by Ray Cummings
CHAPTER XI
The astounded Polter was taken wholly by surprise. He had no idea thatanyone was following him. He thought he was alone with tiny Babs in thisrock-strewn metal desert. What he saw as he scrambled to his feet werefour insect-size humans, two of them at a distance, and two within reachof him, and all of them scampering in different directions. The groundwas littered with crags and boulders; it was ridged and pitted,pock-marked, with tiny crater-holes and caves. The four scuttlingfigures almost instantly had disappeared from his sight.
I did not see where Babs went. I turned from the black vial of Polter'senlarging drug, and with the huge pellet under my arm I ran leaping overthe rough ground and flung myself into a gully. I lay prone, flattenedagainst a rock. In the murky distance of a pseudo-sky overhead, themonstrous head and shoulders of Polter were visible. I could see down tojust below his waist. The empty cage with its door flapping open hungagainst his shirt-front. He had stooped to try and recover Babs. Andinstinctively his hands went to his belt to seize his enlarging drug.
They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent vial of thediminishing element. But his black vial was gone. His annoyance turnedinto fear as he searched for it in the other compartments of his belt. Ihad thought that he had more than one black vial, but now it seemed not.His huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He glanced wildlyaround him.
Through the open end of my gully I saw in the distance, miles away, theenlarging figure of Alan rising up. Then it ducked in back of a distantrising peak. Polter undoubtedly saw it. He was fumbling with hisopalescent vial. In his confused panic he made the mistake of taking thediminishing drug and instantly seemed to regret it. His curse rumbledabove me. His glance went down to the rocks at his feet, and there hesaw his black vial lying with its stopper out. His body already wasbeginning to dwindle. He stooped, seized the vial, and took theenlarging drug. The shock of it mode him stagger; momentarily hedisappeared from my line of vision but I could hear his panting breathand 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 shoved itinto my mouth, chewed and hastily swallowed it. And with the lurching,swaying, shrinking gully closing in upon me, I ran to get out of itsdistant end.
I was heading toward where Alan and his father were hiding. I came fromthe gully into the open, just as the walls closed behind me. The wholescene was a dizzying, blurred sway of contracting movement. I saw that Iwas in a circular valley now some five miles in diameter, with itsjagged enclosing walls rising sheerly perpendicular out of sight in thehaze overhead.
Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so away. His back atthat instant was turned to me. He was now no more than three or fourtimes my own height. He scrambled against the valley cliff wall asthough trying to find a foothold to climb up it. He went a little way,but fell back.
Near me, Alan and old Dr. Kent suddenly appeared. I was larger thanthey. Alan gasped with surprise.
"You, George! You got Babs--"
"Yes--Babs is around somewhere! Stay down here! Don't lose her in size!Stay small! Search and--"
"But, George--"
"I'll tackle Polter. I've taken--God, I don't know how much I've takenof the drug!"
They were shrinking down by my boot tops. Alan shouted suddenly,"There's Babs! Thank God, she's all right."
She was so small that I couldn't see her, or even hear her, though 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 overtakeyou--haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice was fading away. "Goand get him, George! This time--get him--"
I swung with a staggering step around to face the open valley. It had bynow shrunk to nearly half a mile in width. Its smooth walls rose sometwo or three thousand feet to an upper circular horizon with murkydistance overhead. Polter stood across from me. He had tried to climbout but could not. He saw me and came lurching. We were a quarter of amile from each other. I ran forward through a shifting scene ofshrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting ground. Quarter of amile? It seemed hardly more than a score of running strides beforePolter loomed close ahead of me. He was still nearly twice my size. Istooped, seized a loose boulder, and flung it. I missed his face, but,as his hand went up carrying a bare knife, by fortunate chance, thestone struck his wrist. The knife dropped to the rocks. He stooped torecover it, but I was upon him. As I felt his huge arms go about me,half lifting me, my foot struck the knife. But in an instant it wasswept down into smallness beneath us as we expanded above it.
Both of us now were unarmed in this combat of size. I was an immatureyouth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard his panting words, grimlytriumphant:
"This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many years! Thehunchback--takes his revenge--now--"
He lifted me. His great arms were unbelievably powerful, but I couldfeel them dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just a few moments--if Icould last a few moments.... My feet were off the ground, my chestpressed close against the little cage between us. He had a hand shovingback my head; his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legs around him,and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. But he had twistedand my back was against the cliff. The rocks were shoving at us,insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polter staggered withme. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off my breath. My senseswhirled. His grim sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilelyat my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a roaringchaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw horror sweep hisexpression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. I got a breath ofblessed air, gasping, and my sight cleared.
Walls were closing around us! We were in a pit barely ten feet wide,with the top a few feet above Polter's head. The nearer wall shoved 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 trying to shove me back.But I was out; I clutched at him. We were almost of a size now. Werolled on the ground, locked together; rolled to the brink of the pitand over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed beneath ourthreshing 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 against thesky. Tremendous expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; saw thegreat 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 figures weregrowing faster. In only a moment their shoulders were up there in thesky, 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, get out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"
As though his microscopic voice could reach me--my head a hundred feetabove him. But he screamed it again. This was all in a few horriblemoments, though it seemed to the three watchers an eternity. Alan washelpless to aid me; they had taken all of the enlarging drug they had.
Then they saw Polter cast me off. I lurched and struck, with myshoulders wedged against the cliff directly over where they crouched.The overhead sky was darkened as Polter scrambled upward.
Alan was still screaming futilely.
Babs huddled with white horrified face, starin
g. Then I went out afterPolter. My disappearing legs were great dark blurs in the sky. Alan sawthe valley now contracted to a thousand feet of width, with its cliffsequally as high. Then everything was smaller.... The sky overhead wentdark again from cliff to cliff as a segment of rolling bodiesmomentarily spanned the opening.
Presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to a pit. He stoodup. "Hurry! Now we can go 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 in along gully, blind at one end with a five hundred foot perpendicularcliff. Against the wall, the Titanic form of Polter stood at bay. And Iwas confronting him. The summit of the cliff was lower than our waists.Triumph swept Alan; he saw that I was the larger! As Polter bored 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 sole ofmy foot formed a flat black ceiling as it spanned the rocks. Then itlifted and was gone with a blurred swoop. They saw the white blur of myhand come down and snatch a tremendous boulder, raising it with a greatsweep of movement into the sky. They saw me crash it against Polter; butit only struck his shoulder. He roared with anger. The whole sky wasroaring and rumbling with our shouts and our panting breathing, and theground was clattering, pounding with our giant tread. Huge looseboulders were tumbled in an avalanche everywhere.
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. Then itseemed to Alan that I had heaved Polter upward. And followed him. Wedisappeared. There was a distant overhead rumble, and the murky sky,with vague patches of far-distant illumination in it, became empty ofmovement....
The walls presently were again closing upon Alan and his companions.They ran out of the open end of the shrinking little gully and came to anew upward vista....
* * * * *
I found myself a full head and shoulders taller than Polter. And he wastiring, panting heavily. His face was cut and bleeding from the blows ofmy fist. The rock I heaved struck his shoulder. He roared, head down,and bored into me. He was heavier than I. His weight flung me back. Myfoot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I did not know thatBabs, Alan and their father were huddled under those stones!
My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee caught me in thestomach, all but knocking the breath out of me. He was desperate,oblivious to the closing walls. And as he flung his arms with a gripabout my neck, hanging, trying to bear down, I saw in his blazing darkeyes what seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with a suddenfrenzied madness he realized that he was beaten, and tried to pull us tothe ground and let the walls crush us.
I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us forward. I broke hishold. His body was jammed back against a lowering wall. Its top seemedalmost at our knees. I shoved frantically. He fell backward and I jumpedafter 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 didn't fall. There was a terribleinstant when my senses were going, but I fought to hold them. Blood froma wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I was staggering. ThenI realized that I was grimly tossing my head, shaking the blood away;and little by little my sight came back.
Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swingat my chin, but I ducked.
And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisioned howgigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with miles ofdistance and shadowy dimly radiant abyss beyond its circular horizon.And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A Titan, looming here in thesky!
My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swingwent wild, as I leapt backward from it. He staggered, and his armsdropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watching himwhile I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instant when anexpression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knocked himout.
It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, overtaxed from thestrain; and I think that there, at the last, he realized it. The blooddrained suddenly from his face and lips, leaving them livid. I saw fear,then a wild horror in his eyes. He stood swaying. Then his knees gaveway and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where I stoodgazing at him--fell forward on his face, his Titanic length spread allacross 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 rocky eminencecontracted.
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 a whitereflected radiance from beneath. Abruptly I realized there was a level,flat white plain running far off there in the distance.
Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A shape in the skymoved! I heard a faraway 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! Iwas standing there, under the lens of the giant microscope in Polter'sdome-room laboratory, with half a dozen astounded Quebec policeofficials peering down at me!
CHAPTER XII
I need not detail the aftermath of our emergence from the atom. Dr. Kentand Babs followed me out within a few moments. But Alan was not withthem! 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 have to! 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. You two are safe now."
"Alan! You can't go!"
He was already down at Dr. Kent's waist, Babs' size. He held up hishand. "Dad, don't try to stop me. Good-bye." His rugged youthful facewas flushed, his voice choked. "You--you've been a mighty good father tome. Always."
Babs flung her arms about him. "Alan. Don't!"
"But I must." He smiled whimsically as he kissed her. "You wouldn't wantto leave George, would you? Never see him again? I'm not asking you todo that, am I?"
"But, Alan--"
"You've been a great little pal, Babs. But I have to go."
"Alan! You talk as though you were never coming back!"
"Do I? But of course I'm coming back!" He cast her off. "Babs, listen.Father's upset. That's natural. You tell him not to worry. I'll 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 course youmust, Alan!"
"I'll find her and bring her out here! I'll do it! Don't you worry." Hewas dwindling 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 guarded andwatched day and night. Handle it carefully, Babs!"
"Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?"
"How do I know? But I'll come back--don
't worry. Maybe in only a day ortwo of your time."
"Right! Good-bye, Alan!"
"Good-bye," his tiny voice echoed up.
Babs could see his miniature face smiling up at her. She smiled back andwaved her arm as he vanished into the pebbles at her feet.
* * * * *
It has broken Dr. Kent. A month now has passed. He seldom mentions Alanto Babs and me. But when he does, he tries to smile and say that Alansoon will return. He has been very ill this last week, though he isbetter now. He did not tell us that he was working to compound anothersupply of the drugs, but we knew it very well.
And his emotion, the strain of it, made him break. He was in bed a week.We are living in New York, quite near the Museum of the American Societyfor Scientific Research. In a room of the biological department there,the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope isover it, and there is never a moment of the day or night without analert, keen-eyed watcher peering down.
But nothing has appeared. Neither friend or foe--nothing. I cannot sayso to Babs, but often I fear that Dr. Kent will suddenly die, and thesecret of his drugs die with him. I hinted that I would make a trip intothe atom if he would let me, but it excited him so greatly I had tolaugh it off with the assurance that of course Alan would soon returnsafely to us. Dr. Kent is an old man now, unnaturally old, with, itseems, the full weight of eighty years pressing upon him. He cannotstand this emotion. I think he is despairingly summoning strength towork upon his drugs, fearful that at any moment, he will not be equal toit. Yet more fearful to disclose the secret and unloose such a diabolicpower.
There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and I slip away and goto the Museum. We dismiss the guard for a time, and in that private roomwe sit by the microscope to watch. The fragment of golden quartz lies onits clean white slab with a brilliant light upon it.
Mysterious little golden rock! What secrets are there, down beyond thevanishing point in the realm of the infinitely small? Our human longingsgo to Alan and Glora.
But sometimes we are swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by themysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we are inthe vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches ofastronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And atour feet, everywhere, a myriad entrances into the infinitely small. Withourselves in between--with our fatuous human consciousness that we areof some importance to it all!
Truly there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of inour philosophy!
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was first published in _Astounding Stories_ March 1931.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errorshave been corrected without note.