by Paul Ernst
CHAPTER III
_Ant-Sized Men_
Next morning, at scarcely more than daybreak, Jim and Denny stood,stripped and ready for the dread experiment, beside Matthew Breen'sglass bell. The night, of course, had been sleepless. Sleep? How couldslumber combat the fierce anticipations, the exotic imaginings, theclanging apprehensions of the two?
Most of the night had been spent by Denny in dutifully arguing with Jimabout the advisability of his giving up the adventure, in soothing hisconscience by presenting in all the angles he could think of the risksthey would run.
"You'll be entering a different world, Jim," Denny had said. "Anunimaginably different world. A terrible world, in which you'll be anaked, soft, defenseless thing. I'd hate to bet that we'd live even toreach the termitary. And once inside that--it's odds of seven to onethat we'll never get out again."
"Stow it," Jim had urged, puffing at his pipe.
"I won't stow it. You may think you've run up against dangers before,but let me tell you that your most perilous jungle is safe as a churchcompared to the jungle an ordinary grass plot will present to us, if, aswe plan, we get reduced to a quarter of an inch. I'm going in this witha mission. To me it's a heaven-sent opportunity--one I'm sure anyentomologist would grab at. But you, frankly, are just a fool--"
"All right," Jim had cut in, "let it go at that. I'm confirmed in myfolly. You can't argue me out of it, so don't try any more. Now, to bepractical--have you thought of any way we could arm ourselves?"
"Arm ourselves?" repeated Dennis vaguely.
"Yes. It's a difficult problem. The finest watch-maker couldn't turn outa working model of a gun that could be handled by a man a quarter of aninch tall. At the same time I have no desire to go into this thingbare-handed. And I think I know something we can use."
"What?"
"Spears," said Jim with a grin. "Steel spears. They make steel wire, youknow, down to two-thousandths of an inch and finer. Probably our friendhas some in his laboratory. Now, if we grind two pieces about a quarterof an inch long off such a wire, and sharpen the ends as well as we can,we'll have short spears we could swing very well.
"Then, there's the matter of clothes." He grinned again. "We'll want abreech clout, at least. I propose that we get the sheerest silk gauze wecan find, and cut an eighth-inch square apiece to tie about our middlesafter the transformation."
* * * * *
He slapped his fist into his palm. "By George! Such talk really beginsto bring it home. Two men, clad in eighth-inch squares of silk gauze,using bits of almost invisibly fine steel wire as weapons, junketingforth into a world in which they'll be about the smallest and puniestthings in sight! No more lords of creation, Denny. We'll have nothingbut our wits to carry us through. But they, of course, will be supremein the insect world as they are in the animal world."
"Will they be supreme?" Denny said softly. That unknownintelligence--that mysterious intellect (super-termite?) that seemed torule each termite tribe, and which appeared so marvelously profound! "Iwonder...."
Then he, in his turn, had descended to the practical.
"You've solved the problem of weapons and clothing, Jim," he said, "andnow for my contribution." He left the room and came back in a fewminutes with something in his hands. "Here are some shields for us.
"Oh, not pieces of steel armor. Shields in a figurative more than aliteral sense."
He set down a small porcelain pot, and opened it. Within was arepulsive-looking, whitish-brown paste.
"Ground-up termites," he explained. "If we're to go wandering around ina termitary, we've got to persuade the inmates that we're friends, notfoes. So we'll smear ourselves all over with this termite-paste beforeever we enter the mound."
"Clever, these supposedly impractical scientists," murmured Jim, with alightness that did not quite succeed in covering his real admiration ofthe shrewdness of the thought.
And now they stood in front of Breen's glass bell, with Breen besidethem all eagerness to begin the experiment.
"What am I supposed to do after I've reduced you to the proper size?" heasked.
"Take us out to Morton's Grove, to the big termitary you'll find about aquarter of a mile off the road," said Denny. "Set us down near theopening to one of the larger termite tunnels. Then wait till we come outagain. You may have to wait quite a while--but that isn't much to ask inreturn for our submission to your rays."
"I'll wait a week, if you wish. Let's see, what had I better carry youin?"
It was decided--with a lack of forethought later to be bitterlyregretted--that an ordinary patty-dish of the kind in which restaurantsserve butter, would make as good a conveyance as anything else.
* * * * *
Matt got the patty-dish and placed it on the pedestal floor, tipping iton edge so Jim and Denny would be able to climb into it unaided (hewouldn't dare attempt to lift bodies so small for fear of mortallyinjuring them between thumb and forefinger). Into the patty-dish, sothey could be readily located, were placed the bits of wire, the tinyfragments of silk gauze to serve as breech clouts, and a generous dab oftermite-paste; and the two men stepped inside the glass dome to sharethe fate that, the night before, had been the dog's.
The bell was lowered around them. They watched the inventor step to theswitch and pull it down....
At first there was no sensation whatever. Almost with incredulity, theywatched the glass walls cloud, realized that the fogging vapor wasformed of exudations from their own substance. Then physical reactionset in.
The first symptom was paralysis. With the vapor wreathing their heads indense clouds, they found themselves unable to move a muscle. Theparalysis spread partially to the involuntary muscles. Heart action wasretarded enormously; and they ceased almost entirely to breathe. Inspite of the cessation of muscular functioning, however, they were stillconscious in a vague way. Conscious enough, at all events, to go througha hell of agony when--second and last stage--every nerve in their bodiesseemed of a sudden to be rasped with files, and every tiny particle oftheir flesh jerked and twitched as if to break loose from theever-shrinking skin.
* * * * *
Time, of course, was completely lost sight of. It might have been tenhours, or five minutes later when they realized they were still alive,still standing on their own feet, and now able to breathe and move. Thespell of rigidity had been broken; nerves and muscles functionedsmoothly and painlessly again. Also they were in clear air.
"I guess the experiment didn't work," Dennis began unsteadily. But then,as his eyes began to get accustomed to his fantastically new, thoughintrinsically unchanged surroundings, he cried aloud.
The experiment _had_ worked. No doubt of that! And they were in a worldwhere all the old familiar things were new and incredible marvels.
"What can be the nature of this stuff we're standing on?" wondered Jim,looking down.
Following his gaze, Denny too wondered for an instant, till realizationcame to him. "Why, it's ordinary wood! Just the wood of the pedestalplatform!"
But it didn't seem like wood. The grain stood out in knee-high ridges inall directions to the limit of visibility. It was like a nightmarepicture of a frozen bad-lands, split here and there by six-feet-broad,unfathomable chasms--which were the cracks in the flooring.
"Where's the patty-dish?" queried Jim.
Dennis gazed about. "We were standing right over it when the reducingprocess started.... Oh, there it is!"
* * * * *
Far off to the right an enormous, shallowly hollowed plateau caughttheir eyes. They started toward it, hurdling the irregular ridges,leaping across the dizzy chasms.
The tiny dish had been tipped on edge--but when they reached it theyfound its thickness alone a daunting thing.
"It's a pity Matt didn't select a thinner kind of china," grumbledDennis; gazing at the head-high wall that was the edge of the plate."Here--I'll stand on your shoul
ders, and then give you an arm up. Lookout--it's slippery!"
It was. Their feet slid out from under them on the glazed surfacerepeatedly. It was with the utmost effort that they finally made theirway to the center of the shallow plateau.
There, lying beside two heaps of coarse cloth and a mound ofhorrible-smelling stuff that he recognized as the dab of termite-paste,they saw two glistening steel bars. About five feet long, they seemed tobe, and half an inch in diameter. The wire-ends which, a few momentsago, they had been forced to handle with tweezers for fear of losing!
Jim picked one up and drew it back for a pretended spear-thrust. Helaughed, vibrantly, eagerly.
"I'm just beginning to realize it's really happened, and that the hunthas started. Bring on your bugs!"
Dennis stooped and picked up his spear. It was unwieldy, ponderous, theweight of that long, not-too-thin steel bar. Jim's great shoulders andheavy arms were suited well enough to such a weapon; but Dennis couldhave wished that his were some pounds lighter.
They turned their attention to the evil-smelling hill oftermite-ointment. With many grimaces, they took turns in smearing eachother from head to feet with the repulsive stuff. Then they knottedabout them the yard-square pieces of fabric--once sheer silk gauze, nowcloth as stiff and cumbersome as sail-cloth. They faced each other,ready for their trip.
The heavens above them, trailing up and up into mysterious darknesses,suddenly became closer and sparkled with a diamond sheen. Stretching offand up out of sight was a mountainous column that might conceivably be awrist.
"Matt's looking at us through a magnifying glass," concluded Denny.
* * * * *
Abruptly the ridged bad-lands about them began to vibrate. Thundercrashed and roared around their ears.
"He's trying to say something to us," said Denny, when the awful din hadceased. "Oh, Matt--we're ready to go!"
Jim echoed his shout. Then Denny snorted. "Fools! Our voices areprobably pitched way above the limit of audibility. He can't hear us anymore than we can understand him!"
They gazed at each other. More than anything else that had happened,this showed them how entirely they were cut off from their old world.Truly, in discarding their normal size, they might as well have beenmarooned on another planet!
A tremendous, pinkish-gray wall lowered near them, split into segments,and surrounded their plateau. The plateau was lifted--with a dizzyswiftness that made their stomachs turn.
With sickening speed the plateau moved forward. The texture of theheavens above them changed. The sun--the one thing in their new universethat seemed unchanged in size and aspect--shone down on them. Theplateau came jarringly to rest. Great cliffs of what seemed black basaltgleamed high over them.
Matt had carried them out of the building, and had set the patty-dish onthe black leather seat of his automobile.
There was a distant thundering, as though all the worlds in the universebut Earth were being dashed to pieces. That was the motor starting. Andthen, as the car moved off, Jim and Dennis realized their mistake inchoosing a patty-dish to ride in!
* * * * *
In spite of the yielding leather cushion on which their dish was set,the two quarter-inch men were hurled this way and that, jounced horriblyup and down, and slid headlong from one end of the plateau to the otheras the automobile passed over the city streets. Impossible to stand.They could only crouch low on the hard glazed surface, and try to keepfrom breaking legs and arms in the worst earthquake it is possible toimagine. Anyone who has ever seen two bugs ill-advisedly try to walkacross the vibrating hood of an automobile while the motor is running,will have some idea of the troubles that now beset Dennis and Jim.
"The ass!" groaned Jim, in a comparatively quiet spell. "Why doesn't hedrive more carefully?"
"Probably," groaned Denny, "he's doing the best he can."
Probably! All that was left them was conjecture. They could only guestat what was happening in the world about them!
Matthew Breen's face and body were lost in sheer immensity above them.They knew they were riding in a car; but they couldn't see the car. Allthey could see was the black cliff that was the seat-cushion behindthem. The world had disappeared--hidden in its bigness; the world,indeed, was just at present a patty-dish.
Somehow they endured the ride. Somehow they avoided broken bones, andwere only shaken up and bruised when the distant roar of the motorceased and the wind stopped howling about their ears.
"Well, we're here," said Dennis unsteadily. "Now for the real--"
His words were stopped by the sudden rising of the plateau. Again theyfelt the poignantly exaggerated, express-elevator feeling, till theplateau finally came to rest.
The crashing thunder of Matt's voice came to them, words utterlyindistinguishable. The saucer was tipped sideways....
Doubtless Matt thought he was acting with extreme gentleness; but infact the dish was tilted so quickly and so without warning that Jim andDennis slid from its center, head over heels, to fall over the edge andland with a bump on the ground. Their spears, sliding after, narrowlymissed impaling them.
Once more came the distant crashing of Matt's voice. Then there wassilence. Their gigantic protector, having dumped them unceremoniouslyinto the grass of Morton's Grove, had ushered them squarely into thestart of their insane adventure. From now on their fate belonged to themalone.