Astounding Stories, March, 1931

Astounding Stories, March, 1931 Page 2

by Various

  Beyond the Vanishing Point

  A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

  _By Ray Cummings_

  CHAPTER I

  _The Fragment of Quartz_

  [Sidenote: The tale of a golden atom--an astounding adventure insize.]

  The fly landed with a thud on the center table.]

  It was shortly after noon of December 31, 1960, when the series ofweird and startling events began which took me into the tiny world ofan atom of gold, beyond the vanishing point, beyond the range of eventhe highest-powered electric-microscope. My name is George Randolph. Iwas, that momentous afternoon, assistant chemist for the AjaxInternational Dye Company, with main offices in New York City.

  It was twelve-twenty when the local exchange call-sorter announcedAlan's connection from Quebec.

  "You, George? Look here, we've got to have you up here at once.Chateau Frontenac, Quebec. Will you come?"

  I could see his face imaged in the little mirror on my desk; theanxiety, 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'sEve holiday. But I knew it was not that. Alan and Barbara Kent were mybest friends. They were twins, eighteen years old. I felt that Alanwould always be my best friend; but for Babs my hopes, longings, wentfar deeper, though as yet I had never brought myself to the point oftelling her so.

  "I'd like to come, Alan. But--"

  "You must! George, I can't tell you over the public air. It's--I'veseen _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've seen him to-day! I didn'twant to tell you, but that's why we came. It seemed a long chance, butit's he, I'm positive!"

  I was staring at the image of Alan's eyes; it seemed that there washorror in them. And in his voice. "God, George, it's weird! Weird, Itell 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 droppedeverything and went. By one o'clock that afternoon I was wheeling mylittle sport midge from its cage on the roof of the Metropolebuilding, and went into the air.

  It was a cold gray afternoon with the feel of coming snow. I made agood two hundred and fifty miles at first, taking the northboundthrough-traffic lane which to-day the meteorological conditions hadplaced at 6,200 feet altitude.

  Flying is largely automatic. There was not enough traffic to botherme. The details of leaving the office so hastily had been tooengrossing for thought of Alan and Babs. But now, in my little pit atthe controls, my mind flung ahead. They had located him. That meantFranz Polter, for whom we had been searching nearly four years. And mymemory went back into the past with vivid vision....

  The Kents, four years ago, were living on Long Island. Alan and Babswere fourteen years old, and I was seventeen. Even then Babsrepresented to me all that was desirable in girlhood. I lived in aneighboring 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 aluxurious home, with only a housekeeper and and no other servant. Dr.Kent was a retired chemist. He had, in his home, a chemical laboratoryin which he was working upon some mysterious problem. His children didnot know what it was, nor, of course, did I. And none of us had everbeen in the laboratory, except that when occasion offered we stolesurreptitious peeps.

  I recall Dr. Kent as a kindly, iron-gray haired gentleman. He wasstern with the discipline of his children; but he loved them, and wasindulgent in a thousand ways. They loved him; and I, an orphan, beganlooking upon him almost as a father. I was interested in chemistry. Heknew it, and did his best to help and encourage me in my studies.

  * * * * *

  There came an afternoon in the summer of 1956, when arriving at theKent house, I ran upon a startling scene. The only other member of thehousehold was a young fellow of twenty-five, named Franz Polter. Hewas a foreigner, born, I understood, in one of the BalkanProtectorates; and he was here, employed by Dr. Kent as laboratoryassistant. He had been with the Kents, at this time, two years. Alanand Babs did not like him, nor did I. He must have been a clever,skilful chemist. No doubt he was. But in aspect he was, to us,repulsive. A hunchback, with a short thick body; dangling arms thatsuggested a gorilla; barrel chest; a lump set askew on his leftshoulder, and his massive head planted down with almost no neck. Hisface 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 anintelligent face; in itself, not repulsive.

  But I think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was alwayssomething sinister about him, quite apart from his deformity.

  I came, that afternoon, upon Babs and Polter under a tree on the Kentlawn. Babs, at fourteen with her long black braids down her back,bare-legged and short-skirted in a summer sport costume, was standingagainst the tree with Polter facing her. They were about of a height.To my youthful imaginative mind rose the fleeting picture of a younggirl 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 twistaway. She was frightened, but she laughed.

  "You--you're crazy!"

  He was suddenly holding her in his arms, and she was fighting him. Idashed forward. Babs was always a spunky sort of girl. In spite of herfear now, she kept on laughing, and she shouted:

  "You--let me go, you--hunchback!"

  He did let her go; but in a frenzy of rage he hauled back his hand andstruck her in the face. I was upon him the next second. I had him downon the lawn, punching him; but though at seventeen I was a reasonablyhusky lad, the hunchback with his thick, hairy gorilla arms provedmuch stronger. He heaved me off. And then the commotion brought Alan.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 thehousekeeper 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 hadsummoned. I was standing silently nearby with Babs and Alan. The lookhe flung us as he drove away carried an unmistakable menace--thepromise of vengeance. And I think now that in his warped and twistedmind he was telling himself that he would some day make Babs regretthat she had laughed at his love.

  What happened that night none of us ever knew. Dr. Kent worked late inhis laboratory; he was there when Alan and Babs and the housekeeperwent to bed. He had written a note to Alan; it was found on his deskin a corner of the laboratory next morning, addressed in care of thefamily lawyer to be given Alan in the event his father died. It saidvery little. Described a tiny fragment of gold quartz rock the sizeof a walnut which would be found under the giant microscope in thelaboratory; and told Alan to give it to the American ScientificSociety to be guarded and watched very carefully.

  This note was found, but Dr. Kent had vanished! There had been amidnight marauder. The laboratory was on the lower floor of the house.Through one of its open windows, so the police said, an intruder hadentered. There was evidence of a struggle, but it must have beenshort, and neither Babs, Alan, the housekeeper nor any of theneighbors heard anything amiss. And the fragment of golden quartz wasgone!

  The police investigation came to nothing. Polter was found in NewYork. He withstood the police questions. There was nothing exceptsuspicion upon which he could be held, and he was finally released.Immediately, he disappeared.

  Neither Alan, Babs nor I saw Polter again. Dr. Kent had never beenheard from to this day, four years later when I flew to join t
he twinsin Quebec. And now Alan had told me that Polter was up there! We hadnever ceased to believe that Dr. Kent was alive, and that Polter wasthe midnight marauder. And as we grew older, we began to search forPolter. It seemed to us that now we were older, if we could once getour hands on him, we could drag from him the truth in which the policehad failed.

  * * * * *

  The call of a traffic director in mid-Vermont brought me back fromthese vivid thoughts. My buzzer was clanging; a peremptoryhalting-signal day-beam came darting up at me from below. It caught meand clung: I shouted down at it.

  "What's the matter?" I gave my name and number and all the details ina breath. Above everything I had no wish to be halted now. "What's thematter? I haven't done anything wrong."

  "The hell you haven't," the director roared. "Come down to threethousand. 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 hearthe end of his threat.

  I crossed into Maine in mid-afternoon. Twilight was upon me. The skywas solid lead. The landscape all up through here was gray-white withsnow in the gathering darkness. I passed the city of Jackman, crossingfull over it to take no chances of annoying the border officials; anda few miles further, I dropped to the glaring lights of theInternational Inspection Field. The formalities were soon finished. Iwas ready to take-away when Alan rushed at me.

  "George! I thought I could connect here." He gripped me. He waswild-eyed, incoherent. He waved his taxiplane away. "I'm going backwith my friend. George. 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'ttalk. 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 talkingabout? 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. TheQuebec police think I am, anyway. I been raising hell with them for anhour. Babs is gone. I can't find her. I don't know where she is."

  * * * * *

  He finally calmed down enough to tell me. Shortly after his radiophoneto me in New York, he had missed Babs. They had had lunch in the hugehotel and then walked on the Dufferin Terrace--the famous promenadeoutside 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'tcome. I went back to the terrace and she was gone. Wasn't in ourrooms. Nor the lobby--nor anywhere."

  But it was early afternoon, in the public place of a civilized city.In the daylight of the Dufferin Terrace, beside the long ice tobogganslide, under the gaze of skaters on the ice-rink and several hundredholiday merrymakers, a young girl could hardly be murdered, orforcibly abducted, without attracting some attention! The Quebecpolice thought the young American unduly excited over his sister, whowas missing only an hour. They would do what they could, if by darkshe had not rejoined him. They suggested that doubtless the young ladyhad 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--notthirty miles from Quebec. We saw him on the terrace after breakfast.Recognized him at once."

  "Did he see you?"

  "I don't know. He was lost in the crowd in a minute. But I asked ayoung French fellow who it was. He knew him. Told me, Frank Raskor.That's the name he wears now. He's a famous man up here--well known,immensely rich. I don't know if he saw us or not. What a fool I was toleave Babs alone, even for a minute!"

  We were speeding over a white-clad valley with a little frozen riverwinding down its middle. Almost full night had come. The leaden skywas low above us. It began snowing. The lights of the small villagesalong the river were barely visible.

  "Can you land us, Alan?"

  "Yes, surely. Municipal field just beyond the Citadel. We can get tothe hotel in five minutes. Good landing lights."

  * * * * *

  It was a flight of only half an hour. During it, Alan told me aboutPolter. The hunchback, known now as Frank Rascor, owned a mine in theLaurentides, some thirty miles from Quebec City--a fabulouslyproductive mine of gold. It was an anomaly that gold should beproduced in this region. No vein oL gold-bearing rock had been found,except the one on Polter's property. Alan had seen a newspaper accountof the strangeness of it; and just upon the chance had come to Quebec,seen Frank Rascor on the Dufferin Terrace, and recognized him asPolter.

  Again my thoughts went back into the past. Had Polter stolen thatmissing fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut which had beenbeneath Dr. Kent's microscope? We always thought so. Dr. Kent had somesecret, some great problem upon which he was working. Polter, hisassistant, had evidently known, or partially known, its details. Andnow, four years later, Polter was immensely rich, with a "gold mine"in mountains where there was no other such evidence of gold!

  I seemed to see some connection. Alan, I knew, was groping with a dimidea, 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 hunchback--and his face, his features, justthe same as when we knew him."

  "Then what's 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, thatwas four years ago. But he isn't twenty-nine now! I swear it's thesame man--but he isn't around thirty. Don't ask me what I'm talkingabout. 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 wehad at him."

  I did not answer. My attention was on managing the plane. The lightsof Sevis were under us. Beyond the city cliffs the St. Lawrence layin its deep valley; and the Quebec lights, the light-dotted rampartswith the terrace and the great fortress-like hotel showed across theriver.

  "Better take the stick, Alan. I don't know where the field is. Anddon'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 ofthe hotel which Alan and Babs had engaged. We inquired with half adozen phone-calls. No one had seen or heard from her. The Quebecpolice were sending a man up to talk to Alan.

  "Well, we won't be here," Alan called to me. He was standing by thewindow in Bab's room; he was trembling too much to use the phone. Ihung up the receiver and went through the connecting door to join him.

  Bab's room! It sent a pang through me. A few of her garments werelying around. A negligee was laid out on the dainty little bed. Avelvet boudoir doll--she had always loved them--stood on the dresser.Upon this hotel room, in a day, she had impressed her personality. Herperfume 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, soundlessautomatic of the Essen type. "And I've got another, for you. Broughtthem up with me."

  His face was white and drawn, but his hands abruptly were steady. Thetremble was gone out of his voice.

  "I'm going after him. George! Now! Understand that? Now! His place isonly thirty miles from here, out there in the mountains. You can seeit in the daylight--a wall around his property and a stone castlewhich he built in the middle of it. A gold mine? Hell!"

  There was nothing to be seen now out of the window but thesnow-filled darkness, the blurred lights of lower Quebec and the lineof dock-lights five hundred feet under us.

  "Will you fly me, George?"

  "Of course."

  I was the one trembling now; the cool feel of the automatic which Alanthrust into my hand seemed suddenly to cry
stallize Bab's danger. I washere in her room, with the scent of her perfume around it, and thisdeadly weapon was needed! But the trembling was gone in a moment.

  "Yes. Of course, Alan. No use talking to the police. You can't get asearch warrant to ransack the castle of a rich man just because youcan't find your sister. Come on. You can tell me what his place islike as we go."

  * * * * *

  Bundled in our flying suits we hurried from the hotel, climbed theCitadel slope of the landing field, and in ten minutes were again inthe air. The wind sucked at us. The snow now was falling with thickhuge flakes. Directed by Alan, I headed out over the ice-filled St.Lawrence, past the frozen Isle d'Orleans, toward Polter's mysteriousmountain castle.

  Suddenly Alan burst out, "I know what father's secret was, George! Ican piece it together now, from little things that were meaninglesswhen I was a kid. He invented the electro-microscope. You know that.The infinitely small fascinated him. I remember he once said that ifwe could see far enough down into smallness, we would come upon humanlife!"

  Alan's low tense voice was more vehement than I had ever heard itbefore. "It's clear to me now, George. That little fragment of goldenquartz which he wanted me to be so careful of contained a world withhuman inhabitants! Father knew it, or suspected it. And I think thechemical problem on which he was working aimed for some drug. I knowit was a drug they were compounding. Polter said so once, aradio-active 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! Mymind whirled with it; struggled to encompass it. And like themeaningless pieces of a puzzle, dropping so easily into place when thekey-piece is fitted. I saw Polter stealing that fragment of gold;abducting Dr. Kent--perhaps because Polter himself was not fullyacquainted with the secret. And now, Polter, up here with a fabulouslyrich "gold mine." And Babs, abducted by him, to be taken--where?

  It set me shuddering.

  "Alan!"

  "That's what it was!" Alan reiterated. "And Polter, here now with whathe calls a 'mine.' It isn't a mine, it's a laboratory! He's gotfather, too, hidden God knows where! And now Babs. We've got to getthem. George! The police can't help us! It's just you and me, to fightthis thing. And it's diabolical!"

  CHAPTER II

  _The Girl an Inch Tall_

  We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, betweenOrleans and the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a moment showed dimlywhite through the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higherthan Niagara. Further ahead, the lights of the little village of St.Anne de Beaupre were visible with the gray-black, towering hillsbehind them. Historic region! But Alan and I had no thoughts for it.

  "Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne; we pass thisside of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a towersiren."

  I cut in the mufflers, and switched off our wing-lights. It wasillegal, but we were past all thought of that. We were both desperate;the slow prudent process of acting within the law had nothing to dowith this affair. We both knew it.

  Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzardour muffled engine could not be heard.

  Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"

  We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead--wild mountainous countrystretching northward to the foot of Hudson Bay. The blizzard wasroaring out of the north and we were heading into it. I saw, on whatseemed a dome-like hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level,a small cluster of lights which marked Polter's property.

  "Fly over it once, George. Low--we can chance it. And find a place toland outside the walls."

  We presently had it under us. I held us at five hundred feet, and cutour 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 ortwo of hooded ground lights. But there was little reflection aloft,and in the murk of the snowfall I felt we would escape notice.

  We crossed, turned and went back in an arc following Polter's outercurved wall. We had a good view of it. A weird enough looking place,here on its lonely hilltop. No wonder the wealthy "Frank Rascor" hadattained local prominence!

  * * * * *

  The whole property was irregularly circular, perhaps a mile indiameter covering the almost flat dome of the hilltop. Around it,completely enclosing it, Polter had built a stone and brick wall. Aminiature wall of China! We could see that it was fully thirty feethigh with what evidently were naked high-voltage wires protecting itstop. There were half a dozen little gates, securely barred, withdoubtless a guard at each of them.

  Within the wall there were several buildings: a few small stone housessuggesting workmen's dwellings; an oblong stone structure with smokefunnels which seemed perhaps a smelter; a huge, dome-like spread oftranslucent glass over what might have been the top of a mine-shaft.It looked more like the dome of an observatory--an inverted bowl fullya hundred feet wide and equally as high, set upon the ground. What didit cover?

  And, there was Polter's residence--a castle-like brick and stonebuilding with a central tower not unlike a miniature of the ChateauFrontenac. We saw a stone corridor on the ground connecting the lowerfloor of the castle with the dome, which lay about a hundred feet toone side.

  Could we chance landing inside the wall? There was a dark, levelexpanse of snow where we could have done it, but our descending planewould doubtless have been discovered. But the mile-wide inner area wasdark 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 inPolter's house; they slanted out in yellow shafts to the nearby whiteground. But for the rest, the whole place was dark, save a dim glowfrom under the dome.

  I shook my head at Alan's suggestion. "We couldn't land inside." Wehad circled back and were a mile or so off toward the river. "You sawguards down there. But that low stretch outside the gate on thisside--"

  A plan was coming to me. Heaven knows it was desperate enough, but wehad 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 ofthis blizzard, we could hide; creep up to that dome. Beyond that myimagination could not go.

  * * * * *

  We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of the gates. Weleft the plane and plunged into the darkness. It was a steady upwardslope. A packed snowfield was under foot, firm enough to hold ourshoes, with a foot or so of loose soft snow on its top. The fallingflakes whirled around us. The darkness was solid, Our helmetedleather-furred flying suits were soon shapeless with a gathering whiteshroud. We carried our Essens in our gloved hands. The night was cold,around zero I imagine, though with that biting wind it felt farcolder.

  From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up.

  "There it is, Alan. Easy now! Let me go first." The wind tore away mywords. We could see the narrow rectangle of bars at the gate, with aglow of light behind them.

  "Hide your gun, Alan." I gripped him. "Hear me?"

  "Yes."

  "Let me go first. I'll do the talking. When he opens the gate, let mehandle 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. Ihad the horrible feeling that a shot would greet us. A challenge came,at first in French, then in English.

  "Stop! What do you want?"

  "To see Mr. Rascor."

  We were up to the bars now, shapeless hooded bundles of snow andfrost. A man stood in the doorway of a lighted little cubby behind thebars. 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 back, and took a stepforward. I touched the bars.

  "My name is Fred Davis. Newspaper man from Montreal. I must see Mr.Rascor."

  "You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece i
s there--outthere to the left. Bare your face; he talks to no one without the faceimage."

  * * * * *

  The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only this extendedhand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible.

  I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't you openthe gate? It's cold out here. We have important business. We'll waitwith you."

  Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby doorway was theopen darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from thegate showed for a few feet.

  I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in mycoat pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that theguard was gone! Then I saw him crouching back of a metal shield. Hisvoice rang out.

  "Stand!"

  A light struck my face--a little beam from a television sender besideme. It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barelytime to make a move. I realized my image was now doubtless beingpresented to Polter. He would recognize me!

  I ducked my head, yelling: "Don't do that! You frighten me!"

  It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I was aware of itsbuzz.

  From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leaped at me. It struck my hood.There was a heavy, sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. Ifelt 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 fainthiss of his Essen. And his choked, horrified voice:

  "George--come back! Run! Don't fall! Don't!"

  I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, thatAlan's inert body was falling on top of me....

  * * * * *

  I recovered consciousness after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoriaof wild, drugged dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there weredim muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I waslying on the ground, and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoatwas off. Then I realized that I was bound and gagged.

  I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with ablack gag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim openspace. Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome wasoverhead. This was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimlylighted. The figures of men were moving about, their great misshapenshadows shifting with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile ofgolden rock--chunks of gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, andlarger, heaped loosely into a mound ten feet high.

  Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feetabove the concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. Itcast a circular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised afoot or two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung withits twenty-foot cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubeswere glowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A mansat 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 whitestone slab under the giant lense. It rested on the platform floor, atwo-foot-square surface of smooth white stone like marble. A littleroped railing a few inches high fenced it. And in its center lay afragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut!

  There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced. Irecognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gagwith futile, horrified effort. I could no more than writhe; and Icould not make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and staredwith horror.

  The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope.And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They werenearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could seethem clearly. Bab's slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--paleblue, now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallendisheveled to her shoulders. I could not see her face. She did not cryout. Polter was half dragging her as she resisted him; and thenabruptly she ceased struggling.

  I heard his gutteral voice. "That iss better."

  * * * * *

  They mounted to the platform. It seemed to me that they must have beenfar away; they were very small. Abnormally small. I blinked. Horrorsurged over me. Their figures were dwindling as they stood there!Polter was saying something to the man at the microscope. Other menwere nearby, watching. All normal, save Polter and Babs. A momentpassed. Polter was standing by the chair in which the man at themicroscope was sitting. And Polter's head barely reached its seat!Babs was clinging to him, now. Another moment. They were both littlefigures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking with swayingsteps toward the tiny railing of the white slab. The white reflectionfrom the slab plainly illumined then. Polter's arm was around Babs. Ihad not realized how small they were until I saw Polter lift the ropeof the four-inch little fence, and he and Babs stooped and walkedunder it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from them in the center ofthe white surface. They walked unsteadily toward it. But soon theywere running.

  My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something touch myface! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No one had noticed my writhingmovements, and Alan was still in drugged unconsciousness. Somethingtiny and light and soundless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! Ijerked my head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, Isaw the tiny figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warninggesture to her lips--a human girl in a filmy flowing drapery. Longpale golden tresses lay on her white shoulders; her face, small as mylittle fingernail, colorful as a miniature painted upon ivory, was soclose to my eyes that I could see her expression--warning me not tomove.

  There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she stood, but in amoment she moved out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back ofmy head. My ear was near the ground. A tiny warm hand touched myear-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 cameagain.

  "I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"

  CHAPTER III

  _The Fight in the Shrinking Dome Room_

  It seemed that Alan was stirring. I felt the tiny hand leave my ear. Ithought that I could hear faint little footfalls as the girl scamperedaway, fearful that a sudden movement from Alan would crush her. Iturned cautiously after a moment and saw Alan's eyes upon me. He toohad seen, with a blurred returning consciousness, the dwindlingfigures of Babs and Polter. I followed his gaze. The white slab withthe golden quartz under the microscope seemed empty of human movement.The several men in this huge circular dome-room were dispersing totheir affairs: three of them sat whispering by what I now saw was apile of gold ingots stacked crosswise. But the fellow at themicroscope held his place, his eye glued to its aperture as he watchedthe vanishing figures of Polter and Babs on the rock-fragment.

  Alan seemed trying to convey something to me, He could only gaze andjerk his head. I saw behind his head the figure of the tiny girl onthe floor behind him. She wanted evidently to approach his head butdid not dare. When for an instant he was quiet, she ran forward, butat 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 opportunityto come nearer. We both heard her tiny voice:

  "Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are stillunconscious."

  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 hesaw my eager nod and took his cue from me.

  * * * * *

  I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footstepsapproached. A man bent over Alan and me.

  "Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with aqueer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!"

  Then the footsteps retreated, and when I d
ared to look the man wasrejoining his fellows. It was a strange-looking trio. They wereheavy-set men in leather jackets and short, wide knee-length trousers.One wore tight, high boots, and the others a sort of white buskin,with ankle straps. All were bareheaded--round, bullet heads ofclose-dipped black hair.

  I suddenly had another startling realization. These men were not ofnormal size as I had assumed! They were eight or ten feet tall at thevery least! And they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close tome, 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 pin-point gleamof what might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a littlelarger. I am too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after Ihave cut them."

  I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward; butshe came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by theingots. 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. Iget larger now--a little larger--and return."

  * * * * *

  She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voicesof the three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called tothe man at the microscope, and he responded. The third man saidsuddenly:

  "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' fer 'em? An' that damngirl 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 downbehind St. Anne. That what the doctor plan to do, I think. Then thepolice find them--days maybe from now--and their smashed airship withthem."

  Gruesome suggestion!

  The man at the microscope called, "They are gone. Almost. I can hardlysee them more." He left the platform and joined the others. And I sawthat he was much smaller than they--about my own size possibly.

  There seemed six men here altogether. Four now, by the ingots, and twoothers far across the room where I saw the dark entrance of thecorridor-tunnel which led to Polter's castle.

  Again I felt a warning hand touch my face, and saw the figure of Glorastanding by my head. She was larger now--about a foot tall. She movedpast my eyes; stood by my mouth; bent down over my gag. I felt thecautious side of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of thegag. She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it through.

  She stood panting from the effort. My heart was pounding with fearthat she would be seen; but the man had turned the central light offwhen he left the microscope, and it was far darker here now thanbefore.

  * * * * *

  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 myankles. It took her a long time, but at last I was free! I rubbed myarms and legs; felt the returning strength 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 no givethem to you when I am still so small. I have not enough. I willhide--there." Her little arm gestured to where, near us, half a dozenboxes 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. "We must know--"

  "The drug to make you large. In a moment then you can fight these men.I had planned it for myself, to do that, and then I saw you heldcaptive. That girl of your world the doctor just now steal, she isfriend of yours?

  "Yes! Yes, Glora. But--" A thousand questions were springing in mymind, but this was no time to ask them. I amended, "Go! Hurry! Give usthe drug when you can."

  The little figure moved away from us and disappeared. Alan and I layas we had before. But now we could whisper. We tried to anticipatewhat would happen; tried to plan, but that was futile. The thing wastoo strange, too astoundingly fantastic.

  * * * * *

  HOW long Glora was gone I do not know. I think, not over three or fourminutes. She came from her hiding place, crouching this time, andjoined us. She was, probably, of normal Earth size--a small,frail-looking girl something over five feet tall. We saw now that shewas about sixteen years old. We lay staring at her, amazed at herbeauty. Her small oval face was pale, with the flush of pink upon hercheeks--a face queerly, transcendently beautiful. It was wholly human,yet somehow unearthly, as though unmarked by even the heritage of ourEarthly strifes.

  "Now! I am ready." She was fumbling at her robe. "I will give you eachthe 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 hadto chance it. We were sitting erect. He murmured:

  "But what do we do? What happens? What--"

  On the palm of her hand were two small pink-white pellets. "Takethese--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 radio-active.And volatile. Exposed to the air it is gone very soon. You are afraid?No! No, it will not harm you."

  With a muttered curse at his own reluctance, Alan seized the pellet. Istopped 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 that little pieceof golden rock. Is that where he went? Is that where he took the Earthgirl?"

  "Yes. My world is there--within an atom there in that rock."

  "Will you take us?"

  "Yes! Yes!"

  Alan whispered suddenly, "Then let us go now. Get smaller, now."

  But she shook her head vehemently. "That is not possible. We would beseen 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 getthat small, then it would be, from here"--she gestured toward themicroscope--"to there, a journey of very many miles. Don't youunderstand?"

  This thing so strange!

  Alan was plucking at me. "Ready, George?"

  "Yes."

  I put the pellet on my tongue. It tasted slightly sweet, but seemedquickly melted and I swallowed it hastily. My head swam. My heart waspounding, but that was apprehension, not the drug. A thrill of heatran 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 thoughthovered that she had tricked us; done to us something diabolical. Butthe thought was swept away in the confusion of the flood ofimpressions upon me.

  I turned dizzily. "All right, Alan?"

  "Yes, I--I guess so."

  My ears were roaring, the room seemed whirling, but in a moment thatpassed. I felt a sudden, growing sense of lightness. A humming waswithin me--a soundless tingle. To every tiny microscopic cell in mybody the drug had gone. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrillingwith activity. I know now it was the exuding volatile gas of thisdisintegrating
drug. Like an aura it enveloped me, acted upon mygarments.

  * * * * *

  I learned later much of the principles of this and its companion drug.I had no thought for such things now. The huge dimly illumined roomunder the dome was swaying. Then abruptly it steadied. The strangesensations within me were lessening, or I forgot them. And I becameaware of externals.

  The room was shrinking! As I stared, not with horror now, but withamazement and a coming triumph, I saw everywhere a slow, steady,crawling movement. The whole place was dwindling. The platform, themicroscope, were nearer than before, and smaller. The pile of ingots,with the men off there, was shifting toward me.

  "George! My God--weird!"

  I saw Alan's white face as I turned to him. He was growing at the samerate as myself evidently, for of all the scene he only was unchanged.

  We could feel the movement. The floor under us was shifting, crawlingslowly. From all directions it came, contracting as though it werebeing squeezed beneath us. In reality our expanding bodies werepushing outward.

  The pile of boxes which had been a few feet away, were thrustingthemselves at me I moved incautiously and knocked them over. Theyseemed small now, perhaps half their former size. Glora was standingbehind them. I was sitting and she was standing, but across thelitter, 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 foraction was upon us! We had already been discovered. The men wereshouting, clambering to their feet. Alan and I stood swaying. Thedome-room had contracted to half its former size. Near us was a littleplatform, chair and microscope. Small figures of men were rushing atus.

  I shouted, "Alan! Watch yourself!"

  * * * * *

  We were unarmed. These men might have automatics. But evidently theydid not. Knives were in their hands. The whole place was ringing withshouts. And then a shrill siren alarm from outside was clanging.

  The first of the men--a few moments before he had seemed agiant--flung himself upon me. His head was lower than my shoulders. Imet him with a blow of my fist in his face. He toppled backward; butfrom one side, another figure came at me. A knife-blade bit into theflesh of my thigh.

  The pain seemed to fire my brain. A madness descended upon me. It wasthe madness of abnormality. I saw Alan with two dwarfed figuresclinging 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, asthough he were a child, whirled him around me and flung him away. Helanded with a crash against the shrunken pile of gold nuggets and laystill.

  The place was in a turmoil. Other men were appearing from outside. Butthey stood now well away from us. Alan backed against me. His laughrang 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 thegroup of pigmy figures. I saw the small stab of flame, heard the singof the bullet.

  We rushed, with the full frenzy of madness upon us, enraged giants.What actually happened I can not recount. I recall scattering thelittle figures; seizing them; flinging them headlong. A bullet, tinynow, stung the calf of my leg. Little chairs and tables under my feetwere crashing. Alan was lunging back and forth; stamping; flinging histiny adversaries away. There were twenty or thirty of the figureshere now. Then I saw some of them escaping.

  The room was littered with wreckage. I saw that by some miracle ofchance the microscope was still standing, and I had a moment ofsanity.

  "Alan, watch out! The microscope! The platform--don't smash it! AndGlora! Look out for her!"

  * * * * *

  I suddenly became aware that my head and a shoulder had struck thedome roof. Why, this was a tiny room! Alan and I found ourselvesbacked together, panting in the small confines of a circular cubbywith an arching dome close over us. At our feet the platform with themicroscope over it hardly reached our boot-tops. There was a suddensilence, broken only by our heavy breathing. The tiny forms of humansstrewn around us were all motionless. The others had fled.

  Then we heard a small voice. "Here! Take this! Quickly! You are toolarge! Quickly!"

  Alan took a step. And then a sudden panic was on us both. Glora washere at our feet. We did not dare turn; hardly dared move. To stoopmight have crushed her. 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 apanic.

  Alan began, "George, I say--"

  The contracting inner curve of the dome bumped gently against my head.The panic of confusion which was upon us turned to fear. The room wasclosing in to crush us.

  I muttered. "Alan! I'm going out!" I braced myself and heaved againstthe side and top curve of the dome. Its metal ribs and heavytranslucent, reinforced glass plates resisted me. There was an instantwhen Alan and I were desperately frightened. We were trapped, to becrushed in here by our own horrible growth. Then the dome yieldedunder 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 thewind and snow of the blizzard howling around us!

  CHAPTER IV

  _The Journey Into Smallness_

  "Glora, that--that was horrible."

  We stood, again in normal size, with the wrecked dome-laboratoryaround us. The dome had a great jagged hole halfway up one of itssides, through which the snow was falling. The broken bodies strewnaround were gruesome.

  Alan repeated, "Horrible, Glora. This drug, the power of it, isdiabolical."

  Glora had grown large after us; had given us the companion drug. Ineed not detail the strange sensations of our dwindling. We were sosoon to experience them again!

  We had searched, when still large, all of Polter's grounds. Some ofhis men undoubtedly escaped, made off into the blizzard. How many, wenever knew. None of them ever made themselves known again.

  We were ready to start into the atom. The fragment of golden quartzstill lay under the microscope on the white square of stone slab. Wehad hurried with our last preparations. The room was chilling. We wereall inadequately dressed for such cold.

  I left a note scribbled on a square of paper by the microscope. Withdaylight, Polter's wrecked place would be discovered. The police wouldcome.

  "Guard this piece of golden quartz. Take it at once, very carefully,to the Royal Canadian Scientific Society. Have it watched day andnight. We will return."

  I signed it George Randolph. And as I did so, the extraordinary aspectof these events swept me anew. Here in Polter's weird place I hadseemed living in some strange fantastic realm. But this was theProvince of Quebec, in civilized Canada. These were the Quebecauthorities I was addressing.

  I flung the thoughts away. "Ready, Glora?"

  "Yes."

  * * * * *

  Then doubts assailed me. None of Polter's men had gotten large tofight us. Evidently he did not trust them with the drug. We could wellbelieve that, for the thing, misused, was diabolical beyond humanconception. A single giant, a criminal, a madman, by the power ofgiant size alone, could devastate the earth! The drug, lost, orcarelessly handled, could get loose. Animals, insects, eating it,could roam the earth, gigantic monsters! Vegetation, nourished withit, might in a day overrun a great city, burying it with a junglegrowth!

  How terrible a thing, if the realm of smallness were suddenly toemerge! Monsters of the sea, marine organisms, could expand until eventhe ocean was too small for them. Microbes of disease, feeding uponthis drug--

  Alan was gripping me. "We're ready, George."

  "Yes. Yes, I'm ready."

  This was not largeness we were facing now, but smallness. I thought ofBa
bs, down there with Polter, beyond the vanishing point in the realmof the infinitely small. They had been gone an hour at least. Everymoment lost now was adding to Bab's danger.

  "Yes. I'm ready, Alan."

  Glora sat with us on the platform. Strange little creature! She waswholly calm now; methodical with her last directions. There had beenno time for her to tell us anything about herself. Alan had asked herwhy she had come here and how she had gotten the drugs. She waved himaway:

  "On the journey down. Plenty of time, then."

  "How long?" Alan demanded.

  "Not too long. If we are careful with managing the trip, what youmight call ten hours."

  * * * * *

  And now as we were ready to start, she told us calmly:

  "I will give you each your share of the drugs, but them you take onlyas I tell you."

  She produced from her robe several small vials a few inches long. Theywere tightly stoppered. The feel of them was cool and sleek; theyseemed of some strange, polished metal. Some of them were tinted blackwhile the others glowed opalescent. She gave each of us one vial ofeach kind.

  "The light ones are for diminishing," she said. "We take them verycarefully, 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. Wesit here together. Then you follow me to the white slab. We climb uponthe little rock."

  She laid her hands on our arms. Her blue eyes regarded us earnestly.Her manner was naive; childlike. But I could not mistake herintelligence; the force of character stamped on her face for all itsdainty, ethereal beauty.

  "Alan--" She smiled at him, and tossed back a straying lock of herhair which was annoying her. "You pay attention, Alan. You are veryyoung, reckless. You listen. We must not be separated. You understandthat, both of you? We will be always in that little piece of rock. Butthere will be miles of distance. And to be lost in size--"

  Strange journey upon which now we were starting! Lost in size?

  "You understand me? Lost in size. If that happens, we might never findeach other. And if we come upon the Doctor Polter and the girl heholds captive--if we can overtake them--"

  "We must!" I exclaimed. "And we must start, Glora!"

  "Yes. Now!"

  * * * * *

  She showed us which pellet to select. They were of several sizes, Ifound. And as she afterward told us, the larger ones were not onlylarger but of an intensified strength. We took the smallest. It wasbarely a thousandth part of the strength of the largest. In unison weplaced the pellets on our tongues, and hastily swallowed.

  The first sensations were as before. And, familiar now, they caused nomore than a fleeting discomfort. But I think I could never get used tothe outward strangeness!

  The room in a moment was expanding. I could feel the platform floorcrawling outward beneath me, so that I had to hitch and change myposition as it pulled. We were seated together, Alan and I on eachside of Glora. My fingers were on her arm. It did not change size, butit slowly drew away with a space opening between us. Overhead, thedome-roof, the great jagged hole there, was receding, lifting, movingupward and away.

  Glora pulled us to our feet. "We had better start now. The distance isso far, so quickly."

  We had been sitting within five feet of the stone slab with its littlefour-inch-high railing around it. A chair was by the microscopeeyepiece. As we stood swaying I saw that the chair was huge, and itsseat level with my head. The great barrel-cylinder of the microscopeslanted sixty feet upward. The dome-roof was a distant spread threehundred feet up in the dimness. This gigantic room! It was a vastarena now.

  Alan and I must have hesitated, confused by the expanding scene--aslow steady movement everywhere. Everything was drawing away from us.Even as we stood together, the creeping platform floor was separatingus.

  A moment passed. Glora was urging vehemently:

  "Come! You must not stand!"

  We started walking. The railing around the slab was knee-high. Theslab itself was a broad square surface. The fragment of golden quartzlay in its center. It was now a jagged lump nearly a foot indiameter!

  * * * * *

  The platform seemed shifting as we walked; the railing hardly camecloser as we advanced toward it. Then suddenly I realized it wasreceding. 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 higherthan our heads. We ran under it, and out upon the white slab--a levelsurface, larger now than the whole dome-room had been.

  Glora, like a fawn ran in advance of us, her draperies flying in thewind. 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 topsteadily higher. Beyond it and over it was a vast dim distance. Wereached the rock, breathless, winded. It was a jagged mound like agreat fifty-foot butte. We plunged upon it, began climbing.

  The ascent was steep; precipitous in places. There were littlegullies, which expanded as we climbed up them. It seemed that weshould never reach the top, but at last we were there. I was awarethat the drug had ceased its action. The yellow rocky ground was nolonger expanding.

  We came to the summit and stood to get back our breath. And Alan and Igazed with awe upon the top of a rocky hill. Little buttes and strewnboulders lay everywhere. It was all naked rock, ridged and pitted, andeverywhere yellow-tinged.

  Overhead was distance. I could not call it a sky. A blur wasthere--something almost but not quite distinguishable. Then I thoughtthat I could make out a more solid blur which might be the lower lensof the microscope above us. And there were blurred, very distant spotsof light, like huge suns masked by a haze, and I knew that they werethe hooded lights of the laboratory room.

  * * * * *

  Before us, over the brink of a five hundred-foot cliff, a greatglistening white plain stretched into the distance. I seemed to seewhere it ended in a murky blur. And far higher than our own hilltoplevel a horizontal streak marked the rope railing of the slab.

  "Well," said Alan, "we're here." He gazed behind us, back across therocky summit which seemed several hundred feet across to its oppositebrink. He was smiling, but the smile faded. "Now what, Glora? Anotherpellet?"

  "No. Not yet. There is a place where we go down. It is marked in mymind."

  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 nakedcrags, it seemed behind each of them an enemy might be lurking.

  "Glora, do you know if any of Dr. Polter's men have the drug? I mean,do they come in and out here?"

  She shook her head. "I think not. He lets no one have the drug. Hetrusts not any one. I stole it; I will tell you later. Much I have totell you before we arrive."

  Alan made a sudden sidewise leap, and dashed around a rock. He cameback to us, smiling ruefully.

  "Gets on your nerves, all this. I had the same idea you did, George.Might be someone around here. But I guess not." He took Glora's handand they walked in advance of me. "We haven't thanked you yet, Glora."

  "Not needed. I came for help from your world. I could not get back tomy own, and I followed the Doctor Polter when he came outward. He hasmade my world, my people, his slaves. I came for help. And because Ihave helped you needs no thanks."

  "But we do thank you, Glora." Alan turned his flushed, earnest faceback to me. I thought I had never seen him so handsome, with hisboyish, rugged features, and shock of tousled brown hair. The grimnessof 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 eventhen its presence and its meaning did not escape her.

  "Stay close, George."

  "Yes."

>   * * * * *

  We reached a little gully near the center of the hilltop. It was sometwenty feet deep. Glora paused.

  "We descend here."

  The gully was an unmistakable landmark--open at one end, forty feetlong, with the other end terminating in a blind wall, smoothlyprecipitous. We retraced our steps, entered the gully at its open end,and walked its length. Glora paused by the wall which now loomed aboveus.

  "A pit is here--a hole. I cannot tell just how large it will look whenwe are in this size."

  We found and stood over it--a foot-wide circular hole extendingdownward. Alan abruptly knelt and shoved his hand and arm into it, butGlora sprang at him.

  "Don't do that!"

  "Why not? Is this it? How deep is it?"

  She retorted sharply, "The Doctor Polter is ahead of us. How far awayin size, who knows? Do you want to crush him, and crush that younggirl with him?"

  Alan's jaw dropped. "Good Lord!"

  We stood with the little pit before us, and another of the pelletsready.

  "Now!" said Glora.

  Again we took the drug, a somewhat larger pellet this time. Thefamiliar sensations began. Everywhere the rocks were creeping with aslow inexorable movement, the landscape expanding around us. The gullywalls drew back and upward. In a moment they were precipicecliff-walls and we were in a broad valley.

  We had been standing close together. We had not moved except to shiftour feet as the expanding ground drew them apart. I became aware thatAlan and Glora were a distance from me. Glora called:

  "Come, George! We go down, quickly now."

  * * * * *

  We ran to the pit. It had expanded to a great round hole some six feetwide and equally as deep. Glora let herself down, peered anxiouslybeneath her, and dropped. Alan and I followed. We jammed the pit; butas we stood there, the walls were receding and lifting.

  I had remarked Glora's downward glance, and shuddered. Suppose, insome slightly smaller size, Babs had been here among these rocks!

  The pit widened steadily. The movement was far swifter now. We stoodpresently in a great circular valley. It seemed fully a mile indiameter, with huge encircling walls like a crater rim toweringthousands of feet into the air. We ran along the base of one expandingwall, following Glora.

  I noticed now that overhead the turgid murk had turned into the blueof distance. A sky. It was faintly sky-blue, and there seemed a hazein it, almost as though clouds were forming. It had been cold when westarted. The exertion had kept us fairly comfortable; but now Irealized that the air was far warmer. It was a different air, morehumid, and I thought the smell of moist earth was in it. Rocks andboulders were strewn here on the floor of this giant valley, and I sawoccasional pools of water. There had been rain recently!

  The realization came with a shock of surprise. This was a new world! Afaint, luminous twilight was around us. And then I noticed that thelight was not altogether coming from overhead. It seemed inherent tothe rocks themselves. They glowed very faintly luminous, as thoughphosphorescent.

  We were now well embarked upon this strange journey. We spoke seldom.Glora was intent upon guiding us. She was trying to make the bestpossible speed. I realized that it was a case of judgment, as well asphysical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited afew moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred feet, twohundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours of arduousdescent--if we had lingered until we were a trifle smaller!

  * * * * *

  We took other pellets. We traveled perhaps an hour more. There weremany instances of Glora's skill. We squeezed into a gully and waiteduntil it widened; we leaped little expanding caverns; we slid down asmooth yellowish slide of rock like a child's toboggan, and saw itbehind and over us, rising to become a great spreading ramp extendingupward into the blue of the sky. Now, up there, little sailing whiteclouds were visible. And down where we stood it was deep twilight,queerly silvery with the phosphorescence from the luminous rocks asthough 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 offto where, across the rugged plateau we were traversing, there was arange of hills. Behind and above them were mountains; serrated tiers,higher and more distant. An infinite spread of landscape! And, as wedwindled, still other vast reaches opened before us. I gazed overhead.Was it--compared to my stature now--a thousand miles, perhaps even amillion miles up to where we had been two or three hours ago? I thinkso.

  Then suddenly I caught the other viewpoint. This was all only an inchof golden quartz--if one were large enough to see it that way!

  Alan had been trying to memorize the main topographical features ofour route. It was not as difficult as it seemed at first. We werealways far larger than normal to our environment. The maindistinguishing characteristics of the landscape were obvious--theblind gully, with the round pit, for instance, or the ramp-slide.

  We had been traveling some three or four hours when Glora suggested arest. We were at the side-wall of a broad canyon. The wall toweredseveral hundred feet above us; but a few moments before we had jumpeddown it with a single leap!

  * * * * *

  The drug we had last 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. Thewall beside us had been smooth, but now it was broken and ridged.There were ravines in it, and dark holes like cave-mouths. One wasnear 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 whatshe told.

  But Alan suddenly interrupted her. "I say, let's move away from here.That tunnel-mouth, or cave, whatever it is--"

  "But we go in there," she protested. "A little tunnel. That is our wayto travel. We are not far from my city now."

  Perhaps Alan felt what a generation ago they called a hunch, apremonition, the presage of evil which I think comes strangely to usmore often than we realize. Whatever it was, we had no time to actupon it. The tunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension wasabout a hundred feet away. It was a ten-foot, black yawning hole inthe cliff. Perhaps Alan sensed a movement off there. As I turned togaze, from the opening came a great hairy human arm! Then a shoulder!A head!

  The giant figure of a man came squeezing through the hole on hishands and knees! He gathered himself, and as he stood erect, I sawthat he was growing in size! Already he was twenty feet tall comparedto us--a thick-set fellow, dressed in leather garments, his legs andbare arms heavily matted with black hair. He stood swaying, gazingaround 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

  _The Message from Polter_

  Glora shouted, "Into the tunnel! This way!" She held her wits anddarted to one side, with Alan and me after her. We ran through anarrow passage between two fifty-foot boulders which lay closetogether. Momentarily the giant was out of sight, but we could hearhis heavy tread and his panting breath. We emerged; had passed him. Hewas taller now. He seemed confused at our sudden scampering activity.He checked his forward rush, and ran around the twin boulders. But wehad squeezed into a narrow ravine. He could not follow. He threw arock: to us it was a boulder. It crashed behind us. To him, we werelike scampering insects; he could not tell which way we were about todart.

  Alan panted, "Glora, this--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, trying to reach in. The rock hit him in theforehead--a pebble, but it stung him. His face rose away.

  Again we emerged. The tunnel-mouth was near us. We reached it andflung ourselves into its ten-foot width just as the giant came lungingup. He was far larger than before. Looking back, I could see only thelower 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; brokenrocky walls, a jagged arching roof ten feet high. Then I heard Alan'svoice.

  "George! Here!"

  They came running to me. For a moment we stood, undecided what to do.My eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness; it was illumined by adim phosphorescence from the rocks. I saw Alan fumbling for his vials,but Glora stopped him.

  "No! We are the right size."

  * * * * *

  We were a hundred feet back from the opening. The giant's legsdisappeared. But in a moment the round light hole of the exit wasobscured again. His head and shoulders! He was lying prone. His greatarms came in. He hitched forward. The width of his expanding shoulderswedged.

  I think that he expected to reach us with a single snatch of histremendous arms. Or perhaps he was confused, and forgot his growth. Hedid not reach us. His shoulders stuck. Then suddenly he was trying toback out, but could not!

  It was only a moment. We stood in the radiant gloom of the tunnel,clinging to each other, ourselves stricken by confusion. The giant'svoice roared, reverberating around us. Anger. A note of fear. Finallystark terror. He heaved, but the rocks of the opening held solid. Thenthere was a crack, a gruesome rattling, splintering--his shoulderbones 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--anavalanche, a cataclysm around us. Then light overhead.

  The giant's crushed body lay motionless. A pile of boulders, rocks andloose metallic earth was strewn upon his head and torso, illumined bythe outer light through a jagged rent where the cliff-face had fallendown.

  We were unhurt, crouching back from the avalanche. The giant's mangledbody was still expanding; shoving at the litter of loose rocks. In amoment it would again be too large for the broken cliff opening.

  I found my wits. "Alan! Out of here--God! Don't you see--"

  * * * * *

  But Glora held us. The drug the giant had taken was about at its end,and Glora recognized it. The growth presently stopped. That huge,noisome mass of pulp which once had been human shoulders--

  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. "Youtwo wait here. I'll climb over him."

  I told them why, and ran. I can only leave to the imagination thatbrief exploratory climb. The broken body seemed at least a hundredfeet long; the mangled shoulders and chest filled the great torn holein the cliff. I climbed over the litter. Indescribable, horriblescene! A river of warm blood was flowing down the declivityoutside....

  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 inmy blood-stained garments.

  "George! You're--"

  "His blood, not mine, Alan." I tried to smile. "There's the drug hecarried. Evidently Polter was only sending him out. Just the onedrug."

  "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 atthe huge stopper, and exposed a few of the pellets--to us as large asapples. "The air will soon spoil it."

  We left it in the tunnel. I had brought a great roll of paper; hadfound it folded in the giant's belt, with the drug cylinder. Weunrolled it, and hauled its folds to a spread some ten feet long. Itwas covered with a scrawled handwriting in pencil, but its giantcharacters seemed thick blurred strokes of charcoal. We could not readit; we were too close. Alan and Glora held it up against the tunnelwall. From a distance I could make it out. It was a note written inEnglish, signed "Polter," evidently to one of his men.

  I read it:

  "The two men prisoners, kill them at once. That is better. It will betoo dangerous to wait for my return. Put their bodies with theirairplane. Crash it a mile or more from our gate."

  Full directions for our death followed. And Polter said he wouldreturn by dawn or soon after.

  * * * * *

  It gave me a start. By dawn! We had been traveling four or five hours.The dawn was up there now!

  "No," said Glora. She and Alan cast away the paper. "No, the time inhere is different. A different time-rate. I do not know how muchdifference. My world speeds faster; yours is very slow. It is not thedawn up there quite yet."

  Again my mind strove to encompass these things so strange. A fastertime-rate prevailed in here? Then our lives were passing more quickly.We were living, experiencing things, compressed into a shorterinterval. It was not apparent; there was nothing to which comparisoncould be made. I recalled Alan's description of Polter--not thirtyyears old as he should have been, but nearer fifty. I could understandthat, now. A day in here--while our gigantic world outside might onlyhave progressed a few hours.

  We walked the length of the tunnel. I suppose it was a quarter of amile, to us in this size. It wound through the cliff with a steadydownward slope. And suddenly I realized that we had turned downwardnearly half the diameter of a circle! We had turned over--or at leastit seemed so. But the gravity was the same. I had noticed from thebeginning very little change.

  The realization of this turning brought a mental confusion. I lost allsense of direction. The outer world of Earth was under my feet,instead of overhead. Then we went level. I forgot the confusion; thiswas normality here. We turned upward a little. Cross tunnelsintersected 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 thesame way."

  * * * * *

  There was a glow of light ahead. I recall that I was at that momentfumbling at my belt in two small compartments of which I was carryingthe two vials of the drugs which Glora had given me. Alan wore thesame sort of belt. We had found them in the wrecked dome-room. I hearda click on the ground at my feet. I was about to stoop to see what Ihad kicked--only a loose stone, perhaps--but Glora's words distractedme. I did not stoop. If only I had, how different events might havebeen!

  The glow of light ahead of us widened as we approached, and presentlywe stood at the end of the tunnel. A spread of open distance wasoutside. We were on a ledge of a rocky, precipitous wall some fiftyfeet above a wide level landscape. Vegetation! I saw trees--a forestoff to the left. A range of naked hills lay behind it. A mile away, infront and to the right, a little town nestled on the shore of shiningwater. There was starlight on the water! And over it a vastblue-purple sky was studded with stars!

  I gazed, with that first sudden shock of emotion, into illimitabledepths of interplanetary space! Light years of distance. Giganticworlds, blazing suns off there shrunken by distance now to littlepoints 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, werevast worlds ten thousand light-years away! Yet, from the otherviewpoint, I had only descended perhaps an eighth or a quarter of aninch beneath the broken pitted surface of a little fragment of goldenquartz the size of a walnut--into just one of its myriads of goldenatoms!

  CHAPTER VI

  _The Girl in the Golden Cage_

  "My world," Glora was saying. "You like it? See the starl
ight on thelake? I have heard that your world looks like this at night, insummer. Ours is always like this. No day, no night. Just likethis--starlight." Her hand went to Alan's shoulder. "You like it? Myworld?"

  "Yes. Yes, Glora, It's beautiful."

  There seemed a sheen on everything, a soft, glowing sheen ofphosphorescence from the rocks rising to meet the pale wan starlight.The night air was soft, with a gentle breeze that rippled the distantlake into a great spread of gold and silver light.

  The city was called Orena. I saw at once that we were about normalsize to its houses and people. There were fields beneath our ledge,with farm implements lying in them; no workers, for this was the timefor sleep. Ribbons of roads wound over the country, pale streamers inthe 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-toppeddwellings, the silver spread of lake showed a green-clad island somethree miles off shore. The distance made its white stone houses seemsmall. But as I gazed, I realized that they were large to theirenvironment, all far larger than those of the little town. The islandwas perhaps a mile in length. Between it and the mainland a boat wascoming toward us. It was a dark blob of hull on the shining water, andabove it a queerly shaped circular sail was puffed out like aballoon-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, Imean. And to your normal size?"

  I turned to Alan. "Polter and Babs must be down there now! They musthave arrived only recently. But we must determine what size to bebefore we go any further. We can't be gigantic If he sees us--if weassailed him--well, he'd kill Babs. We're got to plan. Glora tellus--"

  "You ask so many questions so fast, George. There are two hundred ormore of the giants. And there are more than that many thousands of ourpeople here. Slaves, because the giants are four times as large. Thislittle city, these fields, these hills of stone and metal, all thiswas ours to have in peace and happiness--until your Polter came. Andthat starlight on the water--"

  She gestured. "Everywhere is a great reach of desert and forests.Insects, but there are no wild beasts--nothing to harm us. Nature iskind here. The weather is always like this. We were happy--untilPolter 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 tentimes what is here. A few other cities, though some of our people livein the forests--"

  She broke off. "That boat is coming for Polter. He is in the city, nodoubt of that. The boat will take him and that girl you call Babs tothe giant's island. His castle is there."

  * * * * *

  If we could get on that boat and go with him to the island--! But inwhat size? Very small? But then, if we were very small it would takeus hours to get from here to the boat. Glora pointed out where itwould land--just beyond the village where the houses were set in asparse fringe. It would be there, apparently, in ten or fifteenminutes. Polter was probably there now with Babs, waiting for it.

  In our present size we could not get there in time. It was two orthree miles at least. But a trifle larger--the size of one of Polter'sgiants--would enable us to make it. We would be seen, but in the palestarlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we mightonly be mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we woulddiminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter andthen plan what to do.

  Futile plans! All of life is so futile, so wind-swept upon the tossingsea of chance!

  We climbed down from the ledge and stood at the base of the toweringcliff which reared its jagged wall against the stars. A field and aroad were near us. The road seemed of normal size. A man was acrossthe field. He did not seem to notice us. He was apparently about myheight. He presently discarded his work, went away from us andvanished.

  "Hurry, Glora." Alan and I stood beside her while she took pelletsfrom her vials. It needed a careful adjustment. We wanted our staturenow 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 at once gives just thegrowth 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 ourenlarging drug upon the journey; the supply she had given us of theother was nearly gone.

  * * * * *

  As I took these pellets which Glora now gave us, standing there by theside of that road, I recall that I was struck with the realizationthat never once upon this journey had I conceived myself to be otherthan normal stature. I am normally about six feet tall. I stillfelt--there in that golden atom--the same height. This landscapeseemed of normal size. There were trees nearby--spreading, fantasticlooking growths with great strings of pods hanging from them. Butstill, as I looked up to see one arching over me with its blue-brownleaves and an air-vine carrying vivid yellow blossoms--whatever thesize of the tree, my consciousness could only conceive myself as of anormal six-foot stature standing beneath it. The human ego always issupreme! Around each man's consciousness of himself the entireuniverse revolves!

  We crouched on the ground when this growth now began; it would not doto be observed changing size. Polter's giants never did that. Yearsbefore, he had made them large--his few hundred men and women. Theywere, Glora said, people both of this realm and from our great worldabove--dissolute, criminal characters who now had set themselves uphere as the nucleus of a ruling race.

  In a moment now, we were the size of these giants. Twenty totwenty-five feet tall, in relation to this environment. But I did notfeel so. As I stood up--still myself in normal stature--I saw aroundme a shrunken little landscape. The trees, as though in a Japanesegarden, were about my own height; the road was a smooth level path:the little field near us a toy fence around it. In another road acrossit, the man was walking. In height he would barely have reached myknees. He saw us rise beside the trees. He darted off his road inalarm, and disappeared.

  * * * * *

  I have taken longer to tell all this than the actual time whichpassed. We could see the boat coming from the island, and it was stilla fair distance off shore. We ran along the road, skirting the edge ofthe little town. Its houses were none of them taller than ourselves.The windows and doorways were ovals into which we could only haveinserted a head or an arm. They were most of them dark. Little peopleoccasionally stared out, saw us run past, and ducked back, thankfulthat we did not stop to harass them.

  "This way," said Glora. She ran like a fawn, hardly winded, with Alanand me heavily panting behind her. "There are trees--thicktrees--quite near where the boat lands. We can get in them and hideand change our size to smallness. But hurry, for we will need so muchtime when we are small!"

  The little spread of town and the shining lake remained always to ourright. In five minutes we were past most of the houses. A patch ofwoods, with thick interlacing treetops about our own height, layahead. It extended a few hundred feet over to the lake shore. Thesailboat was heading in close. There was a broad, starlit roadway atthe edge of the lake, and a dock there at which the boat was preparingto land.

  Would we be in time? I suddenly feared not. To get small now, withdistance lengthening between us and the boat, would be disastrous. Andwhere 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 brightlystarlit. As we approached the intervening patch of woods it seemedthat a crowd of little people were near the dock. Polter must havebeen sitting. But now he rose up. We could not mistake his hunche
dthick figure, the lump on his shoulders clear in the starlight withthe gleaming lake as a background. The crowd of little figures weremilling around his knees. In the silence of the night the murmur oftheir voices floated over to us.

  "There he is!" Alan gasped. We all three checked our running; we wereat the edge of the patch of woods. "By God, there he is! Let's getlarger! Rush him! Why that's only a few hundred feet over there!"

  But Babs? Where was Babs?

  "Alan! Down!" I crouched, pulling Alan and Glora with me. "Don't lethim see us! He'd know at once--and where is Babs? Can't rush him,Alan. He'd see us coming--kill her--"

  * * * * *

  Of all the strange events which had been flung at us, I think thissudden crisis now most confused Alan and me. To get larger, orsmaller? Which? Yet something must be done at once.

  Glora said, "We can get through the woods best in this size. And notbe seen--get closer to the landing."

  We crouched so that the little treetops were always well over us. Thepatch of woods was dark. A soil of black loam was under us, a thicksoft underbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves andbranches were at our shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcingour way softly forward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices ofthe crowd grew louder.

  Presently we were crouching at the other edge of the woods. I softlyshoved the tree branches aside until we could all three get a clearview of the strange scene now directly before us.

  And I saw a toy dock, at which a twenty-foot, barge-like open sailboatwas landing; a narrow starlit roadway, crowded with a milling throngof people all no more than a foot and a half in height. The crowdmilled almost to where we were crouching, unseen in the shrubbery.

  Across the road by the dock. Polter stood with the crowd down aroundhis knees. In height he seemed the old familiar Polter. Bareheaded,with his shaggy black hair shot with white. He was dressed in Earthfashion: narrow black evening trousers and a white shirt and collarwith flowing black tie. I saw at once what Alan had noticed--thechange in him. An abnormality of age. I would have called him nowforty, or older. Beyond even that there was an abnormality. A man oldbefore his time; or younger than he should have been for the years hehad lived. An indescribable mingling of something. The mingling, ofthe two worlds, perhaps. It marked him with a look at once unnaturaland sinister.

  These were instant impressions. Glora was plucking at me. "On thewhite chest of his shirt, something is there."

  * * * * *

  Polter was coatless, with snowy white shirt and cuffs to his thickwrists. He was no more than fifty feet from us. On his shirt bosomsomething golden in color was hanging like a large bauble, anornament, an insignia. It was strapped tightly there with a band abouthis 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 hisshirt-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 cagestrapped there. And I seemed to see that there was something in it. Atiny figure? Babs!

  "I think he has her there," Glora murmured. "You see the little boxwith bars? The girl Babs, a prisoner in there." She spoke swiftly,vehemently. "He will take the boat to the island."

  She suddenly gripped us. "You think really it best to go? I do whatyou 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 madeus pause. The crowd of little people were hostile to Polter. A sullenhostility. They milled about him as he stood there, gazing down atthen 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 smallnow. But she has the magic power. Soon, she will be large. Like me."

  The crowd was shouting again. It surged forward, but it lacked aleader, and those in advance shoved backward in fear.

  Polter spoke again. "This girl from my world, you will like her. Sheiss kind and very beautiful. When she iss large, you will see howbeautiful."

  A little stone suddenly came up from the throng of little people andstruck 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 to you what giantsdo when you make dem angry!"

  From down by his knees he plucked the small figure of a man. The crowdscattered with shouts of terror. Polter had the strugglingeighteen-inch figure by the wrist. He whirled it around his head likea nine-pin and flung it over the canopy of the dock far out into theshimmering lake!

  CHAPTER VII

  _Within the Golden Cage_

  The trees around us expanded to towering forest giants. The underbrushrose up over our heads. We had taken only a taste of the diminishingdrug; Glora showed us how to touch it to our tongue several times, toadjust our size as we became smaller. It was no more than a minute ofdiminishing. We could hear the roar of the crowd, and Polter's voiceshouting. We ran forward through the great forest. It was a fairdistance out to the starlit road. We saw it as a wide shiningesplanade. The people now were giants twice our height! Polter,himself towering with a seeming fifty foot stature, was standing bythe gigantic canopy of the dock. He had dispersed the crowd. There wasan 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 of 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 hadbacked from the road and was walking to the barge. It lay like thelength of an ocean liner, its sail looming an enormous spread aboveit. The gunwale was level with the dock-floor. A dozen or morefifty-foot men were greeting Polter. They were amidships.

  I realize now that in those moments as we scurried aboard like wharfrats, we took wild chances. We made for the stern which momentarilywas unoccupied. To Polter and his men we were eight or nine inchestall. We dropped over the gunwale, slid down the convex thirty orforty-foot incline of the interior and landed on the bottom of theboat.

  There were many places where we could safely hide. A litter ofgigantic rope-strands was around us. We could see the bottom of across-bench looming overhead, and the great curving sides of thevessel with the gunwales outlined against the starlight.

  * * * * *

  The boat left the dock in a moment; the sail bellied out enormous overus. Ten feet forward from us the towering figure of a man sat on abench with the steering mechanism before him. Further on, the othermen were dispersed, with one or two in the distant bow. Polterreclined on a cushioned couch amidships. Looking along the dark widelylevel bottom of the boat there were only the feet and legs of the menvisible.

  Alan whispered, "Let's get closer."

  We were insects soundlessly scuttling unnoticed in the dimness. And itwas 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 hidingplace nearer Polter. We could see his giant length plainly. None ofthe other men were near him. He was reclining on an elbow, stretchedat ease on the cushion. And at the moment, he was fumbling with thechains that fastened the little golden cage to his chest. The cage wasdouble its former size to us now. A shaft of pale light came down,reflected from the great sail surface overhead. It struck the bars ofthe cage. We could see a small figure in there.

  Babs!

  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 littletime."

  He unfastened the cage and put it o
n the cushion beside him. He wasstill 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 stillcloser! Try something! Get large, shall we?"

  Alan whispered tensely, "I don't know! Oh, I don't know what to do!This thing--"

  This thing so strange.

  "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 surfacewas a trifle lower than our heads--a billowing, wrinkled mass offabric. But I saw that the folds of it were rough enough to afford afoothold. I thought that I could climb it. We stood erect. There was adeep shadow along here, but it was brighter on the cushion top. Wecould see over its edge; an undulating spread of surface with thegiant length of Polter stretched there. The cage was nearer to us.Polter's great fingers fumbled with it; a door in the lattice barsflipped open.

  "Careful, my Babs!" His voice was a throaty, rumbling roar from aboveus. "Careful! I do not want you to be hurt."

  From the little doorway came the figure of Babs! The starlight glowedon her long blue dress; her black hair was tumbling over hershoulders; her face was pale, but she was unhurt.

  Babs! I think that I had never loved her so much as at that moment.Nor ever seen her so beautiful as in that miniature, standing at thedoor of her golden cage, bravely facing the monstrous misshapen figureof 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. Hebrought it carefully sliding along the cushion. Babs was barely thelength 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, twentyfeet 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 youback in your cage."

  * * * * *

  I had a sudden flash of realization. Something I could do. I did notplan it. I know now my judgment was bad. I recall it struck me thatAlan would want to do it also. And, perhaps, even Glora. That wouldnot work. My chances, however desperate, were better alone. And Gloraand Alan--in our present size-could doubtless disembark safely. Gloraknew the lay-out of the island. She could follow Polter.

  Alan and Glora were standing beside me, peering over that billowingcushion spread toward the distant giant palm with Babs standing uponit. I gripped Alan's shoulder.

  "See here, Alan," I whispered vehemently, "whatever happens, we mustfollow Polter. Glora knows the way. Some chance will come. What wewant is an opportunity to get large without discovery. Then rushPolter!"

  Alan's white face turned to me. "Yes, that's what we're planning. ButGeorge, here on this boat--"

  "Of course. Can't do it here. Tell Glora, be sure and follow Polter.Whatever happens, you think of nothing else: you won't, will you?"

  "George, what--"

  "We've got to make some opportunity." I was trembling inside, fearfulthat Alan would be suspicious of me. Yet I had to make sure that heand Glora would stay as close to Polter as possible.

  "Yes," Alan agreed. "Listen to them."

  Polter was talking to Babs. But I did not hear the words. I moved atrifle away. Rash decision! I hardly decided anything. There was onlythe vision of Babs before me; my love for her. And my desperate needof doing something; getting to her; seeing her, being with her; havingher near my own size again as though the blessed normality of thatwould 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 myfoot kicked against!

  * * * * *

  I slid away. Alan and Glora did not notice it; they were whisperingtogether and gazing over the cushion at Babs. In the floor shadow Imoved some ten feet. On the undulating top of the cushion the littlegolden cage stood with its lattice door open! It was only a few feetfrom my face.

  I fumbled at my belt for the diminishing vial. I found one pelletleft. Well, that would be enough. I was hurried. Alan might discoverme. Polter might move; put Babs back in the cage and close its door.We might be near the island already, and the confusion, the activityof disembarking would defeat me. A thousand things might happen.

  I touched the pellet to my tongue. In a few seconds the drug actionhad come and passed. The cushion top loomed well over my head. Theside was a ridged, indescribably unnatural vista of cliff-wall. Thefabric was coarse with hairy strands, dented into little ravines andcrevices. I climbed. I came panting to the pillow surface. The goldencage 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 cagedrew away; grew to a normal six-foot height; then larger, until in amoment it stopped. I stood peering at it, trying to gauge its size inrelation to me. I wanted so intensely now to be normal to Babs. Thecage seemed about ten feet high. A little less, possibly. I barelytasted the pellet, and replaced it carefully in the vial. I could onlyhope its efficacy would be preserved.

  I had to chance that I would not be seen now crossing this billowyexpanse. I ran. The rope strands of the fabric now had spaces betweentheir curving surfaces. The cage was a shining golden house, set onthis wide rolling area. Far in the distance there was a blur--Polter'sreclining body.

  I reached the cage. It was a room about ten feet square and equally ashigh. Walled solid, top and bottom, and on three sides. The front wasa lattice of bars, with a narrow six-foot-high doorway, standing opennow.

  I dashed in. The interior was not wholly bare. There was ametal-wrought couch fastened to the wall, with a railing around it andhandles. It suggested a ship's bunk. There was a railing at convenientheight all around the wall.

  I sought a hiding place. I saw just one--under the couch. It wassecluded enough. There was a grille-like lattice extending down fromthe seat to the floor. I squeezed under one end, and lay wedged behindthe grille.

  * * * * *

  How much time passed I do not know. My thoughts were racing. Babswould be coming.

  I heard the distant approaching rumble of Polter's voice. Through thegrille I could see across the floor of the ten-foot cage to the frontlattice bars. Outside, there appeared a huge, pink-white, mottledblob--Polter's hand, a ridged and pitted surface with great bristlingblack 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 bothmatured, with her head about level with my shoulders.

  The latticed door swung shut with a reverberating metallic clank. Babsstood tense, clinging to the wall railing. I heard the blurred rumbleof Polter's voice.

  "Hold tightly, my little Babs!"

  The room lurched; went upward and sidewise with a wild dizzying swoop.Babs clung; and I was wedged prone under the couch. Then the movementstopped; there was a jolting, rocking, and outside I heard the clankof metal. Polter was fastening the chains of the cage to his chest.

  A white reflected glow now came through the bars. It was starlightreflected 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 to the room. Only therhythmic sway of Polter's breathing and an occasional jolt as heshifted his position. The floor was tilted at a sharp angle. Babs cametoward the couch, pulling herself along the wall railing.

  I called softly, "Babs! Babs, dear!"

  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 s
lid out from my concealment and stood up, holding to the railing.

  "Babs, dear."

  Blessed normality of size! She cried again, "George! You! George,dear--"

  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 the railing, George. When the room movesit goes with a rush."

  Babs laughed softly. It must have seemed to her, after being alone inhere, that now our plight was far less desperate. She had told me howshe was captured. A man accosted her on the terrace, saying he wantedto speak to her about Alan. Then a weapon threatened her. Amid allthose people she was held up in old fashioned style, hurried to ataxicar and whirled away.

  She was saying now, "When Polter moves, it is dizzying. You'll see."

  "I have already, Babs. Heavens, that swoop!"

  The room was more level now. We carefully drew ourselves to the frontlattice. Polter was standing, and we had the white sheen from hisshirt-front. A sheer drop was outside the bars, but looking down Icould see the outlines of his body with the huge spread of the boatinterior underneath us.

  A confusion of rumbling voices sounded. Blurred giant shapes wereoutside. The room jolted and swayed as the boat landed and Polterdisembarked.

  Babs stood clinging to me. Blessed normality of size! We, at least,were normal--this metal barred room, Babs and I. But outside was theabnormality of largeness. I think that in relation to us, the men wereof over two hundred foot stature, and the hunched Polter a trifleless. It seemed as he walked that we were lurching at least a hundredand fifty feet above the ground.

  "You had better hide," Babs urged. "He might stop and speak tosomeone. If anyone peered 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, though I coulddistinguish vegetation on their flat roof-tops, as thoughflower-gardens were laid there.

  We passed a house with its hundred-foot oval windows all aglow withlight. Music floated out--a distant blare of musical sounds, and theribald laughter of giant voices. I had seen no women among thesegiants of the islands. But now a huge face was at one of the ovals. Adissolute, painted woman of Earth, staring out at Polter as he passed.It was like the enormous close-up image on a large motion picturescreen. She shouted a 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 buildingloomed like a giant's palace, which indeed it was. We headed for it,passed through a vast arching doorway into the greater dimness of anechoing interior. I scurried back across the lurching room and againwedged myself under the couch. Babs stood at the lattice ten feetaway. We dared to talk in low tones; the rumbling voices and footstepsoutside would make our tiny voices inaudible to Polter.

  I was tense with my plans. I had told them to Babs. With the onepartially used remaining pellet of the diminishing drug we could makeourselves small enough to walk out through the bars. Then my blackvial of the enlarging chemicals, as yet unused, would take us up, outto our own world. We could not use the drugs now. But the chance mightcome when Polter would set the cage on the ground, or somewhere sothat we might climb down from it, with a chance to hide and get largebefore we were discovered. I would fight our way upward; all I neededwas a fair start in size.

  * * * * *

  But I lay now with doubts assailing me. This was the first moment Ihad had for calm thoughts, though in truth they were far from calm!Where 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? Apanic swept me. I should not have left them. Or at least I should havetold them what I was trying, and given Alan a chance to plan.

  The panic grew upon me, the premonition of disaster. From my belt Itook the opalescent vial with its one partly used pellet. I dumped thepellet out. It was spoiling! The former exposure of the air, themoisture of my tongue, had ruined it! I had no need to guess at thecatastrophe; as I held its crumbling, deliquescing fragments on mypalm it melted into vapor and was gone!

  We could not make ourselves smaller! We would have to wait now untilPolter opened the cage. But once outside, the enlarging drug wouldgive us our chance to fight our way upward. My trembling fingerssought the black vial in my belt. It was not there! My mind flungback: 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 asize microscopic!

  CHAPTER VIII

  _From a Drop of Water_

  I lay concealed, and Babs stood at the lattice of our cage room. I wasaware that Polter had entered some vast apartment of this giantpalace. A brighter light was outside; I heard voices--Polter's andanother man's. I could see the distant monster shape of one. He was atfirst so far away that all his outline was visible. A seated man, in ahuge white room. I thought there were great shelves with enormousbottles. The spread of table tops passed under our cage as Polterwalked by them. They held a litter of apparatus, and there was thesmell of chemicals in the air. It seemed that this was a laboratory.

  The man stood up to greet Polter. I had a glimpse of his head andshoulders level with us. He wore a white linen coat, open, soft collarand black tie. He seemed an old man, queerly old, with snow-whitehair....

  I had an instant of whirling, confused impressions. Something wasfamiliar about his face. It was seamed and wrinkled with lines of ageand 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 heardtheir rumble.

  "I am back again, Kent. Are you still rebellious? You haf stilldetermined to compound no more of our drugs? You would rather I killedyou? Then see what I haf here. This little cage, someone--"

  It was Dr. Kent, a prisoner here all these years!

  Babs turned her white face toward me. "George, it's father! He'salive! Here!"

  "Quiet, Babs! Don't let them know I'm here. Remember!"

  The old man recognized her. "Babs!" It was an agonized cry. The blurof him was gone as he sank down into his chair.

  Polter continued standing. I could envisage his sardonic grin. Babswas calling:

  "Father, dear! Father!"

  From over us came Polter's rumble. "She iss glad to see you, Kent. Ihaf her here, safe. You always knew I would nefer be satisfied until Ihad my little Babs? Well, now I haf her. Can you hear me?"

  A sudden desperate calmness fell on Babs. She called evenly, "Yes, Ihear you. Father, do not anger him. Do not rebel; do what he commands.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 so long. These years when I thoughthe was dead."

  "Scheming. You think, my little Babs, that he has the drugs? I am notso much a fool. He makes them. He can do that, and the last secretreactions only he can perform. He iss stubborn. Never would he tell methat one reaction. But he makes no drugs complete, only when I amhere."

  "No, Dr. Polter! I want only to be with him."

  The old man's broken voice floated up to us. "You will not harm her,Polter?"

  "No. Fear nothing. But you no longer rebel?"

  "I will do what you tell me." The tones carried hopeless resignation,years of being beaten down, rebelling--but now this last blowvanquished 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 go
lden 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 notbe, with my dear little Babs? I tell you. I am done with the Earthworld. It iss so much nicer here. My friends, they haf a good timealways. We like this little atom realm. I am going out once more. Imust hide the little piece of golden quartz so no harm will come toit."

  * * * * *

  Polter was evidently in a high good humor. His voice fell to anintimate tone of comradeship; but still I could not mistake the ironyof it.

  "You listen to me, Kent. There was a time, years ago, when we weregood friends. You liked your young assistant, the hunchback Polter.Iss it not so? Then why should we quarrel now? I am gifing up theEarth world. I wanted of it only the little Babs.... You look at me sostrange! 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. Sovery simple to take it out of our atom, grow large with it, to what wecall 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. SoI haf collected much gold. They think I own a mine. I haf a smelterand 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 chuckledironically at his use of the platitude. "There is more in life thanthe ownership of gold. You ask my plans. I haf Babs, now. I am gifingup our Earth world. The mysterious man they know as Frank Rascor willvanish. I will hide our little fragment of quartz. No one up therewill even try to find it. Then I come down here, with Babs, and wewill haf so nice a little government and rule this world. No more ofthe drugs then will be needed, Kent. When you die, let the secret diewith you."

  Again Polter's voice turned ingratiating, even more so than before."We will be friends, Kent. Our little Babs will lof me; why shouldshe not? You will tell her--advise her--and we will all three be veryhappy."

  Dr. Kent said abruptly, "Then leave her with me now. That was herrequest, a moment ago. If you expect to treat her kindly, then whynot--"

  "I do! I do! But not now. I cannot spare her now. I am very busy, butI 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."

  "And let me be with my father."

  It struck a pang through me. Babs was scheming, but not the way Polterthought. She wanted the cage put on the floor, herself out, and achance for me to escape. I had not yet told her of my miserablestupidity in losing the vial.

  Polter was repeating. "No, little bird. Presently; not now. I may takeyou out with me, my last trip out. I want to talk with you in a normalsize 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 bringdown 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 thedrugs. I need plenty. Will you?"

  "Yes."

  "That iss good. I come back soon and gif you the catalyst for thatlast reaction. Will you be ready?"

  "Yes."

  The blur outside our bars swung with a dizzying whirl as Polter turnedand left the room, locking its door after him with a reverberatingclank.

  * * * * *

  Left alone in his laboratory, Dr. Kent began his preparations formaking a fresh supply of the drugs. This room, with two smaller onesadjoining, was at once his workshop and his prison. He stood at hisshelves, selecting the basic chemicals. He could not complete thefinal compounds. The catalyst which was necessary to the finalreaction 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 somany times before. His mind was confused, and he was trembling fromhead to foot, an old, queerly, unnaturally old man now--unnerved. Hisshaking fingers could hardly hold the test tubes.

  His thoughts were flying. Babs was here, come down from the worldabove. 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 smallfigures were there on the floor beside him. They were both panting,winded by running. They were enlarging; they had come from a smallersize.

  It was Alan and Glora, who had followed Polter from the boat,diminished again, and come running through the tiny crack under themetal door of the laboratory.

  They grew to a foot in size, down by Dr. Kent's legs. He was toounnerved; he sat in a chair while Alan swiftly told him what hadhappened. Babs was in the golden cage. Dr. Kent knew that; but none ofthem knew what had happened to me.

  "We must make you small, Father. We have the drugs, here with us."

  "Yes! Yes, Alan. How much have you? Show me. Oh, my boy, that you arehere--and Babs--"

  "Don't you worry, we'll get away from him."

  * * * * *

  Glora and Alan had almost reached Dr. Kent's size before their excitedfingers could get out the vials. They took some of the diminishingdrug to check their growth. Alan handed his father a black vial.

  "Yes, lad--"

  "No! Wait, Father! That's the wrong drug. This other--"

  Dr. Kent had opened the vial. His trembling hand spilled some of thepellets, but none of them noticed it.

  "Father, dear, this one." Alan held an opalescent vial. "This one."

  Glora said abruptly, "Listen! Is that someone coming?"

  They thought they heard approaching footsteps. A moment passed, but noone came into the room.

  "Hurry," urged Glora. "It is nothing. We wait too long."

  "My boy--Alan, dear, after all these years--"

  They were about to take the diminishing drug. From across the roomthere came a very queer sound. A scuttling, scratching, and the droneof wings.

  "Father, good God--look!"

  Over by the wall, a giant fly was running across the floor. It wasgrowing larger!

  At Dr. Kent's feet the pellets he had dropped were crushed by hisfootsteps and strewn on the floor. A fly had eaten of the sweetishpowder.

  The enlarging drug was loose!

  A few drops of water lay mingled with the drug on the floor. And fromthe water nameless hideous things were rising!

  CHAPTER IX

  _The Doomed Realm_

  To Alan the first few moments that followed the escape of the drugwere 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. The fly was scurrying along the floor closeagainst the wall Already it was as large as Alan's hand. It ran intothe corner, hit the wall in its confused alarm, and turned back. Itswings were droning with an audible hum. It reared itself on its hairylegs, lifted and sailed across the room.

  As though drawn by a magnet Alan turned to watch it. It landed on thewall. Alan was aware of Dr. Kent rushing with trembling steps to ashelf where bottles stood. Glora was stricken into immobility, theblood draining from her face.

  The fly flew again. It passed directly over Alan. Its body, with amembrane sac of eggs, was now as large as his head; its wide-spreadtransparent wings were beating with a reverberating drone.

  Alan flung a bottle which was on the table beside him. It missed,crashed against the ceiling, came down with splintering glass andspilling liquid. Fumes spread chokingly over the room.

  The fly landed again on the floor. Larger now! Expanding with ahor
ribly rapid growth. Glora flung something--a little wooden rackwith 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 itsbulging body. Its multiple-lensed eyes were staring at the humans. Andwith its size must have come a sense of power, for it seemed to Alanthat the monstrous insect had an abnormal alertness as it stoodmeasuring its adversaries, gathering itself to attack them.

  Only a few seconds had passed. Confused thoughts swept Alan. This flywith its growth would soon fill this room. Burst it; burst upwardthrough a wrecked palace; soar out, and by the power of its sizealone, devastate this world.

  He heard himself shouting. "Father, get back! It's too large! I've gotto kill it!"

  * * * * *

  Launch himself upon it? Wrestle with it in a hand to hand combat? Alanedged around the center table. He was bathed in cold sweat. This thingso horrible! It was too large! Half the length of his own body, now.In a moment it might be twice that! He was aware of Glora pulling athim; and his father rushing past him with a bottle of liquid, andshouting:

  "Alan! Run! You and this girl, get out of here! The other room--"

  Then Alan saw the things upon the floor! His foot crushed one with aslippery 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 massesof pulp! One lay rocking, already as large as a football withstreamers of ooze hanging upon it, and a black-ink fluid squirting;others were rods of red jelly-pulp, already as large as lead pencils,quivering, twitching. Germs of disease, 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 theshattered bottle of chemicals were choking Alan. He flung himselftoward the monster fly, but Glora held him.

  "No! Escape! The other room!"

  Dr. Kent was stamping the things upon the floor; pouring acids uponthem. Some eluded him. The air in the room was unbreathable....

  They reached the bedroom. The laboratory was a hideous chaos. Theywere aware of its outer door opening, disclosing the figure of Polterwho, undoubtedly, had been attracted by the noise. He shouted astartled oath. Alan heard it above the beating wings of the monsterfly. Things lurched at the opened door; Polter banged it upon them andrushed away, shouting the alarm through the palace.

  Dr. Kent was stammering, "Not the enlarging drug! Glora, child, theother! Hurry!"

  Alan helped Glora with the opalescent vial. Things were lurchingtoward this room from the laboratory. Alan with averted face, chokedby the incoming fumes, slammed the door upon the gruesome turmoil.

  They took the diminishing drug. The bedroom expanded. The hideoussounds from the laboratory, and the whole palace now ringing with awild alarm, then faded into the blessed remoteness of distance abovethem....

  * * * * *

  "I think it is this way, Alan. Off there--a doorway from my bedroom.Polter always kept it locked, but it leads into a corridor. We mustget out of here. A crack under the door--is that it, off there?" Dr.Kent pointed into the gloomy blur of distance. "We are horriblysmall--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 hadexpanded to a spread of cellular surface, ridged with broken,tube-like tunnels; pits and jagged cave-mouths. A knot-hole yawnedlike a crater a hundred feet away.

  "We are too small," Glora protested hurriedly. "The door is where yousay, Dr. Kent, but miles away."

  With the other drug, the room contracted. The floor-surface shrank andsmoothed a little. The door was distinguishable--a square panelseveral hundred feet in width and towering into the upper haze. Theblack 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 oflight. Then they came from under the door into a corridor--and shrankagainst a cliff-wall as with a rush of wind and pounding tread theblurred shapes of a man's huge feet and legs rushed passed. The upperair was filled with rumbling shouts.

  "We must chance it!" exclaimed Dr. Kent. "Too dangerous, so small!Larger--and if they see us, fight our way out!"

  In the turmoil of the doomed palace no one noticed them. They castaside all restraint. It was too dangerous to wait. The excessive dosethey took of the drug made the corridor shrink with dizzying speed.They rushed along its length. Alan hurled a little man aside who wasin their path. Already they were larger than the Polter people.

  * * * * *

  They squeezed out of a shrinking doorway. The dwindling island was aturmoil. Little figures were plunging from the palace. At the edge ofthe water, Alan, Glora and Dr. Kent stood for an instant lookingbehind them. The palace was rocking! Its roof heaved upward thensmashed and fell aside with the clatter of tumbling masonry. Themonstrous fly, its hideous face mashed and oozing, reared itself upand, with broken, torn wings tried to soar away. But it could not. Itslipped back. The drone and buzz of its fright sounded over the chaosof noise. Other things came lurching and twitching upward; slitheringout....

  The expanding body of the fly was pushing the palace walls outward. Ina moment they collapsed and it emerged....

  To Alan and his companions the scene was all shrinking into aminiature chaos of horror at their shoe-tops. A diminuendo of screamsmingled down there. Overhead were the stars, shining peacefullyremote. Nearby lay a rapidly narrowing channel of shining water. Atiny city was across it. Lights were moving. The panic had spread fromthe island to Orena. Beyond the tiny city, a range of mountainsshowed; a cliff, gleaming in the starlight; tunnel mouths.

  Suddenly against the stars off there, Alan saw the enlarging figure ofPolter, 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 thedrugs. He was escaping with the golden cage, out of this doomed atomicworld to our Earth above.

  Glora murmured, "There is our way out. Your way. And that is Poltergoing. I think he did not see us. So much is growing gigantic here."She clung to Alan. "Dear one--"

  Dr. Kent muttered, "We will wait a moment--wade across--or leap over,and follow him out. Babs with him--dear God I hope so! This doomedrealm!"

  * * * * *

  Alan held Glora close. And suddenly he was laughing--a madness, halfhysteria. "Why, this, all this--why look, Glora, it's funny! Thislittle world all excited, an ant-hill, outraged! Look! There's ourgiant sailboat!"

  Down near their feet the inch-long sailboat stood at its dock. Tinyhuman figures were rushing for it; others, floundering in the water,were trying to climb upon it. Dr. Kent had stepped from the shore afoot or two, and tiny, lashing white rollers rocked the boat, almostengulfing it.

  Alan's laugh rang out, "God! It's funny, isn't it? All those littlecreatures, so excited!"

  "Steady, lad!" Dr. Kent touched him. "Don't let yourself laugh! Amoment now, then we'll wade across. Polter won't have much start onus. We mustn't get too close to him in size, but try and attack himunawares. We have 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. Butsuddenly Alan realized that Glora was diminishing! She had taken theother drug.

  "Glora!"

  "I must go back, Alan. This is my world, doomed perhaps, but I cannotforsake it now. I must give the enlarging drug to my father. Andothers who can rise and fight these monsters."

  "Glora!"

  Dr. Kent said hurriedly, "She's right, Alan. There is a chance theycan save their city. For her to leave them would be dastardly."

  She cried, "You go on up, Alan. You have enough of the drugs. Leaveme, dear one--I am going back!"

  "No!" he protested. "
You must not! Or if you do, I'll come with you!"

  She clung to him. He felt her body diminishing within his encirclingarms. His love for her swept him--this girl who had cajoled Polter, ortricked him, stolen several of the little vials from him heaven knowshow, and followed him up to the other world. This girl whom Alan nowknew he loved, was leaving him. Forever?

  * * * * *

  As he stood there, with the miniature landscape at his feet in the wanstarlight, the panic-stricken tiny city, the island with its monstersrising to overwhelm this microscopic world--it seemed to Alan thenthat if he let her go it was the end for him of all life's promisedhappiness.

  "Alan, lad, come." His father was pulling at him. So horrible achoice! Alan thought that I was back on that island. But Babs, aprisoner 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. Nor save Babs. And the maddenedPolter, with the power of this drug, can conquer and enslave our Earthas he has enslaved Orena--just one little city of one tiny goldenatom! Believe me, lad, your duty lies above."

  Glora's head was now down at Alan's waist. He stooped and kissed herwhite forehead; his fingers, just for an instant, smoothed her glossyhair.

  "Good-by, Glora."

  "Dear one, good-by."

  She plunged away, and her tread as she dwindled mashed the forestbehind the city. Alan and his father ran for the cliff. They were toolarge to squeeze into the little hole. But in a moment they madethemselves smaller. They climbed as they dwindled; checked the drugaction 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 ofGlora's world only an hour or two before. The distant island beyondthe city showed plainly with the shining water around it. Thevegetation there was growing! And there were dark, horribly formlessblobs lurching outward and rising with monstrous bulk against thebackground of the stars!

  "Alan! Come, lad!"

  With a prayer for Glora trembling on his lips, Alan plunged into thedim phosphorescent gloom of the tunnel.

  CHAPTER X

  _The Escape_

  To Babs and me the ride in the golden cage strapped to Polter's chestas he made his escape outward into largeness was an experience awesomeand frightening almost beyond conception. We heard the alarm in thepalace 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 horrible had happened; we could see only ablur with formless things in the void beneath our bars; and there werethe choking fumes of chemicals surging at us.

  Polter rushed through the castle corridor. We heard rumbling distantshouts.

  "The drug is loose! The drug is loose! Monsters! Death for everyone!"

  The room swayed with horrible dizzying lurches as Polter ran. We clungto the lattice bars, our legs and arms entwined. There were momentswhen Polter leaped, or suddenly stooped, and our reeling senses allbut faded.

  "Babs! Babs, darling, don't let go! Don't lose consciousness!"

  If she should be limp, here in this lurching room, her body to beflung back and forth across its confines--that would be death in amoment. I feared I could not hold her. I managed to get an arm abouther waist.

  "Babs!"

  "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 withPolter's wading steps. There was a brief swaying vista of a toy city;starlight overhead; a lurching swaying miniature of landscape asPolter ran for the towering cliffs. Then he climbed and scrambled intothe tunnel-mouth. Had he turned at that instant doubtless he wouldhave seen the rising distant figures of Glora, Alan and Dr. Kent. Buthe did not see them, evidently. Nor did we.

  Polter spoke only very occasionally to Babs. "Hold tightly!" It was arumbling 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 adjustits angle.

  * * * * *

  The lurching and jolting was less violent in the tunnel. Polter'sfrenzy to escape was subsiding into calmness. He traversed the tunnelwith a methodical swinging stride. We were aware of him climbing overthe noisome litter of the dead giant's body which blocked the tunnel'sfurther end. We heard his astonished exclamations. But evidently hedid not suspect what had happened, thinking only that the stupidmessenger had miscalculated his growth and been crushed.

  We emerged into a less dim area. Polter did not stop at the fallengiant. Nothing mattered now to him, quite evidently, save his ownrapid exit with Babs from this atomic realm. His movements seemedcalm, yet hurried.

  We realized now how different was an outward journey from the tripcoming in. This was all only an inch of golden quartz! The stagesupward were frequently only a matter of growth in size; the distancesin this vast desert realm of golden rock always were shrinking. Poltermany times stood almost motionless until the closing dwindling wallsmade him scramble upward into the greater space above.

  It may have been an hour, or less. Babs and I, from our smallerviewpoint, with the landscape so frequently blurred by distance andPolter's movements, seldom recognized where we were. But I realizedthat going out was far easier in every way than coming in. Easier todetermine the route, since usually the diminishing caverns and gulliesmade the upward step obvious.... We knew when Polter scrambled up theincline ramp.

  It seemed impossible for us to plan anything. Would Polter make theentire trip without a stop? It seemed so. We had no drugs. Our cagewas barred beyond possibility of our getting out. But even if we hadhad the drugs, or had our door been open, there was no escape. Anabyss of distance was always yawning beyond our lattice--the sheerprecipice of Polter's body from his chest to the ground.

  "Babs, we must make him stop. If he sits down to rest, you might gethim to take you out. I must reach his drugs."

  "Yes. I'll try it, George."

  * * * * *

  Polter was momentarily standing motionless as though gazing aroundhim, judging what to do next. His size seemed stationary. Beyond ourbars we could see the distant circular walls as though this were somegiant crater-pit in which Polter was standing. Then I thought Irecognized it--the round, nearly vertical pit into which Alan hadplunged 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 ofgolden 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 theground. If I see you there, in position where you can jump, I'llstartle him. Oh, Babs, dear, it's desperately dangerous but I can'tthink of anything else. Jump! Get away from here. I'll keep hisattention on me. Then I'll join you if I can--with the drug."

  Polter was moving. We had no time to say more.

  "Yes! Yes, I'll try it, George." For just an instant she clung to mewith her soft arms about my neck. Our love was sweeping us in thisdesperate moment, and it seemed that above us was a remote Earth worldholding the promise of all our dreams. Or were we star-crossed, doomedlike the realm of the atom? Was this swift embrace now marking the endof 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 fearin her eyes as she held her gaze on me. "Yes, Dr. Polter, butbreathless. Almost dead, but not quite. What happened? I want to comeout and talk to you."

  "Not now, little bird."

  "But I want to." To me it was a miracle that she could call so lightlyand hold that note of lugubrious laughter in her voice. "I am hungry.Don't you think of that? And frightened. Take me out."

  * * * * *

  He was sitting down! "You remi
nd 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 still itwas too far for me to jump.

  I murmured, "Babs--"

  "Wait, George! I'll fix that. You hide! If he looks in he'll see you,where you are now!"

  I scrambled back to my hiding place. Polter's huge fingers werefumbling at our bars. The little door sprang open.

  "Come, Babs."

  He held the cupped bowl of his palm 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 sheavoided 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 hecould not see me so long as the cage remained strapped to his shirtfront.

  I whispered, "I can make it, Babs!"

  Polter was apparently on one elbow, half turned on his side. From ourcage, the sloping gleaming white surface of his stiff glossyshirt-bosom went down a steep incline. His belt was down there, andthe outward bulging curve of his lap--a spreading surface where Icould land like a scuttling insect, unobserved, if only Babs couldhold his attention.

  I whispered vehemently. "Try it! Go out! Leave me! Keep talking tohim!"

  She called instantly, "Very well, then. Bring your hand! Closer!Carefully! It seems so high up here!"

  * * * * *

  She swung herself to his palm, and flung her arms about the greatpillar of his upcrooked finger. The bowl of his hand moved slowlyaway. I heard her calling voice, and his overhead rumble.

  I chanced it! I could not determine the exact position, or which wayhe 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 hands anddropped. I struck the ramp-like yielding surface of his shirt-bosom. Islid, tumbling, scrambling, and landed softly in the huge folds of histrouser 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 upperedge.

  My hold came just in time. He shifted, and sat up. I was lifted with aswoop of movement. When it steadied I saw above me the top of hisknee. His left leg was crooked, the foot drawn close to him. Babs wasperched up there on the knee summit. His right leg was outstretched. Iwas at the right side of his belt. I could dart off along that curvingexpanse of his leg and leap to the ground. If he would hold thisposition! One of the pouches of his belt was near me. The vial in itwas black. The enlarging drug! I moved toward it.

  But Babs was too high to jump from that summit of his crooked knee! Ithink she saw me at his belt. I heard her voice.

  "I cannot eat up here. It is too high. Oh, please be careful how youmove! 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 breakingoLf crumbs to put before her. I reached the pouch of his belt. Thevial 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 cautiouslymoved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between histhumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stoodbeside the bread and meat he had placed there.

  And she had the courage to laugh! "Why this--this is an enormoussandwich! You will have to break it."

  He was leaning over her, half turned on his left side. The vial camefree. I shoved it; but I could not control its weight. I pusheddesperately. It slid over the round brink of his right hip, and fellbehind him. I heard the tinkling thud of it down on the rocks.

  There was no alarm. I could not chance leaping from his hip. Iscurried along the convex top of his outstretched leg, and beyond hisknee I jumped.

  I landed safely. I could see the black vial back across the brokenrock surface, with the bulge of Polter's hip above it. I ran back andreached the vial; tugged at its huge stopper. The cork began to yieldunder my panting, desperate efforts. In a moment I would have a pelletof the enlarging drug; make away with it; startle Polter so that Babsmight dart off and escape.

  The huge stopper of the vial was larger than my head. It came suddenlyout. I flung it away, plunged in my hand, and seized an enormous roundpellet.

  Then abruptly the alarm came, and I had not caused it! Polter rippedout a startled, rumbling curse and sat upright. Under the curve of hisleg, I saw that Babs had been momentarily neglected. She was running.

  Across the boulder-strewn plain, two tiny men had appeared. Polter hadseen them.

  They were the enlarging figures of Dr. Kent and Alan!

  CHAPTER XI

  _The Combat of Size_

  The astounded Polter was taken wholly by surprise. He could have hadno idea that anyone was following him. He thought he was alone withthe tiny Babs in this rock-strewn metal desert. What he saw as hescrambled to his feet were four insect-size humans, two of them at adistance, and two within reach of him, and all of them scampering indifferent directions. The ground was littered with crags and boulders;was ridged and pitted, pock-marked, with tiny crater-holes and caves.The four scuttling figures almost instantly had disappeared from hissight.

  I did not see where Babs went. I turned from the black vial ofPolter's enlarging drug, and with the huge pellet under my arm I ranleaping over the rough ground and flung myself into a gully. I layprone, flattened against a rock. In the murky distance of a pseudo-skyoverhead, the monstrous head and shoulders of Polter were visible. Icould see down to just below his waist. The empty cage with its doorflapping open hung against his shirt-front. He had stooped to try andrecover Babs. And instinctively his hands went to his belt to seizehis enlarging drug.

  They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent vial of thediminishing element. But his black vial was gone. His frown spreadinto 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 seemednot. His huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He flung a wildglance 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 back of adistant rocky peak. Polter undoubtedly saw it. He was fumbling withhis opalescent vial, and with confused panic upon him he made themistake of taking the diminishing drug. And instantly seemed to regretit. His curse rumbled above me. His glance went down to the rocks athis feet, and there he saw lying his black vial with its stopper out.His body already was beginning to dwindle. He stooped, seized thevial, and took the enlarging drug. The shock of it made him stagger;momentarily he disappeared from my line of vision but I could hear hispanting breath and the unsteady pound of his footsteps.

  * * * * *

  I still held that huge round ball of the drug. I seized a loose stoneand frantically knocked off a chunk--heaven knows how much, I do not.I shoved it into my mouth, chewed and hastily swallowed it. And withthe lurching, swaying, shrinking gully closing in upon me, I ran toget out of its distant open end.

  I was heading toward where Alan and his father were lurking. I camefrom the gully into the open, just as the walls closed behind me. Thewhole scene was a dizzying blurred sway of contracting movement. I sawthat I was in a circular valley now some five miles in diameter, withits jagged enclosing walls rising sheerly perpendicular out of sightin the haze overhead.

  Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so away. His backat that instant was turned to me. He was now no more than three orfour times my own height. He scrambled against the valley cliff-wallas though trying to find a foothold to climb up it. He went a littl
eway, but fell back.

  Near me, Alan and old Dr. Kent suddenly appeared. I was larger. Theyflung themselves at my knees. Alan gasped:

  "You, George! You got Babs?"

  "Yes--Babs is around somewhere! Stay down here! Don't lose her insize! Stay small! Search and--"

  "But George--"

  "I'll tackle Polter. I've taken--God, I don't know how much I've takenof the drug!"

  They were shrinking down by my boot-tops. Alan shouted suddenly,"There's Babs! Thank God, there's Babs!"

  She was too small; I could not see her, nor even hear her, though shemust have been calling to them. Alan again screamed up at me with hislittle voice:

  "She's here, George! You--go on and get Polter! I can't overtake youyou--haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice was fading away. "Goon and get him, George! This time--get him--"

  * * * * *

  I swung with a staggering step around to face the open valley. It wasshrunken now to barely half a mile of width. Its smooth walls rosesome two or three thousand feet to an upper circular horizon withmurky distance overhead. Polter stood across from me. He had tried toclimb out but could not. He saw me and came lurching. We were aquarter of a mile from each other. I ran forward through a shiftingscene of shrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting ground.Quarter of a mile? It seemed hardly more than a score of runningstrides before Polter loomed close ahead of me. He was still nearlytwice my size. I stooped, seized a loose boulder, and flung it. Imissed his face, but, as his hand went up carrying a baredknife-blade, by fortunate chance the stone struck his wrist. The knifedropped to the rocks. He stooped to recover it, but I was upon him. AsI felt his huge arms go around me, half lifting me, my foot struck theknife. But in an instant it was swept down into smallness beneath usas we expanded above it.

  Both of us were unarmed in this combat of size. I was a half-grownyouth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard his panting words,grimly triumphant:

  "This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many many years!The hunchback--takes his revenge--now--"

  He lifted me. His great arms were horribly powerful, but I could feelthem dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just a few moments--if I couldlast a few moments!... My feet were off the ground, my chest closepressed against the little golden cage between us. He had a handshoving back my head; his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legsaround him, and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. Butwe had twisted and my back was to the cliff. The rocks were shoving atus, insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polterstaggered with me. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off mybreath. My senses whirled. His grim sardonic face over me was blurredto my sight. I tore futilely at my throat to break his choking grip.All the world was a roaring chaos to my fading senses. Then in theblur I saw horror sweep his expression. His fingers involuntarilyloosened. I got a breath of blessed air, gasping, and my sightcleared.

  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 usagain. Our bodies almost filled the shrinking pit! Polter lurched andcast me off. I half fell, striking my shoulder against the oppositewall, 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 mywaist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground, and was on hands andknees. Instead of standing up, he lurched at me; tried to shove meback. 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 thepit and over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed beneathour threshing bodies!

  * * * * *

  At the side of the circular valley Alan and Dr. Kent crouched with thesmaller figure of Babs between them. They saw Polter and me as twoswaying gigantic forms locked in a death struggle, towering againstthe sky. Tremendous expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; sawthe great hunched Polter bend me backward, choking me.

  Our bodies lurched. Our huge legs with a single step brought us to thecenter of the valley. It was a shrinking valley to Alan, Babs and Dr.Kent, for they too, were enlarging. But the fighting giant figureswere growing faster. In only a moment their shoulders were up there inthe 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 ofPolter's legs towered straight up from near at hand. Alan was aware ofhimself screaming:

  "George--out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"

  As though his microscopic voice could reach me--my head hundred offeet above him. But he screamed it again. This was all in a fewhorrible moments, though it seemed to the three watchers an eternity.Alan was helpless to aid me; they had taken all of the enlarging drugthey had.

  Then they saw Polter cast me off. I lurched and struck, with myshoulders wedged against the cliff directly over where they crouched.The overhead sky was darkened as Polter scrambled upward.

  Alan was still screaming futilely, "George--up! Get out!"

  Babs huddled with white, horrified face, staring. Then I went outafter Polter. My disappearing legs were great dark blurs in the sky.Alan saw the valley now contracted to a thousand feet of width, withits cliffs equally as high. Then everything was smaller.... The skyoverhead went dark again; from cliff to cliff a segment of our rollingbodies momentarily spanned the opening.

  * * * * *

  And presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to a pit. Hestood up. "Hurry! Now we can get out after them. Up there!"

  The opening above was empty. Polter and I were fighting some distanceaway....

  Dr. Kent was soon large enough to scramble out of the pit. Alan handedthe little Babs up to him and followed. Alan saw that they were now ina long gully, blind at one end with a five hundred-foot perpendicularcliff. Against the wall, the titanic form of Polter stood at bay. AndI was fronting him. The summit of the cliff was lower than our waists.Triumph swept Alan; he saw that I was the larger! As Polter bored intome 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 betweenupstanding rocks before my foot crashed down. For an instant the soleof my boot formed a flat black ceiling as it trod and spanned therocks. Then it lifted; was gone with a blurred swoop. They saw thewhite blur of my hand come down and snatch a tremendous boulder,raising it with a great sweep of movement into the sky. They saw mecrash it against Polter; but it only struck his shoulder. He roaredwith anger. The whole sky was roaring and rumbling with our shouts andour panting breathing, and the ground was clattering, pounding withour giant tread. Huge loose boulders were tumbled in an avalancheeverywhere.

  Again it seemed to Alan that our lurching, heedlessly surging bodiesmust be crushed within these contracting walls. Only our locked,intertwined legs were visible; our bodies were lost in the sky. Thenit seemed to Alan that I had heaved Polter upward. And followed him.We disappeared. There was a distant overhead rumble, and the murkysky, with vague patches of far-distant illumination in it, becameempty 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 toa new upward vista....

  * * * * *

  I found myself a full head and shoulders taller than Polter. And hewas tiring, panting heavily. His face was cut and bleeding from theblows of my fists. The rock I heaved struck his shoulder. He roared,head down, and bored into me. He was heavier than I. His weight flungme back. My foot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I didnot know that Babs, Alan and their father were huddled under thosestones!

  My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee caught me inthe stomach, all but knocking the breath from me. He was desperate,oblivious to t
he closing walls. And as he flung his arms with a gripabout my neck, hanging, trying to bear me down, I saw in his blazingdark eyes what seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with asudden frenzied madness he realized that he was beaten. And tried topull us to the ground and let the walls crush us.

  I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us forward. I brokehis hold. His body was jammed back against a lowering wall. Its topseemed almost at our knees. I shoved frantically. He fell backward andI jumped after him.

  We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, crawling intoitself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead; there seemed adistant circular horizon of emptiness around us.

  Polter was lying in a heap. But it was trickery, for as I incautiouslybent over him his hand crashed a rock against my head. I reeled, withall the world turning black, but did not fall. There was a horribleinstant when my senses were going, but I fought to hold them. Bloodfrom a wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I wasstaggering. Then I realized I was grimly tossing my head, shaking theblood away; and little by little my sight came back.

  Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swingat my chin, but I ducked my head aside at the last moment.

  And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisaged howgigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with milesof distance and a shadowy, dimly radiant abyss beyond its circularhorizon. And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A titan, looming herein the sky!...

  * * * * *

  My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swingwent wild, though I leaped backward from it. He staggered, and hisarms dropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watchinghim while I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instants whenan expression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knockedhim out.

  It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, overtaxed fromthis strain; and I think there at the last, he realized it. The blooddrained suddenly from his face and lips, leaving them livid. I sawfear, then a wild horror in his eyes. He stood swaying. Then his kneesgave way and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where Istood gazing at him--fell forward on his face, his titanic lengthspread 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 andstood panting, gazing at the glowing distance around me.

  I was a titan, standing there. The body of Polter was shrinking at myfeet. The circular abyss of emptiness came nearer as this rockyeminence contracted.

  Suddenly my attention went to the sky overhead. Vague distant lightswere there. Then a broad flat blur seemed spread over me. Lighteverywhere was growing. Beyond the nearby brink of the abyss was awhite reflected radiance from beneath. Abruptly I realized there was alevel, flat white plain running far off there in the distance.

  Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A shape in thesky moved! I heard a far-away rumble--a human voice!

  The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the length of myforearm I stood, a titan.

  And then, with a shock of realization, I saw how tiny I was! This wasthe broken top of that fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut!I was standing there, under the lens of the giant microscope inPolter's dome-room laboratory, with half a dozen astounded Quebecpolice officials peering down at me!

  CHAPTER XII

  _Mysterious Little Golden Rock_

  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 notwith them! He had seen Polter fall. His father and Babs were safe. Thesacrifice he had made in leaving Glora was no longer needed.

  Down there on the rocky plateau, Dr. Kent suddenly realized that Alanwas dwindling.

  "Father, I must! Don't you understand? Glora's world is menaced. Ican't leave her like this. My duty to you and Babs is ended. I did mybest, Dad--you two are safe now."

  "Alan! My boy!"

  He was already down at Dr. Kent's waist, Bab's size. He held up hishand. "Dad, good-by." His rugged, youthful face was flushed, his voicechoked. "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'twant to leave George, would you? Never see him again? I'm not askingyou to do that, am I?"

  "But, Alan--"

  "You've been a great little pal, Babs. I'll never forget it."

  "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 becareful, and do what I can to save that little city. I must find Gloraand--"

  Babs was suddenly trembling with eagerness for him. "Yes! Of courseyou must, Alan!"

  "Find her and bring her out here! I'll do it! Don't you worry." He wasdwindling fast. Dr. Kent had collapsed to a rock, staring down withhorror-stricken eyes. Alan called up to Babs:

  "Listen! Have George watch the chunk of gold-quartz. Have it guardedand watched day and night. Handle it carefully, Babs!"

  "Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?"

  "Heavens--how do I know? But I'll come back, don't you worry. Maybe inonly a day or two of your time."

  "Right! Good-by, Alan!"

  "Good-by," his tiny voice echoed up. "Good-by, Babs--Father!"

  Babs could see his miniature face smiling up at her. She smiled backand waved her arm as he vanished into the pebbles at her feet.

  The eyes of youth! They look ahead; they see all things so easilypossible! But old Dr. Kent was sobbing.

  * * * * *

  It has broken Dr. Kent. A month now has passed. He seldom mentionsAlan to Babs and me. But when he does, he tries to smile and say thatAlan soon will return. He has been very ill this last week, though heis better now. He did not tell us that he was working to compoundanother supply of the drugs, but we knew it very well.

  And his emotion, the strain of it, made him break. He was in bed aweek. We are living in New York, quite near the Museum of the AmericanSociety for Scientific Research. In a room of the biologicaldepartment there, the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded.A microscope is over it, and there is never a moment of the day ornight without an alert, keen-eyed watcher peering down.

  But nothing has appeared. Neither friend nor foe--nothing. I cannotsay so to Babs, but often I fear that Dr. Kent will suddenly die, andthe secret of his drugs die with him. I hinted once that I would makea trip into the atom if he would let me, but it excited him so greatlyI had to laugh it off with the assurance that of course Alan will soonreturn safely to us. Dr. Kent is an old man now, unnaturally old,with, it seems, the full weight of eighty years pressing upon him. Hecannot stand this emotion. I think he is despairingly summoningstrength to work upon his drugs, fearful that he will not be equal toit. Yet more fearful to disclose the secret and unloose so diabolicala power.

  There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and I slip away andgo to the Museum. We dismiss the guard for a time, and in that privateroom we sit hand in hand by the microscope to watch. The fragment ofgolden quartz lies on its clean white slab with a brilliant light uponit.

  Mysterious little golden rock! What secrets are there, down beyond thevanishing point in the realm of the infinitely small! Our humanlongings go to Alan and to Glora.

  But sometimes we are swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by themysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we arein the vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches ofastronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And atour feet, everywhere, are myriad entrances into the infinitely small.With ourselves in between--with our fatuous human consciousness thatwe are of some importance to it all!

  Truly there are more things
in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of inour philosophy!

  INVISIBLE EYES

  An invisible eye that can see in the dark and detect the light of aship two miles away on a black foggy night was introduced to newspapermen recently by its inventor, John Baird of television fame. He callsthe invention "Noctovisor."

  It looks like a large camera and can be mounted on a ship or airplane.It was announced that it would soon be tried on trans-Atlantic liners.For the demonstration it was mounted in the garden of Baird's cottage,overlooking the twinkling lights of Dorking. In the dark beyond thoselights an automobile headlight three miles away pointed toward thecottage.

  At a signal from the inventor a sheet of ebonite, as a substitute fora supposed fog, two miles thick, was placed in front of the headlight.Not a glimmer was then visible to the human eye, but it appeared onthe noctovisor screen as a bright red disc. It was supposed to haveparticular value in permitting a navigator in a fog to tell the exactdirection of a beacon and to estimate roughly its distance.

  The device is a combination of camera lens, television transmitter andtelevision receiver. The lens throws a distant image on the exploringdisc of the transmitter, through which it acts on a photo-electriccell sensitive to invisible infra-red rays. The receiver amplifies itfor the observer.

  MOON ROCKETS

  Seventeen years of experimenting on a rocket designed by Prof. AlbertH. Goddard of Clark University, to shriek its way from the earth tothe moon, came to a glorious climax recently in an isolated andclosely guarded section of Worcester when the rocket tore its flamingway through the air for a quarter-mile with a roar heard for adistance of two miles.

  Prof. Goddard said the rocket was shot out of its cradle, careenedthrough the air a mass of flame, and landed about where it wasdirected to land, beyond the Auburn town line. Test of a newpropellant was the object of his demonstration, Prof. Goddard said.

  Two or three times a week a small rocket goes up into the air a shortdistance, not enough to attract great attention. But the latest was anine-foot rocket, shot out of a forty-foot tower. Near the tower is asafety post built of stone, with slits for peepholes. The experimentalparty stepped into the safety zone when the rocket was started.

  The forty-foot tower is built much like an oil well derrick. Inside itare two steel rails to fill grooves in the rocket. These guide therocket much as rifling in a gun barrel guides a bullet. Prof. Goddard,when teaching at Princeton in 1912, evolved the idea of shooting arocket to the moon by means of successive charges of explosive much asthe new German rocket motor racers are powered. In this most recentexperiment he used a new powder mixture.

  Prof. Goddard issued a statement after the demonstration, which said:

  "My test was one of a series of experiments with rockets using anentirely new propellant. There was no attempt to reach the moon oranything of such a spectacular nature. The rocket is normally noisy,possibly enough to attract considerable attention. The test wasthoroughly satisfactory, nothing exploded in the air, and there was nodamage except possibly that incidental to landing."

 

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