And another voice said, "Will he hear us, Tork?" It was a softer voice.
Less harsh. English! But queerly slurred, carefully spoken. And the
voices were tiny, strangely thin, of a pitch totally different from
anything Nixon ever had heard.
"Tork, will he hear us? He is recovered now. Will he hear us? Oh, Tork,
what will he try to do?" The English words drifted off into a language
totally strange, unintelligible.
* * * * *
Nixon saw the two little figures. One was taller, wider than the
other; the big one six inches, the other at least an inch less. They
were standing on the white metal of the floor, down by his thigh.
And now he realized that he was stretched out in the small interior
of a metal cylinder, lying on a floor that crossed the middle of it,
so that he was stretched the length of its top half. It was about a
ten-foot length, and six feet wide. It left a space beside him. Little
metal railings a few inches high ran along the floor, dividing it
into tiny enclosures. A mechanism room; another where supplies seemed
to be stored; another which had what seemed furniture in it. All in
miniature. All peopled with tiny figures that had stopped their tasks,
and were staring at him now in awe and fear.
"Speak, giant! Can you hear us?"
"I hear you," Nixon said. His voice rumbled, reverberating in the close
confines of the curved metal walls. The sound startled the little
figures down there at the floor. They peered up, tense, apprehensive.
Two or three scurried away; and now Nixon saw that there were several
holes along the floor where tiny ladder stairs led downward to some
space beneath. Several of the frightened little figures started down
the ladders and then stopped, peering up again.
"We can kill you," the figure called Tork said. He was still standing
fairly close beside the great curve of Nixon's prone body, with the
smaller figure beside him. Both of them were wary. Nixon could see it.
They stood ready to dart away, not knowing what this trapped, bound
monster might be able to do. "You do not wish that we should kill you?"
"No," Nixon said. "I sure don't." He said it wryly. He tried to smile.
Kill him? These little creatures? Incredible, him lying here in this
vaulted, tomb-like interior, with tiny things that could talk; things
who had scientific weapons and intelligence to handle them.
"You did try to kill me," Nixon added abruptly. "I remember it now.
You--what shall I call you--Tork?"
"Tork, yes," the taller figure said. "And this with me here is Nona. We
did not want to kill you--"
"Oh, you didn't?" Nixon's temper always sprang readily. He could feel
his hands suddenly tingle. It was absurd that this tiny creature should
speak so calmly of killing him. Why if he had his hands loose, he could
seize the damned little thing, squeeze it until it screamed....
Unconsciously Nixon was straining at the metal ropes, with the muscles
under his bronzed skin taut as he held his breath, pulling and
straining. The metal posts bent inward a little with the pull; but the
ropes held.... It was a moment of horrible tenseness for his captors.
He could see it as he slowly strained, exerting all his strength until
the sweat poured out on his forehead and he was panting. A tense
horrible moment, while Tork and Nona stood with their tiny bluish
faces turned upward, with glowing little eyes staring. Then Tork's
face wrinkled into a grotesque smile as he saw Nixon's body relax. The
crucial test had come and passed. They could hold this giant.
Tork said quietly, "There is a blood-tube in your throat. I could climb
up there and plunge what you call a sword into it."
Nixon had heard of the jugular vein, of course. A sword, as Tork would
wield it, would be only a needle. But, even so, it could have been
stabbed into his jugular while he was unconscious and he might have
bled to death. Or it could be stabbed into his eyes, blinding him....
"All right," Nixon said. "It's hard to realize--I reckon I'm
beginning to understand now--"
"That we have an intelligence like your own," Tork finished. "What are
you called? You have a name? Is it not so that all Earth people are
named?"
"Nixon," he said. "Allen Nixon. Look here--what the devil is all
this? Who are you? You've got me here in some sort of thing--"
"Our Spaceship," Tork said. "We came to Earth to get you."
"Get me? Came to Earth?"
But of course! These little creatures, so grotesquely in a sort of
human mould, couldn't belong on Earth. Nixon stared out again through
the tiny bullseyes beside him at the starry abyss of the heavens.
A spaceship, and he and his captors were no longer on Earth now,
but hurtling out somewhere among the stars. Allen Nixon, Floridian
backwoodsman, was far from a scientist. But he had read a great deal.
Atomic bombs. Rockets to the Moon. That sort of thing was no longer a
fantasy. Fantasy or not, he had to accept it now.
"You came to Earth--to get me?" he repeated.
"Well, not exactly you," Tork said. "We came for one of you Earth
giants. We landed--a place where there would not be many of you. And
then you came...."
* * * * *
Strange facts, which now Nixon's tiny captors were telling him. They
had come from a small world, in that belt of asteroids which lies
beyond Mars. A world which in their language was called something
that sounded like Orana. And they called themselves Orites--a little
civilization of them huddled on a bleak, rocky world.
This Tork--his counterpart, in our human civilization, would be a
man. And the smaller figure here with him, a woman. Two sexes. But
among the Orites, they were in the minority, for most of the young
born to them, were neuter. And these they called Gorts. Like a slave
class, who grew to maturity trained for work, for servitude. Creatures
of a much lower intelligence, each trained from the beginning to some
simple, standardized task.
Nixon, as he listened, could identify the Gorts, here among the groups
of tiny figures within the miniature railed enclosures on the spaceship
floor. A hundred or more of them had come up from underneath now,
reassured that the giant was helpless. There was one area down beyond
Nixon's feet where a group of some thirty of them were bending over a
long trough that was high as their knees. They seemed to be eating.
They were about Tork's six-inch size, these Gorts. But broader, more
squarely solid-looking. Their heads were round, shining like polished
leaden balls, with grey-blue faces, square-cut in a grotesque human
mould. Their garments, some grey, others of a brownish-black, seemed
stiff and jointed like a coat of mail.
"Well, you've got me," Nixon said. "You're taking me now to your world?"
"Yes, that is it," Tork agreed.
"Why? What for? And you talk English--how is that?"
It was only what to them could be called a few years ago, that the
Orites had been able to build a spaceship. An expedition had come to
Earth. It was a spaceship built for their own size--a cylindrical
ship perhaps the size of Nixon's arm. A group of them, including this
Tork, had come, landed and stayed for a time. So small, coming during
Earth's night, remaining hidden, then moving to other places again
during night, it had been easy for them to avoid discovery by the Earth
giants.
"We found that your world, it is very beautiful," Tork was saying.
"Much better than our own--that you shall see. And perhaps our
mind is different from yours. You do not learn strange language by
listening, and remembering?"
"Well, yes, but not exactly that." Nixon said. "Children do, I suppose.
So you're taking me back to your world? You say you didn't want to kill
me. Why should you? What do you want of me?"
He saw Tork turn and gaze at the smaller woman-creature beside him, as
though Tork wasn't sure how he should answer that question. They were
standing now so that as Nixon had relaxed, prone, with his face turned
sidewise, they were only a foot or so away. He could see them more
clearly than before. Their garments were of some flexible, metallic
fabric--a sort of square-cut tunic and trousers on Tork; and on Nona
more of a drape, belted tight at the waist.
Tork's head was round and shining, like a Gort; hers had a little
growth of white and gleaming hair on it. And Nixon could see other
differences now. The female was curved, broad at the hips, but every
tiny line of the male figure was stiffly angular. It gave Tork, and the
Gorts even more so, a mechanical look--the planes of the face were
all tiny rectangles, as though hewn on metal....
"We need you," Tork said at last. "Our scientists need one of the
Earth-giants."
"Need me? What for?" Nixon demanded.
"That you shall see," Tork said. He added evasively, "There is so much
about your world that you can tell us."
"There will be no harm come to you," Nona said suddenly. "My father, he
is leader of the Orites in all things of science. It was he who built
our first spaceship."
"I am assistant to him," Tork put in.
"And then they built this giant ship, to bring a giant to our
world," Nona added, "and my father, he is working now on something
else--something that will be so good for all us Orites--"
"That we can explain later, not now," Tork said hastily.
Whatever it was, Nixon couldn't make them say any more about it.
The trip now stretched on while around him, down on the floor,
the miniature interior was busy with the routine of the voyage.
Beneath him, he understood now, were the mechanism rooms, the air
renewers, pressure equalizers, temperature controls, and the gravity
engines--whatever they were. Perhaps, if he had been an Earth
scientist, Tork would have tried to find the English words to explain
them. But Tork did not, and Allen Nixon wasn't curious. To him it was
enough that this strange thing was a fact.
His mind was busy with thoughts of how to escape from these weird
little captors. Certainly he had no desire to be taken to this strange
world. Tork's queer glance at Nona had seemed somehow to have a
gruesome implication. If only he could get Tork within his fingers--
* * * * *
After a time Nixon slept. He was hungry and thirsty when he awoke.
Down on the floor the Gorts were busy with their routine tasks. They
were getting used to the monstrous prisoner now. None seemed to notice
that he had opened his eyes. Then he saw Tork, in the little enclosure
beyond Nixon's feet, where the cylindrical interior narrowed. It seemed
to be the bow of the spaceship. A bullseye port was there, with a vista
of the stars. There was a foot-high bank like an instrument panel, with
rows of tiny dials hardly bigger than his smallest fingernail. They
glowed with faint streams of lights. He saw Tork there, among the tiny
controls.
"Tork!" he called.
Presently Tork came running along the floor and stood by Nixon's face.
"You awaken?" Tork said. "You giants sleep a very long time. We know
that, of course. And you have slept even longer."
Nixon could well believe it. He was rested now. Far more clear-headed
and alert, he realized, than he had been before, and the many tiny
wounds on him didn't hurt so much now.
"I'm hungry and thirsty," he said. "I suppose you know that giants eat,
don't you?"
Tork's weird slit of mouth widened and his bluish face knotted into a
grotesque smile. "We had planned for that before we caught you," he
said. "Water--your earth-water we have in tanks here. We have studied
your food. In Orana our chemists studied it, and we have concentrated
it for you. And perhaps some of our own things you will like."
Feeding this bound giant was quite a problem. The Gorts struggled now
with a great ladder, resting it against Nixon's shoulder, carrying
pails of water up to his chest, pouring them into his mouth, each
not much more than a thimbleful. Then a long line of them came, each
with a chunk of food, a mouthful for Nixon. But it was gratifying, if
queer-tasting, and at last he had had enough.
The days slowly passed, while the tiny ship plunged on through the
abyss of space. Days? There was here nothing but the same humming,
glowing interior, and outside through the tiny bullseyes, the vast
unchanging panorama of the stars. Nixon slept when he could; and when
he was thirsty or hungry, he called for Tork to order the Gorts to
their task. A hundred of them, whose only work was to feed him.
Nixon realized now that these little people slept very often. Watching
them, it seemed that every two or three hours they needed sleep. A
lifespan, probably much shorter than ours. Ten years from birth to old
age, perhaps. This trip to Orana, as Tork once explained, to them was a
very long, tedious voyage. To Nixon it would be while he slept perhaps
twenty or twenty-five times.
"If you would let one of my hands loose," Nixon told Tork once, "you
wouldn't have to carry the food and water up to me. Have the Gorts put
it beside me, down there on the floor and that's enough."
He did his best to persuade Tork. After all, what could he do to
escape, even if they turned him loose? A lunge, even an incautious
movement, could wreck this little ship. Kill them all, but it would
kill him too.
"You don't reckon I'm that foolish," Nixon said.
"No, I do not," Tork agreed.
"Then turn me loose. It's silly to keep me shackled like this. Causes
you a lot of trouble."
But Tork only grinned his grotesque grin and shook his head.
"Why not?" Nixon argued. "What can I do?"
"You could reach and seize me," Tork said grimly. "You could hold me
with your fingers. And to save my life, would I not order the Gorts to
turn us back to Earth? That you could do. Have you not thought of it?"
Nixon had indeed. Something like that was what he had been planning.
These tiny captors weren't so dumb.
But as the time passed and they told him that now the orbit of Mars was
crossed and presently their world of Orana would lie ahead of them,
Nixon had in some measure won the confidence of Nona. Sometimes when he
called to her she would come and climb the long ladder at his shoulders
and sit on his chest and talk to him. At first she was timid, but then
as her confidence grew she got over it. Under her questions Nixon
passed the long hours telling her about Earth.
"But you saw a good deal of it yourself, Nona. You made two trips
there."
"Yes," she agreed. "But it is a world so gigantic, it did not look
anything of the way you tell it to me."
"And I guess your world will look pretty different to me," he said,
"from the way it does to you."
But she was queerly reticent about her world. He decided that Tork had
warned her not to talk about it.
At another time it occurred to Nixon to ask how they had gotten his
huge body into their ship. She described how it had been dragged in
with cables. A dozen little electronic engines, and the pulling of
about five hundred Gorts who were here on board. But to get him out
they had planned it differently. Even though shackled, he could perhaps
hitch himself along, just a little at a time, out through the bow of
the ship which was built so that the whole of it would spread apart.
"Of course I can," Nixon agreed. "I certainly don't want to make it
hard, Nona. If you people got so you could trust me--"
"I think my father will trust you," she said suddenly. "Yes, that I
think."
Then there came the time when Nona gestured toward the front port of
the ship, down past Nixon's feet. "There is Orana," she said.
He saw it then, a great silvery crescent which had swung into view.
During the hours it enlarged, until presently it was filling all that
area of the sky. And a little later, Nona came climbing up the ladder
to his chest.
"When you have slept the next time," she said, "we shall be there."
She seemed frightened. He could interpret more readily the expressions
on her tiny, bluish face now.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
She said, "Tork has seen with the telescope that a storm may be there
when we land."
"A storm on your world? Oh, I see. Well, we have storms. Wind and rain.
And I told you about a snowstorm--"
But she burst out: "A storm on Orana--Oh, giant, if only you could
help us! That is what my father thinks--that you will be able to help
us live on our world!"
A storm on Orana ... somehow it made him shudder, hearing the terror in
her tiny voice.