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diff --git a/22527.txt b/22527.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c876c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/22527.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3850 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + + + + THEY OPENED THE PANDORA'S BOX + OF ATOMIC TRAVEL + + +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 _miniature_ perfection--an +infinitely tiny universe within a golden atom! + +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! + + + + +CAST OF CHARACTERS + + + FRANZ POLTER + He found a gold mine in a land where there was no gold. + + DR. KENT + His scientific studies could mean life or death to an entire universe! + + GEORGE RANDOLPH + He crossed the border into Canada, and found himself in another world. + + ALAN KENT + Twenty feet tall, or two inches high--which should he be? + + GLORA + She was only as large as a thumbnail, but she carried a gigantic secret. + + BABS KENT + Did she live in a golden cage or a magnificent palace? + + + + + BEYOND THE + VANISHING POINT + + + by + RAY CUMMINGS + + + ACE BOOKS, INC. + 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. + + + + + BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT + Copyright (C), 1958, by Ace Books, Inc. + All Rights Reserved + + Printed in U.S.A. + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +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. + +It was twelve-twenty when the local exchange call-sorter announced +Alan's connection from Quebec. + +"Hello, George? Look here, you've got to come up here at once. Chateau +Frontenac, Quebec. Will you come?" + +I could see his face imaged in the little mirror on my desk; the +anxiety, tenseness in his voice, was duplicated in his expression. + +"Well--" I began. + +"You must, George. Babs and I need you. See here...." + +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. + +"I'd like to come, Alan. But--" + +"You've got to George! I can't tell you everything over the public air. +But I've seen _him_: He's diabolical. I know it now!" + +_Him_! It could only mean, of all the world, one person! + +"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!" + +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!" + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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.... + + * * * * * + +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. + +To my adolescent mind a thrilling mystery hung upon the Kent family. The +mother was dead. Dr. Kent, father of 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But I think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was always something +sinister about him, that had nothing to do with his deformity. + +When I came, that afternoon, Babs and Polter were under a tree on the +Kent lawn. Babs, at fourteen, with long black 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. + +I came upon them suddenly. I heard Polter say: + +"But I lof you. And you are almos' a woman. Some day you lof me." + +He put out his thick hand and gripped her shoulder. She tried to twist +away. She was frightened, but she laughed. + +"You--you're crazy!" + +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: + +"You--let me go, you--you hunchback!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"The hell you haven't," the director roared. "Come down to three +thousand. That lane's barred." + +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. + +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. + +"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--" + +"Who's gone? Babs?" + +"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." + +When we were up in the air, I swung on him. "What are you talking about? +Babs gone?" + +I could feel myself shuddering with a nameless horror. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +"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." + +"Did he see you?" + +"I don't know. He was lost in the crowd in a minute. 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." + +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. + +"Can you land us, Alan?" + +"Yes, surely. At the Municipal Field just beyond the Citadel. We can get +to the Hotel in five minutes." + + * * * * * + +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. + +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! + +I seemed to see some connection. Alan, I knew, was groping with a dim +idea, so strange he hardly dared voice it. + +"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." + +"Then what's so weird?" I demanded. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + + * * * * * + +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. + +"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. + +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 had impressed her personality. Her perfume was in +the air. And now she was gone. + +"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." + +His face was white and drawn, but his hands had steadied. The tremble +was gone out of his voice. + +"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!" + +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. + +"Will you fly me, George?" + +"Of course." + +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. + +"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." + + * * * * * + +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 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. + +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!" + +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!" + +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? + +It set me shuddering. + +"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 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!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +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 +Beaupre were visible with the gray-black towering hills behind them. + +"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." + +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. + +Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzard +our muffled engine couldn't be heard. + +Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?" + +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. + +"Fly over it once, George," Alan said. "Low--we can chance it. And find +a place to land near the walls." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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...." + +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. + +We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of the gates. We left +the plane and plunged into the darkness. + +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. + +From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up. + +"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. + +"Hide your gun, Alan." I gripped him. "Do you hear me?" + +"Yes." + +"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." + +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. + +"Stop! What do you want?" + +"To see Mr. Rascor." + +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. + +"He sees no one. Who are you?" + +Alan was pressing at me from behind. I shoved him back, and took a step +forward. I touched the bars. + +"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaperman from Montreal I must see Mr. +Rascor." + +"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." + +The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only his extended +hand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"Stand!" + +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! + +I ducked my head, yelling, "Don't do that!" + +It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I heard its buzz. + +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. + +I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the faint +hiss of his Essen, and his choked, horrified voice: + +"George, run! Don't fall!" + +I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, that +Alan's inert body was falling on top of me.... + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better." + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +"Please do not move your head. You might kill me!" + +There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny voice came again. + +"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +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. + +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. + +From the group by the ingots, one of the men rose and came toward us. +Alan held still, watching. And the girl, Glora, seized the opportunity +to come nearer. We both heard her tiny voice: + +"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are still +unconscious." + +Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows near us. + +Amazement swept Alan's face; he twisted, mouthed at his gag. But he saw +my eager nod and took his cue from me. + +I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps approached. +A man bent over Alan and me. + +"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with a +queer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!" + +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. + +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. + +Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear, +whispering to him. And then she came to me. + +"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." + +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. + +Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once. + +"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I get +larger now--a little larger--and return." + +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: + +"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand that lingo." + +"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up." + +"What we oughta do is kill 'em. Polter's a fool." + +"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long, what you call three, +four hours." + +"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?" + +"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." + +Gruesome suggestion! + +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. + +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. + +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 of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of the +gag. She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it through. + +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. + +I moistened my dry mouth. My tongue was thick, but I could talk. + +"Thank you, Glora." + +"Quiet!" + +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. + +And presently Alan was free. "George, what--" he began. + +"Wait," I whispered. "Easy! Let her tell us what to do." + +We were unarmed. Two, against these six, three of whom were giants. + +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." + +"But wait," Alan whispered. "Tell us--" + +"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?" + +"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." + +The little figure moved away from us and disappeared. 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. + +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. + +"Now! I am ready." She was fumbling at her robe. "I will give you each +the same." + +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: + +"But what do we do? What happens? What--" + +On the palm of her hand were two pink-white pellets. "Take these--one +for each of you. Quickly!" + +Involuntarily we drew back. The thing abruptly was gruesome, +frightening. Horribly frightening. + +"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." + +With a muttered curse at his own reluctance, Alan seized the small +pellet. I stopped him. + +"Wait!" + +The men momentarily were engaged in a low-voiced, earnest discussion. I +dared to hesitate a moment longer. + +"Glora, where will you be?" + +"Here. Right here. I will hide." + +"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?" + +"Yes. My world is there--within an atom there in that rock." + +"Will you take us?" + +"Yes! But later." + +Alan whispered vehemently, "Why not now? We could get smaller, now." + +But she shook her head. "That is not possible. We would be seen as we +climbed the platform and crossed the white slab." + +"No," I protested, "not if we get very small, hiding here first." + +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?" + +This thing so strange! + +Alan was plucking at me. "Ready, George?" + +"Yes." + +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. + +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. + +I turned dizzily. "You all right, Alan?" + +"Yes, I--I guess so." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"George! My God--this is weird!" + +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. + +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. + +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 and she was standing, but across the litter +our faces were level. + +"Stand up!" she murmured. "You all right now. I hide!" + +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. + +I shouted, "Alan! Watch yourself!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"God! George, look at them! So small!" + +They were now hardly the height of our knees. This was 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Alan! Watch out! The microscope--the platform! Don't smash them! And +Glora be careful not to hurt her!" + +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. + +Then we heard a small voice. "Here! Take this! Quickly! You are too +large. Quickly!" + +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 of the microscope cylinder. It rocked but did not fall. + +Where was Glora? In the gloom we could not see her. We were in a panic. + +Alan began, "George, I--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"Glora--that was horrible!" + +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. + +Alan repeated, "Horrible, Glora. The power of this drug is diabolical." + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +_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 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. + +I flung the thoughts away. "Ready, Glora?" + +"Yes." + +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 nourished with the drug, +might in a day overrun a big city, burying it with jungle growth! + +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-- + +Alan was prodding me. "We're ready, George." + +"Okay, let's go." + +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. + +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. + +"On the way down. Plenty of time then." + +"How long will it take us?" Alan demanded. + +"Not too long if we are careful with managing the trip. About ten +hours." + +And now we were ready to start. She told us calmly: + +"I will give you each your share of the drugs, but then you take only as +I tell you." + +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. + +"The light ones are for diminishing," she said. "We take them very +carefully, one small pellet only at first." + +Alan was opening one of his, but she checked him. + +"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." + +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. + +"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--" + +What a strange journey upon which we were now starting! Lost in size? + +"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--" + +"We must!" I exclaimed. "And we must get started." + +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. + +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! + +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 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. + +Glora pulled us to our feet. "We had better start now. The distance +grows very far, so quickly." + +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. + +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. + +A moment passed. Glora was urging us on vehemently: + +"Come! You must not stand there!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +Glora, like a fawn, ran in advance of us, her robe flying in the wind. +She turned to look back. + +"Faster! Faster, or it will be too hard a climb!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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?" + +"No. Not yet. There is a place where we go down. It is marked in my +mind." + +I had a sudden ominous sense that we three were not alone 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. + +"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?" + +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." + +Alan made a sudden, sidewise leap, and dashed around a rock. He came +back to us, smiling ruefully. + +"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. + +"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." + +"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. + +We reached a little gully near the center of the hilltop. It was some +twenty feet deep. + +Glora paused. "We descend here." + +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. + +"A pit is here--a hole. I cannot tell just how large it will look when +we are in this size." + +We found it and stood over it--a foot-wide circular hole extending +downward. Alan knelt and shoved his hand and arm into it, but Glora +sprang at him. + +"Don't do that!" + +"Why not? How deep is it?" + +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?" + +Alan's jaw dropped. "Good Lord!" + +We stood with the little pit before us, and another of the pellets +ready. + +"Now!" said Glora. + +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. + +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: + +"Come, George! We're going down--quickly now." + +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. + +I had remarked Glora's downward glance, and shuddered. Suppose, in some +slightly smaller size, Babs had been among these rocks! + +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 along the base of one expanding +wall, following Glora. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +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. + +"I say, Glora, I don't like sitting here." + +I had been telling her all we knew of Polter. She listened quietly, +seldom interrupting me. Then she said: + +"I understand. I tell you now about Polter as I have seen him." + +She talked for five or ten minutes. I listened, amazed, awed by what she +said. + +But Alan's insistence interrupted her. "Come on, let's get out of here. +That tunnel-mouth, or cave, or whatever it is--" + +"But we go in there," she protested. "A little tunnel. That is our way +to travel. We are not far from my city now." + +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! + +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. + +He saw us! Stupid amazement struck him, then comprehension. + +He let out a roar and came at us! + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +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. + +Alan panted, "Glora, does this lead out?" + +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. + +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. + +"Glora! Alan, where are you?" + +For a moment I did not see them. It was darker in this tunnel of broken +rocky walls, and jagged arching roof than outside. + +Then I heard Alan's voice: "George! Over here!" + +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. + +"No. We are the right size." + +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. + +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! + +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. + +I was aware of the tunnel-mouth breaking upward. Falling rocks--an +avalanche, a cataclysm around us. Then light overhead. + +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. + +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. + +I found my wits. "Alan, we've got to get out of here. God--don't you see +what's happening?" + +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. + +I shoved Glora away. "Don't look!" I was shaking; my head was reeling. +Alan's face, painted by the phosphorescence, was ghastly. + +Glora pulled at us. "This way! The tunnel is not too long. We go." + +But the giant had drugs, and perhaps weapons. "Wait!" I urged. "You two +wait here. I'll climb over him." + +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.... + +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. + +"George! You're--" + +"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." + +"What'll we do with it?" Alan demanded. "Look at the size of it!" + +"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." + +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 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. + +It read: + +_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._ + +Full directions for our death followed. And Polter said he would return +by dawn or soon after. + +That gave me a start. By dawn! We had been traveling four or five hours. +It was already dawn up there now! + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Look!" said Glora. "There is the way out. All these passages lead the +same way." + +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! + +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. + +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! + +But this was an inch of golden quartz! + +Above my head were stars which, compared to my bodily size now, were +vast worlds ten thousand light-years away! 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! + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"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?" + +"Yes, Glora. It's very beautiful." + +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. + +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. + +Glora gestured, "The giants are on their island. Everyone sleeps now. +You see the island off there?" + +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 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. + +"The giants live there?" said Alan. "You mean Polter's men?" + +"And women. Yes." + +"Are there many giants?" + +"No." + +"How many?" I put in. "How large are they? In relation to us now, I +mean. And to your normal size?" + +"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." + +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." + +"And only a few thousand people," Alan said. "No other cities?" + +"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." + +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." + +I turned to Alan. "They must have arrived only recently. Before we go +any further we have to decide what size to be. We can't be gigantic +because I'm sure he'd kill Babs if he sees us. We've got to plan!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +As I took these pellets which Glora now gave us, standing 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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? + +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. + +"There he is!" Alan gasped. We all three checked our running; we were at +the edge of the patch of woods. "By God, there he is! Let's get larger +and rush him! He's only a few hundred feet away!" + +But Babs? Where was Babs? + +"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." + +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. + +Glora said, "We can get through the woods best in this size. We won't be +seen and will be closer to the landing." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +These were instant impressions. Glora was plucking at me. "On the white +chest of his shirt, something is there." + +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. + +I stared at it. An ornament, like a cube held flat against his shirt +front--a little golden cube, ornate with tiny bars. + +I heard Alan murmuring, "A cage! Why George, it's--" + +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! + +"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." + +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." + +"No!" exclaimed Alan. "We must keep close to Polter!" + +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. + +And abruptly he shouted at them in English. "You speak my language, some +of you. Then listen!" + +The crowd fell silent. + +"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." + +The crowd was shouting again. It surged forward, but it lacked a leader, +and those in advance shoved backward in fear. + +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." + +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. + +He shouted, "You do that? Why, how dare you? I show you what giants do +when you make dem angry!" + +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! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +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. 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. + +"We've got to chance it," I murmured. "Make a run for it--now." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +of the boat there were only the feet and legs of men visible. + +Alan whispered, "Let's get closer." + +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. + +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. + +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." + +He unfastened the cage and put it on the cushion beside him. He was +still propped up on one elbow. + +"I let you out, now. Be careful, Babs." + +My heart was almost smothering me. "Alan! We've got to get still closer! +Try something! Get large, shall we?" + +Alan whispered tensely, "I don't know! I don't know what to do." + +"We can get closer," Glora whispered. "But never larger--not here. They +would discover us too soon." + +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 +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. + +"Careful, my Babs!" His voice was a throaty, rumbling roar above us. +"Careful! I do not want you to be hurt." + +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. + +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. + +We heard her small voice. + +"What do you want me to do?" + +"Stand quiet. Now I put my hand for you." + +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. + +"That iss right, Babs. Now I bring you--hold tight to my finger. Here, I +crook the little one. Fling your arms around it." + +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. + +"Now we haf a little talk, Babs. When we get to the island, I put you +back in your cage." + +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 size--could doubtless disembark safely. Glora knew the layout +of the island. And she could follow Polter. + +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. + +"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!" + +Alan's white face turned to me. "Yes, that's what we're planning. But +George, here on this boat--" + +"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?" + +"George, what--" + +"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. + +"All right," Alan agreed. "Listen to them." + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +How much time passed I don't know. My thoughts were racing. Babs would +be coming. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Hold tightly, my little Babs!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I called softly, "Babs!" + +She stopped. I called again, "Babs! Don't cry out! It's George! +Here--stand still!" + +She gave a little cry. "George--where are you? I don't--" + +I slid out from my concealment and stood up, holding to the railing. + +Blessed normality of size! She cried again, "George! You! How did you +get here?" + +She edged along the railing, a step or two down the tilting floor, then +released her hold and flung herself into my waiting arms. + +"I think we are landing. Hold on to the railing, George. When the room +moves it goes with a rush." + +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. + +She was saying now, "When Polter moves, it is dizzying. You'll see." + +"I have already, Babs. Heavens, what a swoop!" + +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. + +A confusion of rumbling voices sounded. Blurred giant shapes were +outside. The room jolted and swayed as the boat landed and Polter +disembarked. + +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 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. + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"George, please go back. Suppose she had seen you?" + +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. + +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 and get large before we were +discovered. I would fight our way upward; all I needed was a fair start +in size. + +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. + +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! + +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! + +I had lost the black vial! We were helpless! Caged! Marooned here in a +size microscopic! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +I lay concealed and Babs stood at the lattice of our cage room. I was +aware that Polter had entered some vast apartment 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Babs gave a low cry. "Why--why--dear God--" + +And then I knew! And Polter's words were not needed, though I heard +their rumble. + +"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--" + +It was Dr. Kent whom he addressed. He must have been here all these +years! + +Babs turned her white face toward me. "George, it's father! He's alive!" + +"Quiet, Babs! Don't let him know I'm here. Remember!" + +The old man recognized her. "Babs!" It was an agonized cry. The blur of +him was gone as he sank down into his chair. + +Polter continued standing, I could envisage his sardonic grin. + +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?" + +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." + +"Hah! My Babs iss scheming." + +"No, I want to talk to him, after all these years when I thought he was +dead." + +"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." + +"No, Dr. Polter! I want only to be with him." + +The old man's broken voice floated up to us. "You won't harm her, +Polter?" + +"No. Fear nothing. But you no longer rebel?" + +"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. + +"Even for the life of my daughter, I will not make your drugs, Polter, +if you mean to harm our Earth." + +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--" + +"I _do_ care." + +"Well, I will tell you, Kent. I am good-natured now. Why 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." + +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. + +"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." + +"There is nothing to say," retorted Dr. Kent wearily. + +"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. + +"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." + +Again Polter's voice became ingratiating, even more so 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." + +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--" + +"I do! I do! But not now. I cannot spare her now. I am very busy, but I +must take her with me." + +Babs had been silent, clinging to the bars of our cage. She called; +"Why? I ask you to put this cage down." + +"Not now, little bird." + +"Let me be with my father." + +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. + +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." + +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?" + +"Yes." + +"That iss good. I come back soon and gif you the catalyst for that last +reaction. Will you be ready?" + +"Yes." + +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. + + * * * * * + +Left alone in his laboratory, Dr. Kent began his preparations 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. + +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. + +His thoughts were flying. Babs was here, come down from the world above. +It was disaster--the thing he had feared all these years. + +He suddenly heard a voice. + +"Father!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"We must make you small, Father. We have the drugs, here with us." + +"Yes! How much have you? Show me. Oh, my boy, that you are here--and +Babs--" + +"Don't you worry. We'll get away from him." + +Glora and Alan had almost reached Dr. Kent's size before 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. + +"Yes, lad--" + +"No! Wait, that's the wrong drug. This other--" + +Dr. Kent had opened the vial. His trembling hand spilled some of the +pellets, but none of them noticed it. + +"Father, this one." Alan held an opalescent vial. "Take this one." + +Glora said abruptly, "Listen! Is that someone coming?" + +They thought they heard approaching footsteps. A moment passed but no +one came into the room. + +"Hurry," urged Glora. "That was nothing. We're waiting too long." + +"My boy--Alan, after all these years--" + +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. + +"God, Father--look!" + +Over by the wall, a giant fly was running across the floor. The fly had +eaten some of the sweetish powder. + +The enlarging drug was loose! + +A few drops of water lay mingled with the drug on the floor. And from +the water nameless hideous things were rising! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +To Alan the first moments that followed the escape of the drug were the +most horrible of his life. The discovery 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He heard himself shouting, "Father, get back! It's too large! I've _got_ +to kill it!" + +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: + +"Alan! Run! You and the girl, get out of here! Into the other room--" + +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! + +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. + +"No! Escape to the other room!" + +Dr. Kent was stamping the things upon the floor; pouring acids upon +them. Some eluded him. The air in the room was unbreathable.... + +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 them and +rushed away, shouting the alarm through the palace. + +Dr. Kent was stammering, "Not the enlarging drug, Glora, child, the +other! Hurry!" + +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. + +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.... + +"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." + +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. + +"We are too small," Glora protested hurriedly. "The door is where you +say, Dr. Kent, but miles away." + +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. + +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 of a man's huge feet and legs rushed past. The upper air +was filled with rumbling shouts. + +"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!" + +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. + +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.... + +The expanding body of the fly was pushing the palace walls outward. In a +moment it collapsed and the fly emerged. + +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. + +Suddenly against the stars off there, Alan saw the enlarging figure of +Polter, his hunched shape unmistakable. He 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. + +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." + +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!" + +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!" + +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. + +Alan's laugh rang out. "God! It's funny, isn't it? All those little +creatures so excited!" + +"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." + +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. + +"Glora! What are you doing?" + +"I must go back, Alan. This is my world, doomed perhaps, but I cannot +forsake it now. I must give the enlarging drug to my father. And others +who can rise and fight these monsters." + +"Glora!" + +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." + +She cried, "You go on up, Alan. You have enough of the drugs. I am going +back!" + +"No," he protested. "You can't! If you do, I'm coming with you!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"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." + +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. + +"Good-bye, Glora." + +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. + +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! + +"Alan! Come, lad!" + +With a prayer for Glora trembling on his lips, Alan plunged into the dim +phosphorescent gloom of the tunnel. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +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 bars; and there were the +choking fumes of chemicals surging at us. + +Polter rushed through the castle corridor. We heard rumbling distant +shouts. + +"The drug is loose! The drug is loose! Monsters! Death for everyone!" + +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. + +"Babs! Don't let go! Don't lose consciousness!" + +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. + +"Babs, are you all right?" + +"I'm--all right, George. I can stand it. We're--he is enlarging." + +"Yes." + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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." + +"Yes. I'll try it, George." + +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. + +"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." + +Polter was moving. We had no time to say more. + +"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? + +Babs called, "Dr. Polter?" + +We could feel his movements stopping. + +"Yes? You are all right, Babs?" + +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." + +"Not now, little bird." + +"But I want to." To me it was a miracle that she could call so lightly +and hold that note of lugubrious laughter in her voice. "I'm hungry. +Didn't you think of that? And frightened. Take me out." + +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." + +"Thank you. Take me carefully." + +Our tilted cage was near the ground as he seated himself. But it was +still too far for me to jump. + +I murmured, "Babs it's not close enough to the ground." + +"Wait, George, I'll fix that. You hide! If he looks in he'll see you." + +I scrambled back to my hiding place. Polter's huge fingers were fumbling +at our bars. The little door sprang open. + +"Come, Babs." + +He held the cupped bowl of his hand to the doorway. "Come out." + +"No!" she called. "It is too far down!" + +"Come. That iss foolish." + +"No! I'm afraid. Put the cage on the ground." + +"Babs!" His finger and thumb came reaching in to seize her, but she +avoided them. + +"Dr. Polter! Don't! You'll crush me!" + +"Then come out on my hand." + +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. + +I whispered, "I can make it, Babs!" + +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. + +I whispered vehemently, "Try it! Go out! Leave me--keep talking to him!" + +She called instantly, "All right, then. Bring your hand! Closer! +Carefully! It seems so high up here!" + +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. + +I chanced it! I didn't know his exact position or which way he was +looking. + +Again I heard Bab's voice. "Careful, Dr. Polter. Don't let me fall!" + +"Yes, little bird." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I cannot eat up here. It is too high. Oh, please be careful how you +move! I am so dizzy, so frightened! You move with such great jerks!" + +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. + +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. + +And she had the courage to laugh! "Why this--this is an enormous +sandwich! You will have to break it." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Then abruptly the alarm came, and I had not caused it! Polter ripped out +a startled, rumbling curse and sat upright. Under the curve of his leg +I saw Babs had been momentarily neglected. She was running. + +Across the boulder-strewn plain, two tiny men had appeared. Polter had +seen them. + +They were the enlarging figures of Dr. Kent and Alan! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +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. + +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. + +They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so away. His back at +that instant was turned to me. He was 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. + +Near me, Alan and old Dr. Kent suddenly appeared. I was larger than +they. Alan gasped with surprise. + +"You, George! You got Babs--" + +"Yes--Babs is around somewhere! Stay down here! Don't lose her in size! +Stay small! Search and--" + +"But, George--" + +"I'll tackle Polter. I've taken--God, I don't know how much I've taken +of the drug!" + +They were shrinking down by my boot tops. Alan shouted suddenly, +"There's Babs! Thank God, she's all right." + +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: + +"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--" + +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, 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. + +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: + +"This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many years! The +hunchback--takes his revenge--now--" + +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. + +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. + +I was nearly wedged. As I rose, the top of the pit only reached my +waist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground, 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! + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +Alan gasped, "But George will be crushed! Look at him!" + +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: + +"George, get out! You're too large! Too large for in here!" + +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. + +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. + +Alan was still screaming futilely. + +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. + +Presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to a pit. He stood +up. "Hurry! Now we can go after them. Up there!" + +The opening above was empty. Polter and I were fighting some distance +away.... + +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: + +"Down! Babs--Father!" + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + + * * * * * + +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! + +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. + +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. + +We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, crawling into +itself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead: there seemed a +distant circular horizon of emptiness around us. + +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. + +Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swing +at my chin, but I ducked. + +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! + +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. + +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! + +For a moment I did not move. My head was reeling, my 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. + +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. + +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. + +Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A shape in the sky +moved! I heard a faraway rumble--a human voice! + +The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the length of my +forearm. I stood, a Titan. + +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! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +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 fall. His father and Babs were safe. The +sacrifice he had made in leaving Glora was no longer needed. + +Down there on the rocky plateau, Dr. Kent suddenly realized that Alan +was dwindling. + +"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." + +"Alan! You can't go!" + +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." + +Babs flung her arms about him. "Alan. Don't!" + +"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?" + +"But, Alan--" + +"You've been a great little pal, Babs. But I have to go." + +"Alan! You talk as though you were never coming back!" + +"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--" + +Babs was suddenly trembling with eagerness for him. "Yes! Of course you +must, Alan!" + +"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: + +"Listen! Have George watch the chunk of gold quartz. Have it guarded and +watched day and night. Handle it carefully, Babs!" + +"Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?" + +"How do I know? But I'll come back--don't worry. Maybe in only a day or +two of your time." + +"Right! Good-bye, Alan!" + +"Good-bye," his tiny voice echoed up. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and 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. + +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. + +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! + +Truly there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in +our philosophy! + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +This etext was first published in _Astounding Stories_ 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. + + + + + +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.txt or 22527.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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