet.</p> + +<p>I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The +Essen in my coat pocket was leveled. But from the cubby +doorway, I saw that the guard was gone! Then I saw him +crouching behind a metal shield. His voice rang out.</p> + +<p>"Stand!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>A light struck my face—a thin beam from a television +sender beside me. It all happened in an instant, so quickly +Alan and I had barely time to make a move. I realized my +image was now doubtless being presented to Polter. He +would recognize me!</p> + +<p>I ducked my head, yelling, "Don't do that!"</p> + +<p>It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I heard +its buzz.</p> + +<p>From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leapt at me. It struck my +hood. There was a heavy sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like +chloroform. I felt my senses going. The cubby room was +turning dark, was roaring.</p> + +<p>I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard +the faint hiss of his Essen, and his choked, horrified voice:</p> + +<p>"George, run! Don't fall!"</p> + +<p>I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went +down, that Alan's inert body was falling on top of me....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I recovered after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria of +wild, drugged dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, +there were dim muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. +Then I knew that I was lying on the ground, and that I +was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat was off. Then I realized +that I was bound and gagged.</p> + +<p>I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped +and with a black gag around his face and in his mouth. We +were in a huge dim open space. Presently, as my vision +cleared, I saw that the dome was overhead. This was a circular, +hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly lighted. The figures +of men were moving about, their great misshapen shadows +shifting with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile +of golden rock—chunks of gold the size of a man's fist, or +his head, and larger, heaped loosely into a mound ten feet +high.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, +twenty feet above the concrete floor, there was a large +hanging electrolier. It cast a circular glow downward. Under +it I saw a low platform raised a foot or two above the ground. +A giant electro-microscope was hung with its twenty foot +cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubes were +glowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A +man sat in a chair on the platform at the microscope's eyepiece.</p> + +<p>I saw all this with a brief glance, then my attention went +to a white stone slab under the giant lense. It rested on +the platform floor, a two-foot square surface of smooth +white marble. A little roped railing a few inches high fenced +it. And in its center lay a fragment of golden quartz the +size of a walnut!</p> + +<p>There was a movement across my line of vision. Two +figures advanced. I recognized both of them. And I strained +at my bonds; mouthed the gag with futile, frenzied effort. +I could no more than writhe; and I couldn't make a sound. +I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared with horror.</p> + +<p>The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the +microscope. And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, +was Babs. They were nearly fifty feet from me, but with the +light over them I could see them clearly. Babs' slim figure +was clad in a long skirted dress—pale blue, now, with the +light on it. Her long black hair had fallen disheveled to her +shoulders. I couldn't see her face. She did not cry out. Polter +was half dragging her as she resisted him; and then abruptly +she ceased struggling.</p> + +<p>I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better."</p> + +<p>They mounted the platform. They were very small and +seemed to be far away. I blinked. Horror surged over me. +Their figures were dwindling as they stood there. Polter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +was saying something to the man at the microscope. Other +men were nearby, watching. All were normal, save Polter +and Babs. A moment passed. Polter was standing by the +chair in which the man at the microscope was sitting. And +Polter's head barely reached its seat! Babs was clinging +to him now. Another moment and they were both tiny +figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking +with swaying steps toward the miniature railing of the +white slab. The white reflection from the slab plainly +illumined them. Polter's arm was around Babs. I had not +realized how small they were until I saw Polter lift the +rope of the little four-inch fence, and he and Babs stooped +and walked under it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from +them in the center of the white surface. They walked unsteadily +toward it. But soon they were running.</p> + +<p>My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something +touch my face! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No +one had noticed my writhing movements, and Alan was +still in drugged unconsciousness. Something tiny and light and +soundless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! I jerked +my head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, +I saw the tiny figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with +a warning gesture to her lips—a human girl in a filmy flowing +robe. Long, pale golden tresses lay on her white shoulders; +her face, small as my little fingernail, colorful as a miniature +painted on ivory, was so close to my eyes that I could see +her expression—warning me not to move.</p> + +<p>There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she +stood, but in a moment she moved out of it. Then I felt +her brush against the back of my head. My ear was near the +ground. A tiny warm hand touched my ear lobe; clung to it. +A tiny voice sounded in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Please do not move your head. You might kill me!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny +voice came again.</p> + +<p>"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>It seemed that Alan was stirring. I felt the tiny hand leave +my ear. I thought that I could hear faint little footfalls as +the girl scampered away, fearful that a sudden movement +by Alan would crush her. I turned cautiously after a moment +and saw Alan's eyes upon me. He too had seen, +with a blurred returning consciousness, the dwindling figures +of Babs and Polter. I followed his gaze. The while +slab with the golden quartz under the microscope seemed +empty. The several men in this huge circular dome-room +were dispersing to their affairs; three of them sat whispering +by what I now saw was a pile of gold ingots stacked crosswise. +But the fellow at the microscope held his place, his +eyes glued to its aperture as he watched the vanishing figures +of Polter and Babs on the rock-fragment.</p> + +<p>Alan was trying to convey something to me. He could +only gaze and jerk his head. I saw behind his head the +figures of the tiny girl on the floor behind him. She wanted +evidently to approach his head, but didn't dare. When for an +instant he was quiet, she ran forward, but at once scampered +back.</p> + +<p>From the group by the ingots, one of the men rose and +came toward us. Alan held still, watching. And the girl,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +Glora, seized the opportunity to come nearer. We both +heard her tiny voice:</p> + +<p>"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are +still unconscious."</p> + +<p>Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows +near us.</p> + +<p>Amazement swept Alan's face; he twisted, mouthed at his +gag. But he saw my eager nod and took his cue from me.</p> + +<p>I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps +approached. A man bent over Alan and me.</p> + +<p>"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, +with a queer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. +"Wake up!"</p> + +<p>Then the footsteps retreated, and when I dared to look, +the man was rejoining his fellows. It was a strange looking +trio. They were heavy-set men in leather jackets and short, +wide knee-length trousers. One wore tight, high boots, and +the others a sort of white buckskin, with ankle straps. All +were bare-headed—round, bullet heads of close-clipped black +hair.</p> + +<p>I suddenly had another startling realization. These men +were not of normal size as I had assumed! They were eight +or ten feet tall at the very least! And they and the pile of +ingots, instead of being close to me, were more distant than +I had thought.</p> + +<p>Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again +at his ear, whispering to him. And then she came to me.</p> + +<p>"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the +pinpoint gleam of what might have been a knife in her +hand. "I will get a little larger. I am too small to cut your +ropes. You lie still, even after I have cut them."</p> + +<p>I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped +backward; but she came again, smiling. The three men +were talking earnestly by the ingots. No one else was near us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear +it at once.</p> + +<p>"When I free you, do not move or they may see that +you are loose. I get larger now—a little larger—and return."</p> + +<p>She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening +to the voices of the three men. Two were talking in a +strange tongue. One called to the man at the microscope, +and he responded. The third man said suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand +that lingo."</p> + +<p>"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up."</p> + +<p>"What we oughta do is kill 'em. Polter's a fool."</p> + +<p>"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long, what +you call three, four hours."</p> + +<p>"And have the Quebec police up here lookin' for 'em? +An' that damn girl he stole off the Terrace. What did he +call her, Barbara Kent?"</p> + +<p>"These two who are drugged, their bodies can be thrown in +a gully down behind St. Anne. That what the doctor plan +to do, I think. Then the police find them—days maybe from +now—and their smashed airship with them."</p> + +<p>Gruesome suggestion!</p> + +<p>The man at the microscope called, "They are almost gone +I can hardly see them any more." He left the platform and +joined the others. And I saw that he was much smaller than +they—about my own size possibly.</p> + +<p>There seemed six men here altogether. Four now, by +the ingots, and two others far across the room where I saw +the dark entrance of the corridor-tunnel which led to +Polter's castle.</p> + +<p>Again I felt a warning hand touch my face, and saw the +figure of Glora standing by my head. She was larger now—about +a foot tall. She moved past my eyes; stood by my +mouth; bent down over my gag. I felt the cautious slide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of the gag. +She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it +through.</p> + +<p>She stood panting from the effort. My heart was pounding +with fear that she would be seen; but the man had turned +the central light off when he left the microscope, and it +was far darker here now than before.</p> + +<p>I moistened my dry mouth. My tongue was thick, but +I could talk.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Glora."</p> + +<p>"Quiet!"</p> + +<p>I felt her hacking at the ropes around my wrists. And +then at my ankles. It took her a long time, but at last I was +free! I rubbed my arms and legs; felt the returning circulation +in them.</p> + +<p>And presently Alan was free. "George, what—" he began.</p> + +<p>"Wait," I whispered. "Easy! Let her tell us what to do."</p> + +<p>We were unarmed. Two, against these six, three of whom +were giants.</p> + +<p>Glora whispered, "Do not move! I have the drugs. But I +can not give them to you when I am still so small. I have +not enough. I will hide—there." Her little arm gestured to +where, near us, half a dozen boxes were piled. "When I am +large as you, I come back. Be ready, quickly to act. I may +be seen. I give you then the drug."</p> + +<p>"But wait," Alan whispered. "Tell us—"</p> + +<p>"The drug to make you large. Large enough to fight these +men. I had planned to do that myself, until I saw you +held captive. That girl of your world the doctor just now +steal, she is friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! But—" A thousand questions were springing in my +mind, but this was no time to ask them. I amended, "Go on! +Hurry! Give us the drug when you can."</p> + +<p>The little figure moved away from us and disappeared.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +Alan and I lay as we had before. But now we could whisper. +We tried to anticipate what would happen; tried to plan, but +that was futile. The thing was too strange, too astoundingly +fantastic.</p> + +<p>How long Glora was gone I don't know. I think, not over +three or four minutes. She came from her hiding place, +crouching this time, and joined us. She was, probably, of +normal Earth size—a small, frail-looking girl something +over five feet tall. We saw now that she was quite young, +still in her teens. We lay staring at her, amazed at her +beauty. Her small oval face was pale, with the flush of +pink upon her cheeks—a face queerly, transcendingly beautiful. +It was wholly human, yet somehow unearthly, as +though unmarked by even the heritage of our Earthly +strifes.</p> + +<p>"Now! I am ready." She was fumbling at her robe. "I +will give you each the same."</p> + +<p>Her gestures were rapid. She flung a quick glance at the +distant men. Alan and I were tense. We could easily +be discovered now, but we had to chance it. We were sitting +erect. Alan murmured:</p> + +<p>"But what do we do? What happens? What—"</p> + +<p>On the palm of her hand were two pink-white pellets. +"Take these—one for each of you. Quickly!"</p> + +<p>Involuntarily we drew back. The thing abruptly was +gruesome, frightening. Horribly frightening.</p> + +<p>"Quickly," she urged. "The drug is what you call highly +radioactive. And volatile. Exposed to the air, it is gone very +soon. You are afraid? No, I assure you it is not harmful."</p> + +<p>With a muttered curse at his own reluctance, Alan seized +the small pellet. I stopped him.</p> + +<p>"Wait!"</p> + +<p>The men momentarily were engaged in a low-voiced, +earnest discussion. I dared to hesitate a moment longer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Glora, where will you be?"</p> + +<p>"Here. Right here. I will hide."</p> + +<p>"We want to go after Mr. Polter," I gestured. "Into the +little piece of golden rock. That's where he went with the +Earth girl, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. My world is there—within an atom there in that +rock."</p> + +<p>"Will you take us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! But later."</p> + +<p>Alan whispered vehemently, "Why not now? We could +get smaller, now."</p> + +<p>But she shook her head. "That is not possible. We would +be seen as we climbed the platform and crossed the white +slab."</p> + +<p>"No," I protested, "not if we get very small, hiding here +first."</p> + +<p>She was smiling, but urgently fearful of this delay. +"Should we get that small, then it would be, from here"—she +gestured toward the microscope—"to there, a journey +of very many miles. Don't you understand?"</p> + +<p>This thing so strange!</p> + +<p>Alan was plucking at me. "Ready, George?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>I put the pellet on my tongue. It tasted slightly sweet, +but seemed to melt quickly and I swallowed it hastily. My +heart, was pounding, but that was apprehension, not the +drug. A thrill of heat ran through my veins as though my +blood were on fire.</p> + +<p>Alan was clinging to me as we sat together. Glora again +had vanished. In the background of my whirling consciousness +the sudden thought hovered that she had tricked +us; done to us something diabolical. But the thought was +swept away in the confused flood of impressions upon me.</p> + +<p>I turned dizzily. "You all right, Alan?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I—I guess so."</p> + +<p>My ears were roaring, the room seemed whirling, but in +a moment that passed. I felt a sudden growing sense of +lightness. A humming was within me—a soundless tingle. +The drug had gone to every tiny microscopic cell in my +body. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with +activity. I know now that it was the exuding volatile gas +of this disintegrating drug. Like an aura it enveloped me, +acted upon my garments.</p> + +<p>I learned later much of the principles of this and its +companion drug but I had no thought for such things now. +The huge dimly illumined room under the dome was swaying. +Then abruptly it steadied. The strange sensations within me +were lessening, or I forgot them, and I became aware of +externals.</p> + +<p>The room was shrinking! As I stared, not with horror now, +but with amazement and a coming triumph, I saw everywhere +a slow, steady, crawling movement. The whole place was +dwindling. The platform, the microscope, were nearer than +before, and smaller. The pile of ingots, and men near there, +were shifting toward me.</p> + +<p>"George! My God—this is weird!"</p> + +<p>I saw Alan's white face as I turned toward him. He was +growing at the same rate as myself evidently, for in all the +scene he only was unchanged.</p> + +<p>We could feel the movement. The floor under us was shifting, +crawling slowly. From all directions it contracted as +though it was being squeezed beneath us. In reality our +expanding bodies were pushing outward.</p> + +<p>The pile of boxes which had been a few feet away, were +thrusting themselves at me. I moved incautiously and knocked +them over. They seemed small now, perhaps half their +former size. Glora was standing behind them. I was sitting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +and she was standing, but across the litter our faces were +level.</p> + +<p>"Stand up!" she murmured. "You all right now. I hide!"</p> + +<p>I struggled to my feet, drawing Alan up with me. Now! +The time for action was upon us! We had already been +discovered. The men were shouting, clambering to their +feet. Alan and I stood swaying. The dome-room had contracted +to half its former size. Near us was a little platform, +chair and microscope. Small figures of men were rushing at +us.</p> + +<p>I shouted, "Alan! Watch yourself!"</p> + +<p>We were unarmed. These men might have automatic +weapons. But evidently they did not. Only knives were in +their hands. The whole place was ringing with shouts. And +then a shrill siren alarm from outside started clanging.</p> + +<p>The first of the men—a few moments before he had seemed +a giant—flung himself upon me. His head was lower than +my shoulders. I met him with a blow of my fist in his face. +He toppled backward; but from one side another figure came +at me. A knife-blade bit into the flesh of my thigh.</p> + +<p>The pain seemed to fire my brain. A madness descended +upon me. It was the madness of abnormality. I saw Alan +with two dwarfed figures clinging to him. But he threw +them off, and they turned and ran.</p> + +<p>The man at my thigh stabbed again, but I caught his +wrist and, as though he were a child, whirled him around +me and flung him away. He landed with a crash against +the shrunken pile of gold nuggets and lay still.</p> + +<p>The place was in a turmoil. Other men were appearing +from outside. But they now stood well away from us. Alan +backed against me. His laugh rang out, half hysterical +with the madness upon him as it was upon me.</p> + +<p>"God! George, look at them! So small!"</p> + +<p>They were now hardly the height of our knees. This was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +now a small circular room, under a lowering concave dome. +A shot came from the group of Pygmy figures. I saw the +small stab of flame, heard the zing of the bullet.</p> + +<p>We rushed, with the full frenzy of madness upon us—enraged +giants. What actually happened I cannot recount. +I recall scattering the little figures; seizing them; flinging +them headlong. A bullet, tiny now, stung the calf of my leg. +Little chairs and tables under my feet were crashing. Alan +was lunging back and forth; stamping; flinging his tiny adversaries +away.</p> + +<p>There were twenty or thirty of the figures here now. I +feared that they might produce more up-to-date weapons. +But my fears were unfounded: soon I saw these figures +making their escape.</p> + +<p>The room was littered with wreckage. I saw that by some +miracle of chance the microscope was still standing, and +I had a moment of sanity.</p> + +<p>"Alan! Watch out! The microscope—the platform! Don't +smash them! And Glora be careful not to hurt her!"</p> + +<p>I suddenly became aware that my head and my shoulders +had struck the dome roof. Why, this was a tiny room! Alan +and I found ourselves backed together, panting in the small +confines of a circular cubby with an arching dome close +over us. At our feet the platform with the microscope over +it hardly reached our boot tops. There was a sudden silence, +broken only by our heavy breathing. The tiny forms of +humans strewn around us were all motionless. The others +had fled.</p> + +<p>Then we heard a small voice. "Here! Take this! Quickly! +You are too large. Quickly!"</p> + +<p>Alan took a step. And sudden panic was on us both. +Glora was here at our feet. We did not dare turn; hardly +dared to move. To change position might have crushed her +now that she had left her hiding place. My leg hit the top<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +of the microscope cylinder. It rocked but did not fall.</p> + +<p>Where was Glora? In the gloom we could not see her. +We were in a panic.</p> + +<p>Alan began, "George, I—"</p> + +<p>The contracting inner curve of the dome bumped gently +against my head. Our panic and confusion turned into cold +fear. The room was closing in to crush us.</p> + +<p>I muttered, "Alan! I'm going out!" I braced myself and +heaved against the side and top curve of the dome. Its +metal ribs and heavy translucent, reinforced glass plates +resisted me. There was an instant when Alan and I were +desperately frightened. We were trapped, to be crushed +in here by our own horrible growth. Then the dome yielded +under our smashing blows. The ribs bent; the plates cracked.</p> + +<p>We straightened, pushed upward and emerged through +the broken dome, with head and shoulders towering into +the outside darkness and the wind and snow of the blizzard +howling around us.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>"Glora—that was horrible!"</p> + +<p>We stood, again in normal size, with the wrecked dome-laboratory +around us. The dome had a great jagged hole +halfway up one of its sides, through which the snow was +falling. The broken bodies strewn around were gruesome.</p> + +<p>Alan repeated, "Horrible, Glora. The power of this drug +is diabolical."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>Glora had grown large after us and had given us the +companion drug. I need not detail the strange sensations +of our dwindling. We were so soon to experience them again!</p> + +<p>We had searched, when still large, all of Polter's grounds. +Some of his men undoubtedly escaped, made off into the +blizzard. How many, we never knew. None of them ever +made themselves known again.</p> + +<p>We were ready to start into the atom. The fragment of +golden quartz still lay under the microscope on the white +square of stone slab. We had hurried with our last preparations. +The room was chilling. We were all inadequately +dressed for such cold.</p> + +<p>I left a note scribbled on a square of paper by the +microscope. With daylight Polter's wrecked place would +be discovered and the police would surely come.</p> + +<p><i>Guard this piece of golden quartz. Take it at once, very +carefully, to the Royal Canadian Scientific Society. Have +it watched day and night. We will return.</i></p> + +<p>I signed it George Randolph. And as I did so, the extra +ordinary aspect of these events swept me anew. Here in +Polter's weird place I had been living in some strange +fantastic realm. But this was the Province of Quebec, in +civilized Canada. These were the Quebec authorities I was +addressing.</p> + +<p>I flung the thoughts away. "Ready, Glora?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Then doubts assailed me. None of Polter's men had gotten +large enough to fight us. Evidently he did not trust them +with the drug. We could well believe that, for the thing +misused, was diabolical beyond human conception. A single +giant, a criminal, a madman, by the power of giant size +alone, could menace and destroy beyond belief. The drug +lost, or carelessly handled, could get loose. Animals, insects +eating it, could roam the Earth, gigantic monsters. Vegetation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +nourished with the drug, might in a day overrun a big city, +burying it with jungle growth!</p> + +<p>How terrible a thing, if the realm of smallness were +suddenly to emerge, consume this awe inspiring drug! +Monsters of the sea, marine organisms, could expand until +even the ocean was too small for them. Microbes of disease, +feeding upon it—</p> + +<p>Alan was prodding me. "We're ready, George."</p> + +<p>"Okay, let's go."</p> + +<p>This was not the largeness we were facing now, but +smallness. I thought of Babs, down there with Polter, beyond +the vanishing point in the realm of infinitely small. They +had been gone an hour at least. Every moment lost now was +adding to Babs' danger.</p> + +<p>Glora sat with us on the platform. Strange little creature! +She was wholly calm now; methodical with her last directions. +There had been no time for her to tell us anything about +herself. Alan had asked her why she had come here and how +she had gotten the drugs. She waved him away.</p> + +<p>"On the way down. Plenty of time then."</p> + +<p>"How long will it take us?" Alan demanded.</p> + +<p>"Not too long if we are careful with managing the trip. +About ten hours."</p> + +<p>And now we were ready to start. She told us calmly:</p> + +<p>"I will give you each your share of the drugs, but then +you take only as I tell you."</p> + +<p>She produced from her robe several small vials a few +inches long. They were tightly stoppered. The feel of them +was cool and sleek; they seemed to be made of some strange, +polished metal. Some of them were tinted black while the +others glowed opalescent. She gave each of us one vial of +each kind.</p> + +<p>"The light ones are for diminishing," she said. "We take +them very carefully, one small pellet only at first."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alan was opening one of his, but she checked him.</p> + +<p>"Wait! The drug evaporates very quickly. I have more +to say. First we sit here together. Then you follow me to +the white slab. We climb upon the little rock."</p> + +<p>She laid her hands on my arms. Her blue eyes regarded +us earnestly. Her manner was naive; childlike. But I could +not mistake her intelligence or the force of character stamped +on her face for all its dainty, ethereal beauty.</p> + +<p>"Alan—" She smiled at him, and tossed back a straying +lock of her hair which was annoying her. "You pay attention, +Alan. You are very young, reckless. You listen. We must +not be separated. You understand that, both of you? We +will be always in that little piece of rock. But there will be +miles of distance. And to be lost in size—"</p> + +<p>What a strange journey upon which we were now starting! +Lost in size?</p> + +<p>"You understand me? Lost in size. If that happens, we +might never find each other. And if we come upon the +Doctor Polter and the girl he holds captive—if we can overtake +them—"</p> + +<p>"We must!" I exclaimed. "And we must get started."</p> + +<p>She showed us which pellet to select. They were of +several sizes, I found. And as she afterward told us, the +larger ones were not only larger but of an intensified strength. +We took the smallest. It was barely a thousandth part of the +strength of the largest. In unison we placed the pellets on +our tongues, and hastily swallowed.</p> + +<p>The first sensations were as before. And, familiar now, they +caused no more than a fleeting discomfort. But I think I +could never get used to the outward strangeness!</p> + +<p>The room in a moment was expanding. I could feel the +platform floor crawling outward beneath me, so that I had +to hitch and change my position as it pulled. We were seated +together, Alan and I on each side of Glora. My fingers were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> +on her arm. It did not change size, but it slowly drew +away with a space opening between us. Overhead, the dome +roof, the great jagged hole there, was receding, lifting, moving +upward and away.</p> + +<p>Glora pulled us to our feet. "We had better start now. +The distance grows very far, so quickly."</p> + +<p>We had been sitting within five feet of the stone slab with +its four inch high railing around it. A chair was by the +microscope eyepiece. As we stood swaying I saw that the chair +was huge, and its seat level with my head. The great barrel-cylinder +of the microscope slanted sixty feet upward. The +dome roof was a distant spread three hundred feet up in the +dimness. The dome-room was a vast arena now.</p> + +<p>Alan and I must have hesitated, confused by the expanding +scene—a slow, steady movement everywhere. Everything +was drawing away from us. Even as we stood together, the +creeping platform floor was separating us.</p> + +<p>A moment passed. Glora was urging us on vehemently:</p> + +<p>"Come! You must not stand there!"</p> + +<p>We started walking. The railing around the slab was knee-high. +The slab itself was a broad, square surface. The +fragment of golden quartz lay in its center. It was now a +jagged lump nearly a foot in diameter.</p> + +<p>The platform seemed to shift as we walked; the railing +hardly came closer as we advanced toward it. Then suddenly +I realized that it was receding. Thirty feet away? No, now +it was more than that—a great, thick rope, waist-high, with +a huge spread of white surface behind it.</p> + +<p>"Faster!" urged Glora. We ran, and reached the railing. +It was higher than our heads. We ran under it, and cut +out upon the white slab—a level surface, larger now than the +whole dome-room had been.</p> + +<p>Glora, like a fawn, ran in advance of us, her robe flying +in the wind. She turned to look back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Faster! Faster, or it will be too hard a climb!"</p> + +<p>Ahead lay a golden mound of rock. It was widening; +raising its top steadily higher. Beyond it and over it was a +vast dim distance. We reached the rock, breathless, winded. +It was a jagged mound like a great fifty-foot butte. We +plunged upon it and began climbing.</p> + +<p>The ascent was steep; precipitous in places. There were +little gullies, which expanded as we climbed up them. It +seemed as if we would never reach the top, but at last we +were there. I was aware that the drug had ceased its action. +The yellow, rocky ground was no longer expanding.</p> + +<p>We came to the summit and stood to get back our breath. +Alan and I gazed with awe upon the top of a rocky hill. +Little buttes and strewn boulders lay everywhere. It was all +naked rock, ridged and pitted, and everywhere yellow-tinged.</p> + +<p>Overhead was distance. I could not call it a sky. A blur +was there—something almost but not quite distinguishable. +Then I thought that I could make out a more solid blur +which might be the lower lens of the microscope above us. +And there were blurred, very distant spots of light, like +huge suns masked by a haze, and I knew that they were +the hooded lights of the laboratory room.</p> + +<p>Before us, over the brink of a five hundred-foot drop, a +great glistening plain stretched into the distance. I seemed +to see where it ended in a murky blur. And far higher than +our hilltop level a horizontal streak marked the rope railing of +the slab.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Alan. "We're here." He gazed behind us, +back across the rocky summit which seemed several hundred +feet across to its opposite brink. He was smiling, but the +smile faded. "Now what, Glora? Another pellet?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not yet. There is a place where we go down. It is +marked in my mind."</p> + +<p>I had a sudden ominous sense that we three were not alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +up here. Glora led us back from the cliff. As we picked our +way among the naked crags, it seemed behind each of them +an enemy might be lurking.</p> + +<p>"Glora, do you know if any of Dr. Polter's men might have +the drug? I mean, do they come in and out of here?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I think not. He lets no one have the +drug. He trusts not anyone. I stole it. I will tell you later. +Much I have to tell you before we arrive."</p> + +<p>Alan made a sudden, sidewise leap, and dashed around a +rock. He came back to us, smiling ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Gets on your nerves, all of this. I had the same idea you +had, George. Might be someone around here. But I guess +not." He took Glora's hand and they walked in advance of +me. "We haven't thanked you yet, Glora," he added.</p> + +<p>"Not needed. I came for help from your world. I followed +the Dr. Polter when he came outward. He has made my world +and my people, his slaves. I came for help. And because +I have helped you, needs no thanks."</p> + +<p>"But we do thank you, Glora." Alan turned his flushed, +earnest face back to me. I thought I had never seen him +so handsome, with his boyish, rugged features and shock +of tousled brown hair. The grimness of adventure was upon +him, but in his eyes there was something else. It was not for +me to see it. That was for Glora; and I think that even then +its presence and its meaning did not escape her.</p> + +<p>We reached a little gully near the center of the hilltop. +It was some twenty feet deep.</p> + +<p>Glora paused. "We descend here."</p> + +<p>The gully was an unmistakable landmark—open at one end, +forty feet long, with the other end terminating in a blind +wall which now loomed above us.</p> + +<p>"A pit is here—a hole. I cannot tell just how large it will +look when we are in this size."</p> + +<p>We found it and stood over it—a foot-wide circular hole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +extending downward. Alan knelt and shoved his hand and +arm into it, but Glora sprang at him.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that!"</p> + +<p>"Why not? How deep is it?"</p> + +<p>She retorted sharply, "The Doctor Polter is ahead of us. +How far away in size, who knows? Do you want to crush +him, and crush that young girl with him?"</p> + +<p>Alan's jaw dropped. "Good Lord!"</p> + +<p>We stood with the little pit before us, and another of the +pellets ready.</p> + +<p>"Now!" said Glora.</p> + +<p>Again we took the drug, a somewhat larger pellet this time. +The familiar sensations began. Everywhere the rocks were +creeping with a slow inexorable movement, the landscape +expanding around us. The gully walls drew back and upward. +In a moment they were cliff walls and we were in a broad +valley.</p> + +<p>We had been standing close together. We had not moved, +except to shift our feet as the expanding ground drew them +apart. I became aware that Alan and Glora were a distance +from me. Glora called:</p> + +<p>"Come, George! We're going down—quickly now."</p> + +<p>We ran to the pit. It had expanded to a great round hole +some six feet wide and equally as deep. Glora let herself +down, peered anxiously beneath her, and dropped. Alan +and I followed. We jammed the pit; but as we stood there, +the walls were receding and lifting.</p> + +<p>I had remarked Glora's downward glance, and shuddered. +Suppose, in some slightly smaller size, Babs had been among +these rocks!</p> + +<p>The pit widened steadily. The movement was far swifter +now. We stood presently in a great circular valley. It seemed +fully a mile in diameter, with huge encircling walls like a +crater rim towering thousands of feet into the air. We ran<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +along the base of one expanding wall, following Glora.</p> + +<p>I noticed now that overhead the turgid murk had turned +into the blue of distance. A sky. It was faintly sky-blue, +and seemed hazy, almost as though clouds were forming. +It had been cold when we started. The exertion had kept +us fairly comfortable; But now I realized that it was far +warmer. This was different air, more humid, and I thought +the smell of moist earth was in it. Rocks and boulders were +strewn here on the floor of this giant valley, and I saw +occasional pools of water. There had been rain recently!</p> + +<p>The realization came with a shock of surprise. This was +a new world! A faint, luminous twilight was around us. And +then I noticed that the light was not altogether coming from +overhead. It seemed inherent to the rocks themselves. They +glowed, very faintly luminous, as though phosphorescent.</p> + +<p>We were now well embarked upon this strange journey. +We seldom spoke. Glora was intent upon guiding us. She +was trying to make the best possible speed. I realized that +it was a case of judgment, as well as physical haste. We +had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited a few +moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred +feet, two hundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours +of arduous descent—if we had lingered until we were a trifle +smaller!</p> + +<p>We took other pellets. We traveled perhaps an hour more. +There were many instances of Glora's skill. We squeezed +into a gully and waited until it widened; we leapt over +expanding caverns; we slid down a smooth yellowish slide +of rocks, and saw it behind and over us, rising to become +a great spreading ramp extending upward into the blue of +the sky. Now, up there, little sailing white clouds were +visible. And down where we stood it was deep twilight, +queerly silvery with the dim light from the luminous rocks, +as though some hidden moon were shining.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p> + +<p>Strange, new world! I suddenly envisaged the full strangeness +of it. Around me were spreading miles of barren, naked +landscape. I gazed off to where, across the rugged plateau we +were traversing, there was a range of hills. Behind and above +them were mountains; serrated tiers; higher and more distant. +An infinite spread of landscape! And, as we dwindled, still +other vast reaches opened before us. I gazed overhead. +Was it—compared to my stature now—a thousand miles, +perhaps even a million miles up to where we had been two +or three hours ago? I thought so.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly I caught the other viewpoint. This was +all only an inch of golden quartz—if one were large enough +to see it that way!</p> + +<p>Alan had been trying to memorize the main topographical +features of our route. It was not as difficult as it seemed at +first. We were always far larger than normal in comparison +to our environment, and the main distinguishing characteristics +of the landscape were obvious—the blind gully, with the +round pit, for instance, or the ramp slide.</p> + +<p>We had been traveling some three or four hours when +Glora suggested a rest. We were at the edge of a broad +canyon. The wall towered several hundred feet above us; +but a few moments before, we had jumped down it with +a single leap!</p> + +<p>The last pellet we had taken had ceased its action. We sat +down to rest. It was a wild, mountainous scene around us, +deep with luminous gloom. We could barely see across the +canyon to its distant cliff wall. The wall beside us had +been smooth, but now it was broken and ridged. There were +ravines in it, and dark holes resembling cave-mouths. One +was near us. Alan gazed at it apprehensively.</p> + +<p>"I say, Glora, I don't like sitting here."</p> + +<p>I had been telling her all we knew of Polter. She listened +quietly, seldom interrupting me. Then she said:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I understand. I tell you now about Polter as I have seen +him."</p> + +<p>She talked for five or ten minutes. I listened, amazed, +awed by what she said.</p> + +<p>But Alan's insistence interrupted her. "Come on, let's get +out of here. That tunnel-mouth, or cave, or whatever it +is—"</p> + +<p>"But we go in there," she protested. "A little tunnel. +That is our way to travel. We are not far from my city now."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Alan felt what once was called a hunch, a premonition, +the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to +us more often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no +time to act upon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused +Alan's apprehension was about a hundred feet away. It was +a ten-foot, yawning hole in the cliff. Perhaps Alan sensed +a movement in there. As I turned to look at it a great, hairy +human arm came out of the opening! Then a shoulder! A +head!</p> + +<p>The giant figure of a man came squeezing through the +hole on his hands and knees! He gathered himself, and as +he stood erect, I saw that he was growing in size! Already +he was twenty feet tall compared to us—a thick-set fellow, +dressed in leather garments, his legs and arms heavily matted +with black hair. He stood swaying, gazing around him. I +stared up at his round bullet head, his villainous face.</p> + +<p>He saw us! Stupid amazement struck him, then comprehension.</p> + +<p>He let out a roar and came at us!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Glora shouted, "Into the tunnel! This way!" She held her +wits and darted to one side, with Alan and me after her. We +ran through a narrow passage between two fifty-foot boulders +which lay close together. Momentarily the giant was out of +sight, but we could hear his heavy tread and panting breath. +We emerged having passed him. He was taller now. He +seemed confused at our sudden scampering activity. He +checked his forward rush, and ran around the twin boulders. +But we had squeezed into a narrow ravine. He could not +follow. He threw a rock. To us it was a boulder. It crashed +behind us. To him, we were like scampering insects; he +could not tell which way we were about to dart.</p> + +<p>Alan panted, "Glora, does this lead out?"</p> + +<p>The little ravine seemed to open fifty feet ahead of us. +Alan stopped, seized a chunk of rock, flung it up. I saw +the giant's face above us. He was kneeling to reach in. The +rock hit him on the forehead—a pebble, but it stung him. +His face rose away.</p> + +<p>Again we emerged. The tunnel-mouth was near us. We +reached it and flung ourselves into its ten-foot width just +as the giant came lunging up. He was far larger than before. +Looking back, I could see only the lower part of his legs +blocked against the outer light.</p> + +<p>"Glora! Alan, where are you?"</p> + +<p>For a moment I did not see them. It was darker in this +tunnel of broken rocky walls, and jagged arching roof than +outside.</p> + +<p>Then I heard Alan's voice: "George! Over here!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> + +<p>They came running to me. For a moment we stood, undecided. +My eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. +The tunnel was illumined by a dim phosphorescence from +the rocks. I saw Alan fumbling for his vials, but Glora +stopped him.</p> + +<p>"No. We are the right size."</p> + +<p>We were about a hundred feet back from the opening. The +giant's legs disappeared. But in a moment the round, light +hole of the exit was obscured again. His head and shoulders! +He was lying prone. His great arms came in. He hitched +forward. The width of his expanding shoulders wedged.</p> + +<p>I think that he expected to reach us with a single snatch +of his tremendous arms. Or perhaps he was confused, or +forgot his growth. He did not reach us. His shoulders +stuck. Then suddenly he was trying to back out, but could not!</p> + +<p>It was only a moment. We stood in the radiant gloom of +the tunnel, confused and frightened. The giant's voice roared, +reverberating around us. Anger. A note of fear. Finally stark +terror. He heaved, but the rocks of the opening held solid. +Then there was a crack, a gruesome rattling, splintering—his +shoulder bones breaking. His whole gigantic body gave +a last convulsive lunge, and he emitted a deafening shrill +scream of agony.</p> + +<p>I was aware of the tunnel-mouth breaking upward. Falling +rocks—an avalanche, a cataclysm around us. Then light +overhead.</p> + +<p>The giant's crushed body lay motionless. A pile of +boulders, rocks and loose metallic earth was strewn upon +his head and torso, illumined by the outer light through +a jagged rent where the cliff-face had fallen down.</p> + +<p>We were unhurt, crouching back from the avalanche. The +giant's mangled body was still expanding; shoving at the +litter of loose rocks. In a moment it would again be too +small for the broken cliff opening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> + +<p>I found my wits. "Alan, we've got to get out of here. +God—don't you see what's happening?"</p> + +<p>But Glora restrained us. She realized that the effect of the +drug the giant had taken was about at its end. The growth +presently stopped. That huge noisome mass of pulp which +once had been human shoulders no longer expanded.</p> + +<p>I shoved Glora away. "Don't look!" I was shaking; my +head was reeling. Alan's face, painted by the phosphorescence, +was ghastly.</p> + +<p>Glora pulled at us. "This way! The tunnel is not too long. +We go."</p> + +<p>But the giant had drugs, and perhaps weapons. "Wait!" I +urged. "You two wait here. I'll climb over him."</p> + +<p>I told them why, and ran. I can only leave to the imagination +that brief exploratory climb. The broken body seemed +at least a hundred feet long; the mangled shoulders and +chest filled the great torn hole in the cliff. I climbed over +the litter. Indescribable, horrible scene! A river of warm +blood was flowing down the declivity outward....</p> + +<p>I came back to Glora and Alan. Under my arm was a huge +cylinder vial. It was black, the enlarging drug. I set it down. +They stared at me in my bloodstained garments.</p> + +<p>"George! You're—"</p> + +<p>"His blood, not mine." I tried to smile. "Here's the drug +he carried. Evidently Polter was only sending him out because +I found just the one drug."</p> + +<p>"What'll we do with it?" Alan demanded. "Look at the +size of it!"</p> + +<p>"Destroy it," said Glora. "See, that is not difficult." She +tugged at the huge stopper, and exposed a few of the pellets—to +us as large as apples. "The air will soon spoil it."</p> + +<p>We left it in the tunnel. I also had with me a great roll +of paper which had been folded in the giant's belt, with +the drug cylinder. We unrolled it, and hauled its folds to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +a spread some ten feet long. It was covered with a scrawled +handwriting in pencil, but its giant characters seemed thick +blurred strokes of charcoal. We could not read it; we were +too close. Alan and Glora held it up against the tunnel wall. +From a distance I could make it out. It was a note written +in English, signed "Polter," evidently to one of his men.</p> + +<p>It read:</p> + +<p><i>The two prisoners, kill them at once. That is better. It +will be too dangerous to wait for my return. Put their bodies +with their airplane. Crash it a mile from my gate.</i></p> + +<p>Full directions for our death followed. And Polter said he +would return by dawn or soon after.</p> + +<p>That gave me a start. By dawn! We had been traveling +four or five hours. It was already dawn up there now!</p> + +<p>"No," Glora explained, "the time in here is different. A +different time-rate. I do not know how much difference. +My world speeds faster; yours is very slow. It is not the +dawn up there quite yet."</p> + +<p>Again my mind strove to encompass these things—so +strange. A faster time-rate prevailed in here? Then our lives +were passing more quickly. We were living, experiencing +things, compressed into a shorter interval. It was not apparent: +there was nothing to which comparison could be made. I +recalled Alan's description of Polter—not thirty years old as +he should have been, but nearer fifty. I could understand +that, now. A day in here was equal to only a few hours on +our gigantic world outside.</p> + +<p>We walked the length of the tunnel. I suppose it was a +quarter of a mile, to us in this size. It wound through the +cliff with a steady downward slope. And suddenly I realized +that we had turned downward nearly half the diameter of a +circle! We had turned over—or at least it seemed so. But the +gravity was the same. I had noticed from the beginning very +little change.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>The realization of this tunnel brought a mental confusion. +I lost all sense of direction. The outer world of Earth was +under my feet, instead of overhead. Then we went level. +I forgot the confusion: this was normality here. We turned +upward a little. Cross tunnels intersected ours at intervals. +I saw caverns, open, widened tunnels, as though this mountain +were honeycombed.</p> + +<p>"Look!" said Glora. "There is the way out. All these passages +lead the same way."</p> + +<p>There was a glow of light ahead. I recall that I was at +that moment fumbling at my belt in two small compartments +in which I was carrying the two vials of the drugs which +Glora had given me. Alan wore the same sort of belt. We +had found them in the wrecked dome-room. I heard a click +on the ground at my feet. I was about to stoop to see what +I had kicked—only a loose stone, perhaps—but Glora's words +distracted me. I did not stoop. If only I had, how different +events might have been!</p> + +<p>The glow of light ahead of us widened as we approached, +and presently we stood at the end of the tunnel. A spread +of open distance was outside. We were on a ledge of a +steep rocky wall some fifty feet above a wide level landscape. +Vegetation! I saw trees—a forest off to the left. A range of +naked hills lay behind it. A mile away, in front and to the +right, a little town nestled on the shore of shining water. +There was starlight on the water! And over it a vast blue-purple +sky was studded with stars.</p> + +<p>I gazed, with that first sudden shock of emotion, into +the infinite depths of interplanetary space! Light years of +distance. Gigantic worlds, blazing suns off there shrunken by +distance now to little points of light. A universe was here!</p> + +<p>But this was an inch of golden quartz!</p> + +<p>Above my head were stars which, compared to my bodily +size now, were vast worlds ten thousand light-years away!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +Yet, from the other viewpoint, I had only descended perhaps +an eighth, or a quarter of an inch, beneath the broken pitted +surface of a little fragment of golden quartz the size of a +walnut—into just one of its myriads of golden atoms!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>"My world," Glora was saying. "You like it? See the starlight +on the lake? I have heard that your world looks like +this at night, in summer. Ours is always like this. No day, +no night. Just like this—starlight." Her hand went to Alan's +shoulder. "You like it? My world?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Glora. It's very beautiful."</p> + +<p>There was a sheen on everything, a soft, glowing sheen of +phosphorescence from the rocks rising to meet the pale wan +starlight. The night air was soft, with a gentle breeze that +rippled the distant lake into a great spread of gold and silver +light.</p> + +<p>The city was called Orena. I saw at once that we were about +normal size in relation to its houses and people. There were +fields beneath our ledge, with farm implements lying in +them; no workers, for this was the time for sleep. Ribbons +of roads wound over the country, pale streamers in the +starlight.</p> + +<p>Glora gestured, "The giants are on their island. Everyone +sleeps now. You see the island off there?"</p> + +<p>Beyond the city, over the low stone roofs of its flat-topped +dwellings, the silver spread of lake showed a green-clad +island some three miles off shore. The distance made its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +white stone houses seem small. But as I gazed, I realized +that they were large compared to their environment, all far +larger than those of the little town. The island was perhaps +a mile in length. Between it and the mainland a boat was +coming toward us. It was a dark blob of hull on the shining +water, and above it a queerly shaped circular sail was puffed +out, like a balloon parachute, by the wind.</p> + +<p>"The giants live there?" said Alan. "You mean Polter's +men?"</p> + +<p>"And women. Yes."</p> + +<p>"Are there many giants?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How many?" I put in. "How large are they? In relation +to us now, I mean. And to your normal size?"</p> + +<p>"You ask so many questions so fast, George. There are two +hundred or more of the giants. And there are more than that +many thousands of our people, here. Slaves, because the +giants are four times as large. This little city, these fields, +these hills of stone and metal, all this was ours to have in +peace and happiness until your Polter came."</p> + +<p>She gestured. "Everywhere is a great reach of desert and +forest. There are insects, but no wild beasts—nothing to +harm us. Nature is kind here. The weather is always like this. +We were happy, until Polter came."</p> + +<p>"And only a few thousand people," Alan said. "No other +cities?"</p> + +<p>"What lies off in the great distance, we do not know. Our +nation is ten times what is here. We have a few other cities, +and some of our people live in the forests."</p> + +<p>She broke off. "That boat is coming for Polter. He is in the +city no doubt of that. The boat will take him and that girl +you call Babs, to the giant's island. His castle is there."</p> + +<p>I turned to Alan. "They must have arrived only recently. +Before we go any further we have to decide what size to be.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +We can't be gigantic because I'm sure he'd kill Babs if he +sees us. We've got to plan!"</p> + +<p>If we could get on that boat and go with him to the +island—But in what size? Very small? But then, if we were +very small it would take us hours to get from here to the +boat. Glora pointed out where it would land—just beyond +the village where the houses were set in a sparse fringe. It +would be there, apparently, in ten or fifteen minutes. Polter +probably was there now with Babs, waiting for it.</p> + +<p>In our present size we could not get there in time. It was +two or three miles at least. But a trifle larger—the size of +one of Polter's giants—we would be able to make it. We +would be seen, but in the pale starlight, keeping away from +the city as much as possible, we might only be mistaken for +Polter's people. And when we got closer we would diminish +our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter and +then plan what to do.</p> + +<p>We climbed down from the ledge and stood at the base +of the towering cliff which reared its jagged wall against +the stars. A field and a road were near us. The road seemed +of normal size. A man was in the field. He was apparently +about my height. He presently discarded his work, walked +away from us and vanished.</p> + +<p>"Hurry, Glora." Alan and I stood beside her while she +took pellets from her vials. We wanted our stature now to +be four times what it was. Glora gave us pellets of both +drugs, one of which was slightly more intense than the other.</p> + +<p>"Polter made them this way," she said. "The two taken +at once give just the growth to take us from this normal +size to the stature of the giants."</p> + +<p>Alan and I did not touch our own vials. We had used none +of our enlarging drug upon the journey, and the supply she +had given us of the other was almost gone.</p> + +<p>As I took these pellets which Glora now gave us, standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> +there by the side of that road, I recall that I was struck with +the realization that never once upon this journey had I +conceived myself to be other than normal stature. I am +normally about six feet tall. I still felt—there in that golden +atom—the same height. This landscape seemed of normal +size. There were trees nearby—spreading, fantastic-looking +growths with great strings of pods hanging from them. But +still—as I looked up to see one arching over me with its +blue-brown leaves and an air-vine carrying vivid yellow +blossoms—whatever the size of the tree, I could only conceive +of myself as a normal man of six-foot stature standing +beneath it. The human ego always supreme! Around each +man's consciousness of himself the entire universe revolves.</p> + +<p>We crouched on the ground when this growth now began; +it would not do to be observed changing size. Polter's giants +never did that. Years before, he had made them large—his +few hundred men and women. They were, Glora said, people +both of this realm and from our great world above—dissolute +criminal characters who had now set themselves up here +as the nucleus of a ruling race.</p> + +<p>In a moment now, we were the size of these giants. Twenty +to twenty-five feet tall, in relation to the environment. But +I did not feel so. As I stood up—still feeling myself in normal +stature—I saw around me a shrunken little landscape. The +trees, as though in a Japanese garden, were about my own +height; the road was a smooth, level path; the little field +near us had a toy fence around it. On another road nearby +a man was walking. In height he would barely have reached +my knees. He saw us rise beside the trees. He darted off in +alarm, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>I have taken longer to tell all this than the actual time +which passed. We could see the boat coming from the island, +and it was still a fair distance off shore. We ran along the +road, skirting the edge of the little town. None of its houses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +were taller than ourselves. The windows and doorways were +ovals into which we could only have inserted a head or an +arm. Most of them were dark. Little people occasionally +stared out, saw us run past, and ducked back, thankful that +we did not stop to harass them.</p> + +<p>"This way," said Glora. She ran like a faun, hardly winded, +with Alan and me heavily panting behind her. "There +are trees—thick trees—quite near where the boat lands. We +can get in them and hide and change our size to smallness. +But hurry, for we shall need a great deal of time when we +are small!"</p> + +<p>The little spread of town and the shining lake remained +always to our right. In five minutes we were past most of +the houses. A patch of woods, with thick, interlacing treetops +about our own height, lay ahead. It extended a few +hundred feet over to the lake shore. The sailboat was heading +in close. There was a broad starlit roadway at the edge of +the lake, and a dock at which the boat was preparing to +land.</p> + +<p>Would we be in time? I suddenly feared not. To get small +now, with distance lengthening between us and the boat, +would be disastrous. And where was Polter?</p> + +<p>Abruptly we saw him. There had been only little people +visible to us: none of our own height. The lake roadway by +the dock was brightly starlit. As we approached the intervening +patch of woods it seemed that a crowd of little +people were near the dock. Polter must have been sitting. But +now he rose up. We could not mistake his thick hunched +figure, the lump on his shoulders clear in the starlight with +the gleaming lake as a background. The crowd of little figures +were milling around his knees. In the silence of the night +the murmur of their voices floated over to us.</p> + +<p>"There he is!" Alan gasped. We all three checked our +running; we were at the edge of the patch of woods. "By God,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +there he is! Let's get larger and rush him! He's only a few +hundred feet away!"</p> + +<p>But Babs? Where was Babs?</p> + +<p>"Alan, get down!" I crouched, pulling Alan and Glora +with me. "Don't let him see us! We can't rush him Alan, 'til +we find Babs. He'd see us coming and kill her."</p> + +<p>Of all the strange events that had been flung at us, I +think this sudden crisis now most confused Alan and me.... +To get larger, or smaller? Which? Yet something had to be +done at once.</p> + +<p>Glora said, "We can get through the woods best in this +size. We won't be seen and will be closer to the landing."</p> + +<p>We crouched so that the treetops were always well over +us. The patch of woods was dark. A soil of black loam was +under us, a thick soft underbrush reached our knees, and +lacy, flexible leaves and branches were about shoulder height. +We pushed them aside, forcing our way softly forward. It +was not far. The little murmuring voices of the crowd grew +louder.</p> + +<p>Presently we were crouching at the other edge of the +woods. I softly shoved the tree branches aside until we +could all three get a clear view of the strange scene now +directly before us.</p> + +<p>And I saw a toy dock, at which a twenty-foot, bargelike +open sailboat was landing; a narrow starlit roadway, crowded +with a milling throng of people all no more than a foot and a +half in height. The crowd milled almost to where we were +crouching, unseen in the shrubbery.</p> + +<p>Across the road by the dock, Polter stood with the crowd +down around his knees. In height he seemed the old familiar +Polter. Bareheaded, with his shaggy black hair shot with +white. He was dressed in Earth fashion: narrow black evening +trousers and a white shirt and collar with flowing black tie. +I saw at once what Alan had noticed—the change in him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +An abnormality of age. I would have called him now forty, +or older. Beyond even that there was an abnormality. A man +old before his time; or younger than he should have been +for the years he had lived. An indescribable mingling of +something of the two worlds, perhaps. It marked him with +a look at once unnatural and sinister.</p> + +<p>These were instant impressions. Glora was plucking at me. +"On the white chest of his shirt, something is there."</p> + +<p>Polter was coatless, with snowy white shirt and cuffs to +his thick wrists. He was no more than fifty feet from us. On +his shirt bosom something golden in color was hanging like +a large bauble, an ornament, an insignia. It was strapped +tightly there with a band about his chest, a cord, like a +necklace chain, up to his thick hunched neck, and other +chains down to his belt.</p> + +<p>I stared at it. An ornament, like a cube held flat against +his shirt front—a little golden cube, ornate with tiny bars.</p> + +<p>I heard Alan murmuring, "A cage! Why George, it's—"</p> + +<p>And then, simultaneously, realization struck me. It was +a golden cage strapped there. And I seemed to see that there +was something in it. A tiny figure? Babs!</p> + +<p>"I think he has her there," Glora murmured. "You see the +little box with bars? The girl, Babs, is a prisoner in there." +She spoke swiftly, vehemently. "He will take the boat to the +island."</p> + +<p>She gripped us. "You think it really best to go? I do what +you say. I had the wish to get to my father with these drugs."</p> + +<p>"No!" exclaimed Alan. "We must keep close to Polter!"</p> + +<p>We were ready with our pellets. But a sudden activity +in the road made us pause. The crowd of little people were +hostile to Polter. A sullen hostility. They milled about him as +he stood there, gazing down at them sardonically.</p> + +<p>And abruptly he shouted at them in English. "You speak +my language, some of you. Then listen!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>The crowd fell silent.</p> + +<p>"Listen. This iss your future Queen. Can you see her? She +iss small now. But she has the magic power. Soon she will +be large, like me."</p> + +<p>The crowd was shouting again. It surged forward, but it +lacked a leader, and those in advance shoved backward in +fear.</p> + +<p>Polter spoke again. "This girl from my world, you will like +her. She iss kind and very beautiful. When she iss large, +you will see how beautiful."</p> + +<p>A small stone suddenly came up from the throng of little +people and struck Polter on the shoulder. Then another. +The crowd, emboldened, made a rush: surged against his +legs.</p> + +<p>He shouted, "You do that? Why, how dare you? I show +you what giants do when you make dem angry!"</p> + +<p>From down by his knees he plucked the small figure of a +man. The crowd scattered with shouts of terror. Polter had +the struggling eighteen-inch figure by the wrist. He whirled +it around his head like a ninepin and flung it over the canopy +of the dock far out into the shimmering lake!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>The trees around us expanded to towering forest giants. +The underbrush rose up over our heads. We had taken a +taste of the diminishing drug. Glora showed us how to touch +it to our tongue several times, to adjust our size as we became +smaller. It took us no more than a minute to diminish.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +We could hear the roar of the crowd, and Polter's voice +shouting. We ran forward through the great forest. It was +a fair distance out to the starlit road. We saw it as a wide +shining esplanade. The people now were giants twice our +height! Polter, himself towering with a seeming fifty-foot +stature, was standing by the gigantic canopy of the dock. +He had dispersed the crowd. There was an open space on +the esplanade—a run for us of about a hundred feet.</p> + +<p>"We've got to chance it," I murmured. "Make a run for it—now."</p> + +<p>We darted across. In the confusion, with all eyes centered +on Polter, we escaped discovery. It was dim under the dock +canopy. Polter had backed from the road and was walking to +the barge. It lay like the length of an ocean liner, its sail +looming an enormous spread above it. The gunwale was +level with the dock. A dozen or more fifty-foot men were +greeting Polter. They were amidships.</p> + +<p>I realize now that in those moments as we scurried aboard +like wharf rats, we took wild chances. We made for the +stern which momentarily was unoccupied. To Polter and his +men we were eight or nine inches tall. We dropped over the +gunwale, slid down the thirty or forty-foot incline of the +interior and landed on the bottom of the boat.</p> + +<p>There were many places where we could safely hide. A +litter of gigantic rope-strands was around us. We could see +the bottom of a crossbench looming over head, and the +great curving sides of the vessel with the gunwales outlined +against the starlight.</p> + +<p>The boat left the dock in a moment; the sail bellied out, +enormous over us. Ten feet forward from us the towering +figure of a man sat on a bench with the steering mechanism +before him. Further on, the other men were dispersed, with +one or two in the distant bow. Polter reclined on a cushioned +couch amidships. Looking along the dark widely level bottom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +of the boat there were only the feet and legs of men visible.</p> + +<p>Alan whispered, "Let's get closer."</p> + +<p>We were insects soundlessly scuttling unnoticed in the +dimness. It was noisy down here—the clank of the steering +mechanism; the swish and surge of the water against the +hull; the voices of the men.</p> + +<p>We passed the boots of the seated helmsmen, and found +another hiding place nearer Polter. We could see his giant +length plainly. None of the other men were near him. He +was reclining on an elbow, stretched at ease on a cushion. +And at the moment, he was fumbling with the chains that +fastened the little golden cage to his chest. The cage was +double its former size to us now. A shaft of pale light came +down, reflected from the great sail surface overhead. It +struck the bars of the cage. We could see a small figure in +there.</p> + +<p>Then we heard Polter's voice. "I will let you out, Babs. +You come out, sit on my hand and talk with me. That will +be nice? We haf a little time."</p> + +<p>He unfastened the cage and put it on the cushion beside +him. He was still propped up on one elbow.</p> + +<p>"I let you out, now. Be careful, Babs."</p> + +<p>My heart was almost smothering me. "Alan! We've got +to get still closer! Try something! Get large, shall we?"</p> + +<p>Alan whispered tensely, "I don't know! I don't know what +to do."</p> + +<p>"We can get closer," Glora whispered. "But never larger—not +here. They would discover us too soon."</p> + +<p>We crept forward. We reached the edge of the cushion. +Its top surface was a trifle lower than our heads—a billowing, +wrinkled mass of fabric. But I saw that the folds of it were +rough enough to afford a footing. I thought that I could climb +it. We stood erect. There was a deep shadow along here, +but it was brighter on the cushion top. We could see over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +its edge; an undulating spread of surface with the giant +length of Polter stretched over it. The cage was near us. +Polter's great fingers fumbled with it; a door in the lattice +bars flipped open.</p> + +<p>"Careful, my Babs!" His voice was a throaty, rumbling +roar above us. "Careful! I do not want you to be hurt."</p> + +<p>From the little doorway came the figure of Babs! The +starlight glowed on her blue dress; her black hair was +tumbling over her shoulders; her face was pale but she was +unharmed.</p> + +<p>I think that I had never loved her so much as at that +moment. Nor ever seen her so beautiful as in miniature, +standing at the door of her golden cage, bravely facing the +monstrous misshapen figure of her captor.</p> + +<p>We heard her small voice.</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to do?"</p> + +<p>"Stand quiet. Now I put my hand for you."</p> + +<p>His monstrous hand bristled with a thatch of heavy black +hair. He slid it carefully along the cushion. Babs was barely +the length of one of its finger joints. She climbed upon its +palm.</p> + +<p>"That iss right, Babs. Now I bring you—hold tight to my +finger. Here, I crook the little one. Fling your arms around +it."</p> + +<p>With a swoop his hand took her aloft and away. Then we +saw her, twenty feet or so in the air, still on his hand as he +held it near his face.</p> + +<p>"Now we haf a little talk, Babs. When we get to the island, +I put you back in your cage."</p> + +<p>I had a sudden flash of realization. There was something +I could do. I know now my judgment was bad. I recall it +struck me that Alan would want to do it also. And, perhaps, +even Glora. But that wouldn't work. My chances, however +desperate, were better alone. Glora and Alan—in our present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> +size—could doubtless disembark safely. Glora knew the layout +of the island. And she could follow Polter.</p> + +<p>Alan and Glora were standing beside me peering over +that billowing cushion spread toward the distant giant palm +with Babs standing upon it. I gripped Alan's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"See here, Alan," I whispered vehemently: "What ever +happens, we must follow Polter. Glora knows the way. Some +opportunity will come to get large without being discovered. +Then we'll rush Polter!"</p> + +<p>Alan's white face turned to me. "Yes, that's what we're +planning. But George, here on this boat—"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. Can't do it here. Tell Glora, to be sure +to follow Polter. Whatever happens, you'll think of nothing +else: you won't will you?"</p> + +<p>"George, what—"</p> + +<p>"We've got to make some opportunity." I was trembling +inside, fearful that Alan would be suspicious of me. Yet I +had to make sure that he and Glora would stay as close to +Polter as possible.</p> + +<p>"All right," Alan agreed. "Listen to them."</p> + +<p>Polter was talking to Babs. But I didn't hear the words I +moved a trifle away. Rash decision! I hardly decided anything. +There was only the vision of Babs before me and my love for +her. My desperate need of doing something; getting to her, +seeing her, being with her. I wanted her near my own size +again as though the blessed normality of that would rationalize +and lessen her danger. If only I had been less rash! If only +back there in that tunnel I had stopped to see what it was +my foot kicked against!</p> + +<p>I slid away. Alan and Glora did not notice it; they were +whispering together and gazing over the cushion at Babs. +In the shadow of the cushion I moved some ten feet. On the +undulating top of the cushion the little golden cage stood +with its lattice door open. It was a few feet from my face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>I fumbled at my belt for the diminishing vial. I found +one pellet left. Well, that would be enough. I was hurried. +Alan might discover me. Polter might put Babs back in the +cage and close its door. We might be near the island already, +and the confusion, the activity of disembarking would +defeat me. A thousand things might happen.</p> + +<p>I touched the pellet to my tongue. In a few seconds the +drug action had come and passed. The cushion top loomed +well over my head. The side was a ridged, indescribably +unnatural vista of cliff wall. The fabric was coarse with +hairy strands, dented into little ravines and crevices. I +climbed and I came panting to the pillow surface. The golden +cage was six or eight feet away and was now two feet high.</p> + +<p>Again I touched the drug to my tongue; held it an instant. +The cage drew away; grew to a normal six-foot height; +then larger, until in a moment it stopped. I stood peering at it, +trying to gauge its size in relation to me. I wanted so +intensely now to appear normal in Babs' eyes. The cage +seemed about ten feet high. A little less, possibly. I barely +tasted the pellet, and replaced it carefully in the vial. I could +only hope its efficacy would be preserved.</p> + +<p>I had to chance that I wouldn't be seen while crossing this +billowy expanse. I ran. The rope strands of the fabric now +had spaces between their curving surfaces. The cage was a +shining golden house, set on this wide rolling area. Far in +the distance there was a blur—Polter's reclining body.</p> + +<p>I reached the cage. It was a room about ten feet square +and equally as high. Walled solid, top and bottom, and on +three sides. The front was a lattice of bars, with a narrow +six-foot doorway, standing open now.</p> + +<p>I dashed in. The interior was not wholly bare. There was +a metal-wrought couch fastened to the wall, with a railing +around it and handles. It suggested a ship's bunk. There +was a railing at convenient height all around the wall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>I sought a hiding place. I saw just one—under the couch. +It was secluded enough. There was a grillelike lattice extending +down from the seat to the floor. I squeezed under +one end, and lay wedged behind the grille.</p> + +<p>How much time passed I don't know. My thoughts were +racing. Babs would be coming.</p> + +<p>I heard the distant approaching rumble of Polter's voice. +Through the grille I could see across the floor of the ten foot +cage to the front lattice bars. Outside, there appeared a +huge, pink-white, mottled blob—Polter's hand, a ridged and +pitted surface with great, bristling black stalks of hair.</p> + +<p>The figure of Babs came through the cage doorway. Blessed +normality! The same slim little Babs who always stood, +since we were both matured, with her head about level with +my shoulders.</p> + +<p>The latticed door swung shut with a reverberating metallic +clank. Babs stood tense, clinging to the wall railing. I heard +the blurred rumble of Polter's voice.</p> + +<p>"Hold tightly, my little Babs!"</p> + +<p>The room lurched; went upward and sidewise with a wild +dizzying swoop. Babs clung to the rail and I was wedged +prone under the couch. Then the movement stopped; there +was a jolting, rocking, and outside I heard the clank of metal. +Polter was fastening the chains of the cage to his chest.</p> + +<p>A white glow now came through the bars. It was starlight +reflecting from Polter's shirt bosom. An abyss of distance +was outside. I could see nothing but the white glow.</p> + +<p>Momentarily there was very little movement in the room. +Only the rhythmic sway of Polter's breathing and an occasional +jolt as he shifted his position. The floor was tilted at a +sharp angle. Babs came toward the couch, pulling herself +along the wall railing.</p> + +<p>I called softly, "Babs!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stopped. I called again, "Babs! Don't cry out! It's +George! Here—stand still!"</p> + +<p>She gave a little cry. "George—where are you? I don't—"</p> + +<p>I slid out from my concealment and stood up, holding +to the railing.</p> + +<p>Blessed normality of size! She cried again, "George! You! +How did you get here?"</p> + +<p>She edged along the railing, a step or two down the tilting +floor, then released her hold and flung herself into my waiting +arms.</p> + +<p>"I think we are landing. Hold on to the railing, George. +When the room moves it goes with a rush."</p> + +<p>Babs laughed softly. It must have seemed to her, after +being alone in here, that now our plight was far less desperate. +She had told me how she was captured. A man accosted +her on the Terrace, saying he wanted to speak to her +about Alan. Then a weapon threatened her. Amid all those +people she was held up in old-fashioned style, hurried to a +taxicar and whirled away.</p> + +<p>She was saying now, "When Polter moves, it is dizzying. +You'll see."</p> + +<p>"I have already, Babs. Heavens, what a swoop!"</p> + +<p>The room was more level now. We carefully drew ourselves +to the front lattice. Polter was standing, and we had +the white sheen from his shirt front. A sheer drop was outside +the bars, but looking down I could see the outlines of +his body with the huge spread of the boat's cockpit underneath +us.</p> + +<p>A confusion of rumbling voices sounded. Blurred giant +shapes were outside. The room jolted and swayed as the +boat landed and Polter disembarked.</p> + +<p>Babs stood clinging to me. We, at least, were normal in +this metal barred room, Babs and I. But outside was the +abnormality of largeness. I think that in relation to us, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +men were of over two hundred-foot stature, and the hunched +Polter a trifle less. It seemed as he walked that we were +lurching at least a hundred and fifty feet above ground.</p> + +<p>"You had better hide," Babs urged. "He might stop and +speak to someone. If anyone looked in here you would be +seen; no chance then, even to get across the room."</p> + +<p>It was true. But for a few moments I lingered. I could +distinguish vegetation on their flat roof-tops, as though +flower gardens were laid there.</p> + +<p>We passed a house with its hundred-foot oval windows +all aglow with light. Music floated out—a distant blare of +sounds, and the ribald laughter of giant voices. I had seen +no women among these giants of the island. But now a huge +face was at one of the ovals. A dissolute, painted woman of +Earth, staring out at Polter as he passed. It was like the +enormous close-up image on a large motion picture screen. +She shouted ribald jest as he went by.</p> + +<p>"George, please go back. Suppose she had seen you?"</p> + +<p>We were ascending a hill. A distance ahead a great oblong +building loomed like a giant's palace, which indeed it was. +We headed for it, passed through a vast arching doorway +into the greater dimness of an echoing interior. I scurried back +across the lurching room and again wedged myself under +the couch. Babs stood at the lattice ten feet away. We dared +to talk in low tones; the rumbling voices and footsteps +outside would make our tiny voices inaudible to Polter.</p> + +<p>I was tense with my plans. I had told them to Babs. With +the one remaining partially used pellet of the diminishing +drug we could make ourselves small enough to walk out +through the bars. Then my black vial of the enlarging drug, +as yet unused, would take us up, out to our own world. We +could not use the drugs now. But the chance might come +when Polter would set the cage on the ground, or somewhere +so that we might climb down from it, with a chance to hide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +and get large before we were discovered. I would fight our +way upward; all I needed was a fair start in size.</p> + +<p>But I lay now with doubts assailing me. This was the +first moment I had had for calm thoughts, though in truth +they were far from calm! Were Alan and Glora following us +now? I could only hope so. Once out of this, Babs and I +would have to rejoin them. But how? Panic swept me. I +shouldn't have left them. Or at least I should have told them +what I was trying to do, and given Alan a chance to plan.</p> + +<p>The panic grew, the premonition of disaster. From my +belt I took the opalescent vial with its one partially used pellet. +I dumped the pellet out. It was spoiling! The exposure to +the air and the moisture of my tongue, had ruined it! I realized +the catastrophe, as I held its crumbling, deliquescing +fragments on my palm it melted into vapor and was gone!</p> + +<p>We couldn't make ourselves smaller! Now we'd have to wait +until Polter opened the cage. But once outside, the enlarging +drug would give us our chance to fight our way upward. +My trembling fingers sought the black vial in my belt. It +wasn't there! My mind flung back: in that tunnel, something +had dropped and I had kicked it! Accursed chance! My accursed, +heedless stupidity!</p> + +<p>I had lost the black vial! We were helpless! Caged! Marooned +here in a size microscopic!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>I lay concealed and Babs stood at the lattice of our cage +room. I was aware that Polter had entered some vast apartment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +of this giant palace. The light outside was brighter; +I heard voices—Polter's and another man's. I could see the +distant monster shape of one. He was at first so far away that +all his outline was visible. A seated man in a huge white +room. I thought there were great shelves with enormous +bottles. The spread of table tops passed under our cage as +Polter walked by them. They held a litter of apparatus, and +there was the smell of chemicals in the air. This seemed to +be a laboratory.</p> + +<p>The man stood up to greet Polter. I had a glimpse of his +head and shoulders. He wore a white linen coat, open, soft +collar and black tie. He seemed an old man, queerly old, with +snow-white hair.</p> + +<p>I had an instant of whirling impressions. Something was +familiar about his face. It was wrinkled and seamed with +lines of age and care. There were gentle blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Then all I could see was the vast spread of his white +shirt and coat, a black splotch of his tie outside our bars +as Polter faced him.</p> + +<p>Babs gave a low cry. "Why—why—dear God—"</p> + +<p>And then I knew! And Polter's words were not needed, +though I heard their rumble.</p> + +<p>"I am back again, Kent. Are you still rebellious? You haf +still determined to compound no more of our drugs? You +would rather I killed you? Then see what I haf here. This +little cage, someone—"</p> + +<p>It was Dr. Kent whom he addressed. He must have been +here all these years!</p> + +<p>Babs turned her white face toward me. "George, it's father! +He's alive!"</p> + +<p>"Quiet, Babs! Don't let him know I'm here. Remember!"</p> + +<p>The old man recognized her. "Babs!" It was an agonized +cry. The blur of him was gone as he sank down into his chair.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>Polter continued standing, I could envisage his sardonic +grin.</p> + +<p>From over us came Polter's rumble. "She iss glad to see +you, Kent. I haf her here, safe. You always knew I would +nefer be satisfied until I had my little Babs? Well, now I haf +her. Can you hear me?"</p> + +<p>A sudden desperate calmness fell on Babs. She called evenly. +"Yes, I hear you. Father, don't anger him. Do what he +says. Dr. Polter, will you let me be with my father? After all +these years, let me be with him, just for a little while. In +his size—normal."</p> + +<p>"Hah! My Babs iss scheming."</p> + +<p>"No, I want to talk to him, after all these years when I +thought he was dead."</p> + +<p>"Scheming? You think, my little Babs, that he has the +drugs? I am not so much a fool. He makes them. He can do +that. And that last secret reaction, only he can perform. +He iss stubborn. Never would he tell me that one reaction. But +he makes no drugs complete, only when I am here."</p> + +<p>"No, Dr. Polter! I want only to be with him."</p> + +<p>The old man's broken voice floated up to us. "You won't +harm her, Polter?"</p> + +<p>"No. Fear nothing. But you no longer rebel?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do what you tell me." The tones carried hopeless +resignation, years of being beaten down, rebelling—but now +this last blow vanquished him. Then he spoke again, with +a sudden strange fire.</p> + +<p>"Even for the life of my daughter, I will not make your +drugs, Polter, if you mean to harm our Earth."</p> + +<p>The golden cage room swooped as Polter sat down. "Hah! +Now we bargain. What do you care what I do to your world? +You never will see it again. I can lie to you. My plans—"</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> care."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will tell you, Kent. I am good-natured now. Why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +should I not be with my dear little Babs? I tell you, I am +done with the Earth world. It iss much nicer here. My +friends, they haf a good time always. We like this little atom +realm. I am going out once more. I must hide the little piece +of golden quartz so no harm will come to it."</p> + +<p>Polter was evidently in a high good humor. His voice fell +to an intimate tone of comradeship; but still I could not +mistake the irony in it.</p> + +<p>"You listen to me, Kent. There was a time, years ago, when +we were good friends. You liked your young assistant, the +hunchback Polter. Iss it not so? Then why should we quarrel +now? I am gifing up the Earth world. I wanted of it only the +little Babs.... You look at me so strange! You do not speak."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing to say," retorted Dr. Kent wearily.</p> + +<p>"Then you listen. I haf much gold above in Quebec. You +know that. So very simple to take it out of our atom, grow +large with it to what we call up there the size of a hundred +feet. I haf a place, a room, secluded from prying eyes under +a dome roof. I become very tall, holding a piece of gold. It +is large when I am a hundred feet tall. So I haf collected +much gold. They think I own a mine. I haf a smelter and +my gold quartz I make into ingots, refined to the standard +purity. So simple, and I am a rich man.</p> + +<p>"But gold does not bring happiness, my friend Kent." He +chuckled ironically at his use of the platitude. "There iss +more in life than the ownership of gold. You ask my plans. +I haf Babs, now. I am gifing up the Earth world. The mysterious +man they know as Frank Rascor will vanish. I will hide +our little fragment of quartz. No one up there will even try +to find it. Then I come down here, with Babs, and we will +haf so nice a little government and rule this world. No more +of the drugs then will be needed, Kent. When you die, let +the secret die with you."</p> + +<p>Again Polter's voice became ingratiating, even more so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +than before. "We will be friends, Kent. Our little Babs +will lof me; why should she not? You will tell her—advise +her—and we will all three be very happy."</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent said abruptly, "Then leave her with me now. That +was her request, a moment ago. If you expect to treat her +kindly, then why not—"</p> + +<p>"I do! I do! But not now. I cannot spare her now. I am +very busy, but I must take her with me."</p> + +<p>Babs had been silent, clinging to the bars of our cage. +She called; "Why? I ask you to put this cage down."</p> + +<p>"Not now, little bird."</p> + +<p>"Let me be with my father."</p> + +<p>It struck a pang through me. Babs was scheming but not +the way Polter thought. She wanted the cage put on the floor, +herself out, and a chance for me to escape. I had not yet +told her of my miserable stupidity in losing the vial.</p> + +<p>Polter was repeating, "No, little bird. Presently; not now. +I will take you with me on my last trip out. I want to talk +with you in normal size when I haf time."</p> + +<p>Our room swooped as he stood up. "You think over what I +haf said, Kent. You get ready now to make the fresh drugs +I will need to bring down all my men from the outer world. +They will all be glad to come, or, if not—well, we can easily +kill those who refuse. You make the drugs. I need plenty. +Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That iss good. I come back soon and gif you the catalyst +for that last reaction. Will you be ready?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The blur outside our bars swung with a dizzying whirl +as Polter turned and left the room, locking its door after him +with a reverberating clank.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Left alone in his laboratory, Dr. Kent began his preparations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +for making a fresh supply of the drugs. This room, with +two smaller ones adjoining, was at once his workshop and +his prison. He stood at his shelves, selecting the basic +chemicals. He could not complete the final compounds. +The catalyst which was necessary for the final reaction would +be brought to him by Polter.</p> + +<p>How long he worked there with his thoughts in a whirl +at seeing Babs, he did not know. His movements were automatic; +he had done all this so many times before. His mind +was confused, and he was trembling from head to foot—an +old, queerly, unnaturally old man now—unnerved. His +fingers could hardly hold the test tubes.</p> + +<p>His thoughts were flying. Babs was here, come down from +the world above. It was disaster—the thing he had feared +all these years.</p> + +<p>He suddenly heard a voice.</p> + +<p>"Father!"</p> + +<p>And again: "Father!" A tiny voice, down by his shoe tops. +Two small figures were there on the floor beside him. They +were both panting, winded by running. They were enlarging.</p> + +<p>It was Alan and Glora, who had followed Polter from the +boat, then diminished again and had come running through +the tiny crack under the metal door of the laboratory.</p> + +<p>They grew to a foot in size, down by Dr. Kent's legs. He +was too unnerved to stand; he sat in a chair while Alan +swiftly told him what had happened. Babs was in the golden +cage. Dr. Kent knew that; but none of them knew what +had happened to me.</p> + +<p>"We must make you small, Father. We have the drugs, +here with us."</p> + +<p>"Yes! How much have you? Show me. Oh, my boy, that +you are here—and Babs—"</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry. We'll get away from him."</p> + +<p>Glora and Alan had almost reached Dr. Kent's size before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +their excited fingers could get out the vials. They took some +of the diminishing drug to check their growth. Alan handed +his father a black vial.</p> + +<p>"Yes, lad—"</p> + +<p>"No! Wait, that's the wrong drug. This other—"</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent had opened the vial. His trembling hand spilled +some of the pellets, but none of them noticed it.</p> + +<p>"Father, this one." Alan held an opalescent vial. "Take +this one."</p> + +<p>Glora said abruptly, "Listen! Is that someone coming?"</p> + +<p>They thought they heard approaching footsteps. A moment +passed but no one came into the room.</p> + +<p>"Hurry," urged Glora. "That was nothing. We're waiting +too long."</p> + +<p>"My boy—Alan, after all these years—"</p> + +<p>As they were about to take the diminishing drug a very +queer sound came from across the room. A scuttling, scratching, +and the drone of wings.</p> + +<p>"God, Father—look!"</p> + +<p>Over by the wall, a giant fly was running across the floor. +The fly had eaten some of the sweetish powder.</p> + +<p>The enlarging drug was loose!</p> + +<p>A few drops of water lay mingled with the drug on the +floor. And from the water nameless hideous things were +rising!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>To Alan the first moments that followed the escape +of the drug were the most horrible of his life. The discovery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +struck old Dr. Kent, Glora and Alan into a numb, blank +confusion. They stood transfixed, staring with cold terror +at the fly which was scurrying along the floor close to the +wall. It was already as large as Alan's hand. It ran into the +corner, hit the wall in its confused alarm, and turned back. +Its wings were droning with an audible hum. It reared itself +on its hairy legs, lifted and sailed across the room.</p> + +<p>As though drawn by a magnet, Alan turned to watch it. +It landed on the wall. Alan was aware of Dr. Kent rushing +with trembling steps to a shelf where bottles stood. Glora +was stricken into immobility, the blood draining from her +face.</p> + +<p>The fly flew again. It passed directly over Alan. Its body, +with a membrane sac of eggs, was now as large as his head; +its widespread transparent wings were beating with a reverberating +drone.</p> + +<p>Alan flung a bottle which was on the table beside him. It +missed the fly, crashed against the ceiling, came down with +splintering glass and spilling liquid. Fumes spread chokingly +over the room.</p> + +<p>The fly landed again on the floor. Larger now! Expanding +with a horribly rapid growth. Glora flung something—a little +wooden rack with a few empty test tubes in it. The rack struck +the monstrous fly, but did not hurt it. The fly stood with hairy +legs braced under its bulging body. Its multiple eyes were +staring at the humans. And with its size must have come a +sense of power, for it seemed to Alan that the monstrous +insect was abnormally alert as it stood measuring its adversaries, +gathering itself to attack them.</p> + +<p>Only a few seconds had passed. Confused thoughts swept +Alan. This fly with its growth would soon fill this room. +Burst it; burst upward through a wrecked palace; soar out, +and by the power of its size alone devastate this world.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>He heard himself shouting, "Father, get back! It's too +large! I've <i>got</i> to kill it!"</p> + +<p>Could he wrestle with it and hope to win? Alan edged +around the center table. He was bathed in cold sweat. This +thing was horrifying! The fly was already half the length of +his own body. In a moment it might be twice that! He was +aware of Glora pulling at him, and his father rushing past +him with a bottle of liquid, shouting:</p> + +<p>"Alan! Run! You and the girl, get out of here! Into the +other room—"</p> + +<p>Then Alan saw the things on the floor! His foot crushed +one with a slippery squash! Nameless, hideous, noisome +things grown monstrous, risen from their lurking invisibility +in the drops of water! Sodden, gray-black and green-slimed +monsters of the deep; palpitating masses of pulp! One lay +rocking, already as large as a football with streamers of ooze +hanging from it, and squirting a black inky fluid. Others +were rods of red jelly-pulp, already as large as lead pencils, +quivering, twitching. Disease germs, these ghastly things, +enlarging from the invisibility of a drop of water!</p> + +<p>The fly landed with a thud on the center table. The fumes +of the shattered bottle of chemicals were choking Alan. He +flung himself toward the monster fly, but Glora held him.</p> + +<p>"No! Escape to the other room!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent was stamping the things upon the floor; pouring +acids upon them. Some eluded him. The air in the room was +unbreathable....</p> + +<p>Alan and Glora reached the bedroom. The laboratory +was a hideous chaos. They were aware of its outer door opening, +disclosing the figure of Polter who, undoubtedly, had +been attracted by the noise. He shouted a startled oath. +Alan heard it above the beating wings of the monstrous fly. +Things lurched at the opened door; Polter banged it upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +them and rushed away, shouting the alarm through the +palace.</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent was stammering, "Not the enlarging drug, +Glora, child, the other! Hurry!"</p> + +<p>Alan helped Glora with the opalescent vial. Things were +lurching toward this room, from the laboratory. Alan, with +averted face, choked by the incoming fumes, slammed the +door upon the gruesome turmoil.</p> + +<p>They took the diminishing drug. The bedroom expanded. +The hideous sounds from the laboratory, and the whole +palace now ringing with a wild alarm, soon faded into blessed +remoteness of distance....</p> + +<p>"I think this is the way, Alan. Off there—a doorway from +my bedroom. Polter always kept it locked, but it leads into +a corridor. We must get out of here. A crack under the door—is +that it, off there?" Dr. Kent pointed into the gloomy blur +of distance. "We're horribly small—it's so far to run—and I've +lost my sense of direction."</p> + +<p>The drug had ceased its action. The wooden floor of the +room had expanded to a spread of cellular surface, ridged +with broken, tubelike tunnels; pits and jagged cave-mouths. +A knothole yawned like a crater a hundred feet away.</p> + +<p>"We are too small," Glora protested hurriedly. "The door +is where you say, Dr. Kent, but miles away."</p> + +<p>With the other drug, the room contracted. The floor surface +shrank and smoothed a little. The door was distinguishable—a +square panel several hundred feet in width and +towering into the upper haze. The black line of the crack +was visible along its bottom.</p> + +<p>They ran to it. The top of the crack was ten feet above +their heads. They ran under, across the wide intervening +darkness toward a glow of light. Then they came from under +the door into a corridor—and shrank against a cliff wall as +with a rush of wind and pounding tread the blurred shapes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +of a man's huge feet and legs rushed past. The upper air +was filled with rumbling shouts.</p> + +<p>"We must chance it!" exclaimed Dr. Kent. "It's too far in +this size. We must get larger—and if they see us, we'll fight +our way out!"</p> + +<p>In the turmoil of the doomed palace no one noticed them. +They cast aside all restraint. It was too dangerous to wait. +The excessive dose they took of the drug made the corridor +shrink with dizzying speed. They rushed along its length. +Alan hurled a little man aside who was in their path. They +were already larger than Polter's people.</p> + +<p>They squeezed out of a shrinking doorway. The dwindling +island was a turmoil. Little figures were pouring from the +palace. At the edge of the water. Alan, Glora and Dr. Kent +stood for an instant looking behind them. The palace was +rocking. Its roof heaved upward and then smashed and fell +aside with the clatter of tumbling masonry. The monstrous +fly, its hideous face mashed and oozing, reared itself up and, +with broken torn wings, tried to soar away. But it could not. +It slipped back. The drone and buzz of its fright sounded +over the chaos of noise. Other things came lurching and +twisting upward, slithering out....</p> + +<p>The expanding body of the fly was pushing the palace +walls outward. In a moment it collapsed and the fly emerged.</p> + +<p>To Alan and his companions the scene was all shrinking +into a miniature chaos of horror at their shoe tops. A diminuendo +of screams mingled down there. Overhead were +the stars, shining peacefully remote. Nearby lay a rapidly +narrowing channel of shining water. A tiny city was across +it. Lights were moving. The panic had spread from the +island to Orena. Beyond the tiny city, was a range of mountains, +a cliff, gleaming in the starlight, and tunnel-mouths.</p> + +<p>Suddenly against the stars off there, Alan saw the enlarging +figure of Polter, his hunched shape unmistakable. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +was facing the other way. He lunged and scrambled into +a yawning black hole in the mountains. Polter was escaping! +None of these people except himself had the drugs. He was +escaping with the golden cage, out of this doomed atomic +world to the Earth above.</p> + +<p>Glora murmured, "There is our way out. Your way. And +that is Polter going. I do not think he saw us. So much is +growing gigantic here."</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent muttered, "We will wait a moment—wade across—or +leap over, and follow him out. Babs is with him—dear +God I hope so! This is a doomed realm!"</p> + +<p>Alan held Glora close. And suddenly he was laughing—a +madness, half hysterical. "Why, this, all this—why look, +Glora, it's funny! This little world all excited, an ant-hill, +outraged! Look! There's our giant sailboat!"</p> + +<p>Down near their feet the inch-long sailboat stood at its +dock. Tiny human figures were rushing for it; others, floundering +in the water, were trying to climb upon it. Dr. Kent +had stepped a foot or two from the shore, and tiny, lashing +white rollers rocked the boat, almost engulfing it.</p> + +<p>Alan's laugh rang out. "God! It's funny, isn't it? All those +little creatures so excited!"</p> + +<p>"Steady, lad!" Dr. Kent touched him. "Don't let yourself +laugh! A moment now, then we'll wade across. Polter won't +have much start on us. We mustn't get too close to him in +size, but try and attack him unawares. We've got to get +Babs away from him."</p> + +<p>The narrowing passage rose hardly to their knees. They +stepped ashore, well to one side of the toy city. Their growth +had almost stopped. But suddenly Alan realized that Glora +was diminishing! She had taken the other drug.</p> + +<p>"Glora! What are you doing?"</p> + +<p>"I must go back, Alan. This is my world, doomed perhaps, +but I cannot forsake it now. I must give the enlarging drug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +to my father. And others who can rise and fight these monsters."</p> + +<p>"Glora!"</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent said hurriedly, "She's right, Alan. There is a +chance they can save their city. For her to leave them would +be dastardly."</p> + +<p>She cried, "You go on up, Alan. You have enough of the +drugs. I am going back!"</p> + +<p>"No," he protested. "You can't! If you do, I'm coming +with you!"</p> + +<p>She clung to him. He felt her body diminishing within +his encircling arms. His love for her swept him—this girl +who had cajoled Polter, or tricked him and stolen several +of the vials from him, heavens knows how, and followed him +up to the other world. This girl whom Alan had come to love, +was leaving him, perhaps forever.</p> + +<p>As he stood there, with the miniature landscape at his +feet in the wan starlight—the panic-stricken tiny city, the +island with its monsters rising to overwhelm this tiny world—it +seemed to Alan that if he let her go it was the end for +him of all life's promised happiness.</p> + +<p>"Alan, lad, come." His father was pulling him along. So +horrible a choice! Alan thought that I was back on that +island. But Babs, a prisoner in the golden cage, was with +Polter, plunging upward in size. And his father was beside +him, pleading.</p> + +<p>"Alan—come—I can't get out alone, or save Babs. And +Polter, with the power of this drug, can conquer and enslave +our Earth as he has enslaved Orena—just one little city of +one tiny golden atom! Believe me, lad, your duty lies above."</p> + +<p>Glora's head was now down at Alan's waist. He stooped +and kissed her white forehead; his fingers, just for an instant, +smoothed her glossy hair.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Glora."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>She plunged away, and her tread as she dwindled mashed +the forest behind the city. Alan and his father ran for the +cliff. They were too large to squeeze into the little hole. But +in a moment they made themselves smaller. They climbed +as they dwindled; checked the drug action and rushed into +the tunnel-mouth.</p> + +<p>Alan stopped just for an instant to gaze out over the starlit +scene. It was almost the same viewpoint from which he +had his first sight of Glora's world only an hour or two before. +The distant island beyond the city showed plainly with the +shining water around it. The vegetation there was growing! +And there were dark, horribly formless blobs lurching outward +and rising with monstrous bulk against the background +of the stars!</p> + +<p>"Alan! Come, lad!"</p> + +<p>With a prayer for Glora trembling on his lips, Alan plunged +into the dim phosphorescent gloom of the tunnel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>To Babs and me the ride in the golden cage strapped to +Polter's chest as he made his escape outward into largeness +was an experience awesome and frightening almost beyond +description. We heard the alarm in the palace on the island. +Polter rushed to Dr. Kent's laboratory door, looked in, and +in a moment banged it shut. Babs and I saw very little. We +knew only that something terrible had happened; we could +see only a blur with formless things in the void beneath our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +bars; and there were the choking fumes of chemicals surging +at us.</p> + +<p>Polter rushed through the castle corridor. We heard rumbling +distant shouts.</p> + +<p>"The drug is loose! The drug is loose! Monsters! Death +for everyone!"</p> + +<p>The room swayed with horrible dizzying lurches as Polter +ran. We clung to the lattice bars, our legs and arms entwined. +There were moments when Polter leaped, or suddenly stooped, +and our reeling senses all but faded.</p> + +<p>"Babs! Don't let go! Don't lose consciousness!"</p> + +<p>If she should be limp, here in this lurching room, her +body to be flung back and forth across its confines—that +would be death in a moment. I didn't think I could hold her, +but I managed to get an arm about her waist.</p> + +<p>"Babs, are you all right?"</p> + +<p>"I'm—all right, George. I can stand it. We're—he is enlarging."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>I saw water far beneath us, lashed into a turmoil of +foam with Polter's wading steps. There was a brief swaying +vista of a toy city; starlight overhead; a lurching swaying +miniature of landscape as Polter ran for the towering cliffs. +Then he climbed and scrambled into the tunnel-mouth. Had +he turned at that instant doubtless he would have seen the +rising distant figures of Glora, Alan and Dr. Kent. But +evidently he didn't see them. Nor did we.</p> + +<p>Polter spoke only very occasionally to Babs. "Hold tightly!" +It was a rumbling voice from above us. He made no +move to touch the cage, except that a few times the great +blur of his hand came up to adjust its angle.</p> + +<p>The lurching and jolting was less violent in the tunnel. +Polter's frenzy to escape was subsiding into calmness. He +traversed the tunnel with a methodical stride. We were aware<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> +of him climbing over the noisome litter of the dead giant's +body which blocked the tunnel's further end. We heard his +astonished exclamations. But evidently he did not suspect +what had happened, thinking only that the stupid messenger +had miscalculated his growth and had been crushed.</p> + +<p>We emerged into a less dim area. Polter did not stop at +the fallen giant. Nothing mattered now to him, quite evidently, +save his own exit with Babs from this atomic realm. +His movements seemed calm, yet hurried.</p> + +<p>We realized now how different an outward journey was +from the trip coming in. This was all only an inch of golden +quartz! The stages upward were frequently only a matter +of growth in size; the distances in this vast desert realm of +golden rock always were shrinking. Polter many times stood +almost motionless until the closing, dwindling walls made +him scramble upward into the greater space above.</p> + +<p>It may have been an hour, or less. Babs and I, from our +smaller viewpoint, with the landscape so frequently blurred +by distance and Polter's movements, seldom recognized where +we were. But I realized going out was far easier in every +way than coming in. Easier to determine the route, since +usually the diminishing caverns and gullies made the upward +step obvious.... We knew when Polter scrambled +up the incline ramp.</p> + +<p>It seemed impossible for us to plan anything. Would +Polter make the entire trip without a stop? It seemed so. +We had no drugs, and our cage was barred beyond possibility +of our getting out. But even if we had had the drugs, +or had our door been open, there was no escape. An abyss +of distance was always yawning beyond our lattice—the +sheer precipice of Polter's body from his chest to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Babs, we must make him stop. It he sits down to rest +you might get him to take you out. I must reach his drugs."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll try it, George."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<p>Polter was momentarily standing motionless as though +gazing around him, judging what to do next. His size seemed +stationary. Beyond our bars we could see the distant circular +walls as though this were some giant crater-pit in +which Polter was standing. Then I thought I recognized +it—the round, nearly vertical pit into which Alan had plunged +his hand and arm. Above us then was a gully, blind at one +end. And above that, the outer surface, the summit of the +fragment of golden quartz.</p> + +<p>"Babs, I know where we are! If he takes you out, keep +his attention. I'll try and get one of his black vials. Make +him hold you near the ground. If I see you there, in position +where you can jump, I'll startle him. Babs it's desperately +dangerous but I can't think of anything else. Jump. Get +away from him. I'll keep his attention on me. Then I'll +join you if I can—with the drug."</p> + +<p>Polter was moving. We had no time to say more.</p> + +<p>"I'll try it, George." For just an instant she clung to me +with her soft arms about my neck. Our love was sweeping +us in this desperate moment, and it seemed that above us +was a remote Earth world holding the promise of all our +dreams. Or were we cross-starred, doomed like the realm +of the atom? Was this swift embrace now marking the end of +everything for us?</p> + +<p>Babs called, "Dr. Polter?"</p> + +<p>We could feel his movements stopping.</p> + +<p>"Yes? You are all right, Babs?"</p> + +<p>She laughed—a ripple of silvery laughter—but there was +tragic fear in her eyes as she gazed at me. "Yes, Dr. Polter, +but breathless. Almost dead, but not quite. What happened? +I want to come out and talk to you."</p> + +<p>"Not now, little bird."</p> + +<p>"But I want to." To me it was a miracle that she could +call so lightly and hold that note of lugubrious laughter in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +her voice. "I'm hungry. Didn't you think of that? And frightened. +Take me out."</p> + +<p>He was sitting down! "You remind me that I am tired, +Babs. And hungry, also. I haf a little food. You shall come +out for just a short time."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Take me carefully."</p> + +<p>Our tilted cage was near the ground as he seated himself. +But it was still too far for me to jump.</p> + +<p>I murmured, "Babs it's not close enough to the ground."</p> + +<p>"Wait, George, I'll fix that. You hide! If he looks in he'll +see you."</p> + +<p>I scrambled back to my hiding place. Polter's huge fingers +were fumbling at our bars. The little door sprang open.</p> + +<p>"Come, Babs."</p> + +<p>He held the cupped bowl of his hand to the doorway. +"Come out."</p> + +<p>"No!" she called. "It is too far down!"</p> + +<p>"Come. That iss foolish."</p> + +<p>"No! I'm afraid. Put the cage on the ground."</p> + +<p>"Babs!" His finger and thumb came reaching in to seize +her, but she avoided them.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Polter! Don't! You'll crush me!"</p> + +<p>"Then come out on my hand."</p> + +<p>He seemed annoyed. I had scrambled back to the doorway; +I knew he couldn't see me so long as the cage remained +strapped to his shirt front.</p> + +<p>I whispered, "I can make it, Babs!"</p> + +<p>Polter was apparently on one elbow now, half turned to +one side. From our cage, the sloping gleaming white surface +of his stiff glossy shirt bosom went down a steep incline. +His belt was down there, and the outward bulging +curve of his lap—a spreading surface where I could land +like a scuttling insect, unobserved, if only Babs could hold +his attention.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>I whispered vehemently, "Try it! Go out! Leave me—keep +talking to him!"</p> + +<p>She called instantly, "All right, then. Bring your hand! +Closer! Carefully! It seems so high up here!"</p> + +<p>She swung herself into his palm, and flung her arms about +the great pillar of his crooked finger. The bowl of his hand +moved slowly away. I heard her faint voice, and his overhead +rumble.</p> + +<p>I chanced it! I didn't know his exact position or which +way he was looking.</p> + +<p>Again I heard Bab's voice. "Careful, Dr. Polter. Don't let +me fall!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, little bird."</p> + +<p>I let myself down from the tilted doorway, hung by my +hand and dropped. I struck the ramp-like yielding surface of +his shirt bosom. I slid, tumbling, scrambling, and landed +softly in the huge folds of his trouser fabric. I was unhurt. +The width of his belt, high as my body, was near me. I +shrank against it. I found I could cling to its upper edge.</p> + +<p>My hold came just in time. He shifted and sat up. I was +lifted with a swoop of movement. When it steadied I saw +above me the top of his knee. His left leg was crooked, the +foot drawn close to him. Babs was perched up there on the +knee summit. His right leg was outstretched. I was at the +right side of his belt. I could dart off along that curving +expanse of his leg and leap to the ground. If he would hold +this position! One of the pouches of his belt was near me. +The vial in it was black. The enlarging drug! I moved toward +it.</p> + +<p>But Babs was too high to jump from that summit of his +crooked knee! I think she saw me at his belt. I heard her +voice.</p> + +<p>"I cannot eat up here. It is too high. Oh, please be careful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +how you move! I am so dizzy, so frightened! You move +with such great jerks!"</p> + +<p>He had what seemed a huge surface of bread and meat. +He was breaking off crumbs to put before her. I reached +the pouch of his belt. The vial was as long as my body. I +tugged to try and lift it out.</p> + +<p>All the giant contours of Polter's body shifted as he cautiously +moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently +between his thumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the +ground, and she stood beside the bread and the meat he +had placed there.</p> + +<p>And she had the courage to laugh! "Why this—this is an +enormous sandwich! You will have to break it."</p> + +<p>He was leaning over her, half turned on his side. The +vial came free. I shoved it; but I could not control its weight. +I pushed desperately. It slid over the round brink of his +right hip, and fell behind him. I heard the tinkling thud +of it down on the rocks.</p> + +<p>There was no alarm. I could not chance leaping from his +hip. I scurried along the convex top of his outstretched leg, +and beyond his knee I jumped.</p> + +<p>I landed safely. I could see the black vial back across the +broken rock surface, with the bulge of Polter's hip above it. +I ran back and reached the vial, tugged at its huge stopper. +The cork began to yield under my panting, desperate efforts. +In a moment I would have a pellet of the enlarging +drug; make away with it and startle Polter so that Babs +might dart off and escape.</p> + +<p>The huge stopper of the vial was larger than my head. +It came suddenly out. I flung it away, plunged in my hand, +and seized an enormous round pellet.</p> + +<p>Then abruptly the alarm came, and I had not caused it! +Polter ripped out a startled, rumbling curse and sat upright.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +Under the curve of his leg I saw Babs had been momentarily +neglected. She was running.</p> + +<p>Across the boulder-strewn plain, two tiny men had appeared. +Polter had seen them.</p> + +<p>They were the enlarging figures of Dr. Kent and Alan!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>The astounded Polter was taken wholly by surprise. He +had no idea that anyone was following him. He thought he +was alone with tiny Babs in this rock-strewn metal desert. +What he saw as he scrambled to his feet were four insect-size +humans, two of them at a distance, and two within +reach of him, and all of them scampering in different directions. +The ground was littered with crags and boulders; it was +ridged and pitted, pock-marked, with tiny crater-holes and +caves. The four scuttling figures almost instantly had disappeared +from his sight.</p> + +<p>I did not see where Babs went. I turned from the black +vial of Polter's enlarging drug, and with the huge pellet +under my arm I ran leaping over the rough ground and flung +myself into a gully. I lay prone, flattened against a rock. In +the murky distance of a pseudo-sky overhead, the monstrous +head and shoulders of Polter were visible. I could see down +to just below his waist. The empty cage with its door flapping +open hung against his shirt-front. He had stooped to try and +recover Babs. And instinctively his hands went to his belt to +seize his enlarging drug.</p> + +<p>They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +vial of the diminishing element. But his black vial was +gone. His annoyance turned into fear as he searched for it in +the other compartments of his belt. I had thought that he +had more than one black vial, but now it seemed not. His +huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He glanced +wildly around him.</p> + +<p>Through the open end of my gully I saw in the distance, +miles away, the enlarging figure of Alan rising up. Then it +ducked in back of a distant rising peak. Polter undoubtedly +saw it. He was fumbling with his opalescent vial. In his +confused panic he made the mistake of taking the diminishing +drug and instantly seemed to regret it. His curse rumbled +above me. His glance went down to the rocks at his feet, and +there he saw his black vial lying with its stopper out. His +body already was beginning to dwindle. He stooped, seized +the vial, and took the enlarging drug. The shock of it mode +him stagger; momentarily he disappeared from my line of +vision but I could hear his panting breath and the unsteady +pound of his footsteps.</p> + +<p>I still held that huge round ball of the drug. I seized a +loose stone and frantically knocked off a chunk-heaven +knows how much. I shoved it into my mouth, chewed and +hastily swallowed it. And with the lurching, swaying, shrinking +gully closing in upon me, I ran to get out of its distant +end.</p> + +<p>I was heading toward where Alan and his father were +hiding. I came from the gully into the open, just as the +walls closed behind me. The whole scene was a dizzying, +blurred sway of contracting movement. I saw that I was in +a circular valley now some five miles in diameter, with its +jagged enclosing walls rising sheerly perpendicular out of +sight in the haze overhead.</p> + +<p>Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so +away. His back at that instant was turned to me. He was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +now no more than three or four times my own height. He +scrambled against the valley cliff wall as though trying to +find a foothold to climb up it. He went a little way, but +fell back.</p> + +<p>Near me, Alan and old Dr. Kent suddenly appeared. I +was larger than they. Alan gasped with surprise.</p> + +<p>"You, George! You got Babs—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—Babs is around somewhere! Stay down here! Don't +lose her in size! Stay small! Search and—"</p> + +<p>"But, George—"</p> + +<p>"I'll tackle Polter. I've taken—God, I don't know how much +I've taken of the drug!"</p> + +<p>They were shrinking down by my boot tops. Alan shouted +suddenly, "There's Babs! Thank God, she's all right."</p> + +<p>She was so small that I couldn't see her, or even hear her, +though she must have been calling to them. Alan again +screamed up at me with his little voice:</p> + +<p>"She's here, George! You—go on and get Polter! I can't +overtake you—haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice +was fading away. "Go and get him, George! This time—get +him—"</p> + +<p>I swung with a staggering step around to face the open +valley. It had by now shrunk to nearly half a mile in width. +Its smooth walls rose some two or three thousand feet to an +upper circular horizon with murky distance overhead. Polter +stood across from me. He had tried to climb out but could +not. He saw me and came lurching. We were a quarter of +a mile from each other. I ran forward through a shifting +scene of shrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting +ground. Quarter of a mile? It seemed hardly more than a +score of running strides before Polter loomed close ahead of +me. He was still nearly twice my size. I stooped, seized a +loose boulder, and flung it. I missed his face, but, as his +hand went up carrying a bare knife, by fortunate chance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +the stone struck his wrist. The knife dropped to the rocks. +He stooped to recover it, but I was upon him. As I felt his +huge arms go about me, half lifting me, my foot struck the +knife. But in an instant it was swept down into smallness +beneath us as we expanded above it.</p> + +<p>Both of us now were unarmed in this combat of size. I was +an immature youth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard +his panting words, grimly triumphant:</p> + +<p>"This—George Randolph, I haf been—waiting for so many +years! The hunchback—takes his revenge—now—"</p> + +<p>He lifted me. His great arms were unbelievably powerful, +but I could feel them dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just +a few moments—if I could last a few moments.... My +feet were off the ground, my chest pressed close against the +little cage between us. He had a hand shoving back my head; +his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legs around him, +and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. But +he had twisted and my back was against the cliff. The rocks +were shoving at us, insistently pushing with almost a living +movement. Polter staggered with me. His grip on my throat +tightened, shutting off my breath. My senses whirled. His +grim sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilely +at my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a +roaring chaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw +horror sweep his expression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. +I got a breath of blessed air, gasping, and my sight cleared.</p> + +<p>Walls were closing around us! We were in a pit barely +ten feet wide, with the top a few feet above Polter's head. +The nearer wall shoved us again. Our bodies almost filled +the shrinking pit! Polter lurched and cast me off. I half +fell, striking my shoulder against the opposite wall, and I +saw Polter leap at the dwindling brink and scramble out.</p> + +<p>I was nearly wedged. As I rose, the top of the pit only +reached my waist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +and was on hands and knees. Instead of standing up, he +lurched at me trying to shove me back. But I was out; I +clutched at him. We were almost of a size now. We rolled on +the ground, locked together; rolled to the brink of the pit +and over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed +beneath our threshing bodies!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the side of the circular valley Alan and Dr. Kent +crouched with the smaller figure of Babs between them. They +saw Polter and me as two swaying gigantic forms locked in +a death struggle, towering against the sky. Tremendous +expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; saw the great +hunched Polter bend me backward, choking me.</p> + +<p>Our bodies lurched. Our huge legs with a single step +brought us to the center of the valley. It was a shrinking +valley to Alan, Babs and Dr. Kent, for they too, were enlarging. +But the fighting giant figures were growing faster. +In only a moment their shoulders were up there in the sky, +pressing against the narrowing cliff walls.</p> + +<p>Alan gasped, "But George will be crushed! Look at him!"</p> + +<p>Horror swept them as they crouched, watching. The +enormous pillars of Polter's legs towered straight up from +near at hand. Alan was aware of himself screaming:</p> + +<p>"George, get out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"</p> + +<p>As though his microscopic voice could reach me—my head +a hundred feet above him. But he screamed it again. This +was all in a few horrible moments, though it seemed to the +three watchers an eternity. Alan was helpless to aid me; +they had taken all of the enlarging drug they had.</p> + +<p>Then they saw Polter cast me off. I lurched and struck, +with my shoulders wedged against the cliff directly over +where they crouched. The overhead sky was darkened as +Polter scrambled upward.</p> + +<p>Alan was still screaming futilely.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>Babs huddled with white horrified face, staring. Then I +went out after Polter. My disappearing legs were great +dark blurs in the sky. Alan saw the valley now contracted +to a thousand feet of width, with its cliffs equally as high. +Then everything was smaller.... The sky overhead went +dark again from cliff to cliff as a segment of rolling bodies +momentarily spanned the opening.</p> + +<p>Presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to +a pit. He stood up. "Hurry! Now we can go after them. Up +there!"</p> + +<p>The opening above was empty. Polter and I were fighting +some distance away....</p> + +<p>Dr. Kent was soon large enough to scramble out of the +pit. Alan handed the little Babs up to him and followed. +Alan saw that they were now in a long gully, blind at one +end with a five hundred foot perpendicular cliff. Against the +wall, the Titanic form of Polter stood at bay. And I was +confronting him. The summit of the cliff was lower than our +waists. Triumph swept Alan; he saw that I was the larger! +As Polter bored into me my backward step crossed the full +width of the gully. Alan shouted:</p> + +<p>"Down! Babs—Father!"</p> + +<p>They had barely time to flatten themselves in a narrow +crevice between upstanding rocks before my foot crashed +down. For an instant the sole of my foot formed a flat black +ceiling as it spanned the rocks. Then it lifted and was gone +with a blurred swoop. They saw the white blur of my hand +come down and snatch a tremendous boulder, raising it with +a great sweep of movement into the sky. They saw me crash +it against Polter; but it only struck his shoulder. He roared +with anger. The whole sky was roaring and rumbling with +our shouts and our panting breathing, and the ground was +clattering, pounding with our giant tread. Huge loose boulders +were tumbled in an avalanche everywhere.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again it seemed to Alan that our lurching, heedlessly +surging bodies must be crushed within these contracting +walls. Only our locked, intertwined legs were visible; our +bodies were lost in the sky. Then it seemed to Alan that I +had heaved Polter upward. And followed him. We disappeared. +There was a distant overhead rumble, and the murky +sky, with vague patches of far-distant illumination in it, +became empty of movement....</p> + +<p>The walls presently were again closing upon Alan and his +companions. They ran out of the open end of the shrinking +little gully and came to a new upward vista....</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I found myself a full head and shoulders taller than +Polter. And he was tiring, panting heavily. His face was cut +and bleeding from the blows of my fist. The rock I heaved +struck his shoulder. He roared, head down, and bored into +me. He was heavier than I. His weight flung me back. My +foot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I did not know +that Babs, Alan and their father were huddled under those +stones!</p> + +<p>My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee +caught me in the stomach, all but knocking the breath out +of me. He was desperate, oblivious to the closing walls. And +as he flung his arms with a grip about my neck, hanging, +trying to bear down, I saw in his blazing dark eyes what +seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with a sudden +frenzied madness he realized that he was beaten, and tried +to pull us to the ground and let the walls crush us.</p> + +<p>I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us +forward. I broke his hold. His body was jammed back against +a lowering wall. Its top seemed almost at our knees. I shoved +frantically. He fell backward and I jumped after him.</p> + +<p>We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, +crawling into itself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +there seemed a distant circular horizon of emptiness around +us.</p> + +<p>Polter was lying in a heap. But it was trickery, for as I +incautiously bent over him his hand crashed a rock against +my head. I reeled, with all the world turning black, but +didn't fall. There was a terrible instant when my senses +were going, but I fought to hold them. Blood from a +wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I was +staggering. Then I realized that I was grimly tossing my head, +shaking the blood away; and little by little my sight came +back.</p> + +<p>Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an +upward swing at my chin, but I ducked.</p> + +<p>And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind +envisioned how gigantic we were! This was a great upland +plateau, rounded with miles of distance and shadowy dimly +radiant abyss beyond its circular horizon. And I was a +thousand feet or more tall! A Titan, looming here in the sky!</p> + +<p>My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous +swing went wild, as I leapt backward from it. He +staggered, and his arms dropped to his sides. I was crouched +forward, guarded, watching him while I gasped for breath. +There was the briefest of instant when an expression of +vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knocked him +out.</p> + +<p>It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, +overtaxed from the strain; and I think that there, at the +last, he realized it. The blood drained suddenly from his +face and lips, leaving them livid. I saw fear, then a wild +horror in his eyes. He stood swaying. Then his knees gave +way and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where +I stood gazing at him—fell forward on his face, his Titanic +length spread all across the top of this rocky landscape!</p> + +<p>For a moment I did not move. My head was reeling, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +ears roaring. Blood streamed into my eyes. I wiped it away +with a torn sleeve and stood panting, gazing at the glowing +distance around me.</p> + +<p>I was a Titan, standing there. The body of Polter was +shrinking at my feet. The circular abyss of emptiness came +nearer as this rocky eminence contracted.</p> + +<p>Suddenly my attention went to the sky overhead. Vague +distant lights were there. Then a broad flat blur seemed +spread over me. Light everywhere was growing. Beyond the +nearby brink of the abyss was a white reflected radiance +from beneath. Abruptly I realized there was a level, flat +white plain running far off there in the distance.</p> + +<p>Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A +shape in the sky moved! I heard a faraway rumble—a human +voice!</p> + +<p>The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the +length of my forearm. I stood, a Titan.</p> + +<p>And then, with a shock of realization, I saw how tiny I +was! This was the broken top of that fragment of golden +quartz the size of a walnut! I was standing there, under the +lens of the giant microscope in Polter's dome-room laboratory, +with half a dozen astounded Quebec police officials +peering down at me!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>I need not detail the aftermath of our emergence from the +atom. Dr. Kent and Babs followed me out within a few +moments. But Alan was not with them! He had seen Polter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +fall. His father and Babs were safe. The sacrifice he had +made in leaving Glora was no longer needed.</p> + +<p>Down there on the rocky plateau, Dr. Kent suddenly +realized that Alan was dwindling.</p> + +<p>"Father, I have to! Don't you understand? Glora's world +is menaced. I can't leave her like this. My duty to you and +Babs is ended. I did my best. You two are safe now."</p> + +<p>"Alan! You can't go!"</p> + +<p>He was already down at Dr. Kent's waist, Babs' size. He +held up his hand. "Dad, don't try to stop me. Good-bye." +His rugged youthful face was flushed, his voice choked. +"You—you've been a mighty good father to me. Always."</p> + +<p>Babs flung her arms about him. "Alan. Don't!"</p> + +<p>"But I must." He smiled whimsically as he kissed her. +"You wouldn't want to leave George, would you? Never see +him again? I'm not asking you to do that, am I?"</p> + +<p>"But, Alan—"</p> + +<p>"You've been a great little pal, Babs. But I have to go."</p> + +<p>"Alan! You talk as though you were never coming back!"</p> + +<p>"Do I? But of course I'm coming back!" He cast her off. +"Babs, listen. Father's upset. That's natural. You tell him +not to worry. I'll be careful, and do what I can to save that +little city. I must find Glora and—"</p> + +<p>Babs was suddenly trembling with eagerness for him. +"Yes! Of course you must, Alan!"</p> + +<p>"I'll find her and bring her out here! I'll do it! Don't you +worry." He was dwindling fast. Dr. Kent had collapsed to +a rock, staring down with horror-stricken eyes. Alan called +up to Babs:</p> + +<p>"Listen! Have George watch the chunk of gold quartz. +Have it guarded and watched day and night. Handle it +carefully, Babs!"</p> + +<p>"Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How do I know? But I'll come back—don't worry. Maybe +in only a day or two of your time."</p> + +<p>"Right! Good-bye, Alan!"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," his tiny voice echoed up.</p> + +<p>Babs could see his miniature face smiling up at her. She +smiled back and waved her arm as he vanished into the +pebbles at her feet.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It has broken Dr. Kent. A month now has passed. He +seldom mentions Alan to Babs and me. But when he does, +he tries to smile and say that Alan soon will return. He has +been very ill this last week, though he is better now. He did +not tell us that he was working to compound another supply +of the drugs, but we knew it very well.</p> + +<p>And his emotion, the strain of it, made him break. He was +in bed a week. We are living in New York, quite near the +Museum of the American Society for Scientific Research. +In a room of the biological department there, the precious +fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope is +over it, and there is never a moment of the day or night +without an alert, keen-eyed watcher peering down.</p> + +<p>But nothing has appeared. Neither friend or foe—nothing. +I cannot say so to Babs, but often I fear that Dr. Kent will +suddenly die, and the secret of his drugs die with him. I +hinted that I would make a trip into the atom if he would +let me, but it excited him so greatly I had to laugh it off with +the assurance that of course Alan would soon return safely +to us. Dr. Kent is an old man now, unnaturally old, with, +it seems, the full weight of eighty years pressing upon him. +He cannot stand this emotion. I think he is despairingly +summoning strength to work upon his drugs, fearful that +at any moment, he will not be equal to it. Yet more fearful +to disclose the secret and unloose such a diabolic power.</p> + +<p>There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +I slip away and go to the Museum. We dismiss the guard +for a time, and in that private room we sit by the microscope +to watch. The fragment of golden quartz lies on its clean +white slab with a brilliant light upon it.</p> + +<p>Mysterious little golden rock! What secrets are there, down +beyond the vanishing point in the realm of the infinitely +small? Our human longings go to Alan and Glora.</p> + +<p>But sometimes we are swept by the greater viewpoint. +Awed by the mysteries of nature, we realize how very small +and unimportant we are in the vast scheme of things. We +envisage the infinite reaches of astronomical space overhead. +Realms of largeness unfathomable. And at our feet, everywhere, +a myriad entrances into the infinitely small. With +ourselves in between—with our fatuous human consciousness +that we are of some importance to it all!</p> + +<p>Truly there are more things in Heaven and Earth than +are dreamed of in our philosophy!</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Beyond the Vanishing Point, by +Raymond King Cummings + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT *** + +***** This file should be named 22527-h.htm or 22527-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/5/2/22527/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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