She was crouching against his chest. He heard her answering call. "Yes.
Oh yes, giant."
He lay through an interval. And now through the storm came a burst of
lightning--a crackling burst with a roar like thunder. But it was very
different lightning from anything Nixon had ever seen! It seemed to
strike one of the distant cliffs. There was a sustained crackling for a
second or two, then an orange-green burst of light. It was like a bomb
striking the cliff-face, with masses of rock hurled into the blur of
the air. A chunk, perhaps as big as Nixon's forearm, fell clattering
across the slope. Now he saw the meaning of the purple light-fire like
a barrage around and above the pyramid-city. It was a barrage of some
strange electronic nature, to act like a lightning rod. Presently a
crackling bolt hit it--a great burst, a blob of pyrotechnics in the air
above the city roof. It crackled for a second and then harmlessly was
swept away, dissipating into the murk.
An hour passed, with the storm raging while Nixon lay taut with the
crowd of Orites huddled against him. Then it seemed that the wind
and rain were lessening. And presently a rift came in the wheeling
orange clouds--a rift with a pallid opalescent light breaking through.
The Orana moon. As the clouds at last wheeled and swung away, the
firmament of stars was spread overhead--pin-points of fire in the Orana
night-sky, with the moon a huge crescent of opalescent shimmer. It
bathed the glistening wet slope, strewn with the tiny dead figures.
It edged with pallid silver the frowning ramparts of the distant
mountains....
* * * * *
Presently the daylight came. There was a swift, brightening twilight of
flat, pale glow; and then all in a few minutes there was full daylight
as the sun mounted above the cliffs. Out here beyond Mars, it was a
sun small and pale. Nixon's first Orana day. The sunlight had warmth,
a grateful warmth that soon was drying him. In it the bound Nixon lay
quiet. Momentarily the giant was ignored. The wet slope was steaming in
the sunlight. Nona and the Orites whom he had sheltered had fled into
the city as soon as the storm abated. The barrage glow had gone from
the pyramids. Gorts were carrying in the dead and wounded.
A queer ironic feeling of his helplessness was in Nixon as he lay
waiting, wondering what these strange little captors would try to do
to him next. This world of civilized humans all in miniature, so tiny,
made it seem absurd that he should have to lie here, patiently waiting
for what would happen to him. But every moment as he gazed around at
the busy little Orite world, revealed by the daylight, his respect for
it grew. Quite evidently these were a scientific people. A totally
different science from anything on Earth, so that he could never grasp
it. A science, compared to his own Earth-world, which in many ways was
probably less advanced, yet in other ways more so.
Beyond the three pyramid-cities he could see tilled fields in which
tiny things were growing. Little furrows ridged them. Gorts were
working there, with miniature machines that scurried like bugs along
the ground. Now after the storm, Orites were trudging in from the
hills, a rural population living out in the recesses of the cliffs,
and in huts along the ground. A few of their little dwellings were
visible in the nearer distance, mounds about a foot high. Some of the
people living out there came carrying those who had been hurt in the
storm--for medical attention in the pyramid-cities, Nixon surmised.
Others evidently came out of curiosity to see the giant from Earth. At
a respectful distance which to Nixon was five or six feet away, a crowd
of them was gathering. Men and women, and the young some of which were
hardly more than an inch high, clinging to a mother as they stared at
the prone giant. It was a jabbering, excited crowd, augmented now by
Orites who streamed out from the cities.
The nearer cliff of the canyon-side, as Nixon saw it, was fairly close
here. It rose sheer, shining green in the sunlight. There was another
building over there against the cliff bottom--a building which looked
like a small cairn of stones. It was about two or three feet high. Its
tiny oval windows, even now in the daylight, had a violet light in
them; and at a peak from the top of it, colored vapour was streaming up.
"We are ready to attend to you now, giant." The Orite voice near
Nixon's head startled him. Then he saw that Tork had arrived, and
that Nona was behind him. Other Orites had come from the nearest of
the pyramids and were gathered around Tork. Quite evidently they were
important here. Somehow the look of them suggested advanced age; men a
little bent, shriveled of outline, with robes that were ornamented for
the dignity of their rank. Their wrinkled, bluish faces were solemn
with dignity. There were some twenty of them. They stood in tiny
groups, gazing, whispering to each other.
"Attend to me?" Nixon said. "It's time you turned me loose, isn't it?"
If he could only persuade them to free him! From the beginning Nixon
had pondered how he could escape and get back to Earth. Certainly this
had been an extraordinary adventure, but already he had had enough of
it. If the Orites would free him now, it would be simple enough to
force them to take him back in the Spaceship. Or would it? Nixon felt
a queer shuddering, like a premonition. Why had they brought him here?
What were they planning to do with him?
"Turn you loose," Tork was saying, and Nixon thought he could detect
something like sarcasm in that small voice.
"Or at least, thank me," Nixon said. He grinned. Among his own kind
on Earth, his was an appealing grin. But the great ruddy expanse of
his face with the black stubble of beard which now was growing on it,
wrinkled by that grin, certainly had no reassuring appeal for these
tiny Orites. And Nixon knew it.
Absurd that he should have to wheedle these little captors! Nixon
always had a hot temper and it rose in him now as from the Orites there
came only a staring, blank silence. Despite his bonds, he could roll
and lunge and kill hundreds of them! But what would it get him? The
Gorts would mass for battle and kill him. Or if they couldn't--if even
he wrecked all this miniature civilization here, there would be nothing
left for him to do but lie here on this strange little world and starve
to death.
He mastered his anger. He would have to be docile, do what he was told,
for now at least.
"I helped you in the storm, didn't I?" he added. "I saved maybe
hundreds of you from being killed. The last thing I want is to hurt any
of you."
"My father is coming," Nona put in. She had turned at the sound of
a voice calling from the pyramid entrance where other Orites were
emerging. "My father is called Frane," Nona added. "I have told him
that you want to be our friend." She flung a glance at Tork as she said
it; but Tork ignored her and turned away, whispering to some of the
dignitaries.
* * * * *
Then Nona's father stood with her. Frane was obviously aged. His
shoulders were square and thin, with an ornate robe draping them. He
bore himself with the commanding dignity of his age and rank as leading
scientist here.
"I thank you, giant, for what you have done." His voice was thin and
high, his words slow, carefully intoned. "For myself, I would trust
you. But these men who rule us--" His gaze went to the group with whom
Tork was whispering as he added, "have decided against me."
Tork whirled around. "We do not dare give our world into the keeping
of this monster."
It brought a babble of agreement from the listening Orites, most of
whom quite evidently understood the Earth language.
"Why did you bring me here?" Nixon demanded. "You certainly went to
plenty of trouble."
"To be of help to us," Frane said. "There is no reason why I should not
tell you."
Frane in his laboratory here, with Tork as his assistant, for years
had been working on a momentous chemical discovery. Drugs to cause a
size-change of the human body; to alter the size of every tiny cell,
without changing its shape.
Frane gestured. "That is my laboratory, off there." He was indicating
the cairn-like little building with the oval violet windows, at the
base of the cliff.
A growth-drug. A generation ago they had done it with plants to some
extent. "Perhaps you know," Frane was saying, "that natural growth is
not steady. It comes in spurts, a rapid growth, a resting, then growth
again."
And this new drug would greatly accelerate the growing periods--a vast
and rapid acceleration into a size far beyond what nature ordinarily
would have attained. Frane's growth-drug was now nearing success.
"To make us Orites perhaps as large as you," Frane was saying. "Then we
could dominate our world more easily."
Nixon could understand the desire. This miniature civilization was like
a colony of ants on Earth. He could imagine an anthill swept by an
Earth-storm; a forest fire, with millions of insects scuttling before
it, and millions of others consumed by it. This Orana storm, to Nixon,
had been bad enough; but to many of the Orites it had been fatal.
"You brought me here," Nixon said, "and yet you hope to make yourselves
as big as I am. Why did you need me?"
Tork had approached. His face bore a triumphant leer. "They say it is
better to stop this talk with the giant now," he said to Frane.
Orders from Frane's superiors. It was obvious. "Later, giant," Frane
said. His face was serious, and Tork's leer of triumph, somehow made
Nixon shudder.
"I beg you, for your own good, cause no trouble," Frane added hastily.
"You understand that, giant?"
"Yes," Nixon said.
"We have a home for you," Tork said suavely.
"A home? Where?"
"Not far." Tork gestured toward a butte-like rock that rose from the
slope, over in the direction of the nearer cliff. To Nixon it was only
some fifty feet away. "And you will be made quite comfortable," Tork
added smilingly. "Our Gorts will feed you and take care of you."
Then slowly, feet first, the bound Nixon was hitching himself past the
pyramid-city. A thousand little eyes watched him tensely. The rock
was about twenty feet high. As his feet neared it, Nixon saw that
Orites were up on the rock-ridges some ten feet above the ground. Tiny
apparatus was up there. Nixon hardly noticed the crescent line of
finger-size holes in the ground as he hitched over them. As his feet
neared the bottom of the rock, he heard Tork calling,
"Enough, giant! Lie quiet!"
Tork gave a signal. From up on the tiny ledge of rock, the Orites
answered it. The apparatus up there glowed, hummed. From the crescent
line of holes in the rocky ground around Nixon, tiny purple beams of
light, shot up vertically into the air--beams of radiance about six
inches apart. They streamed up, sharp and clear for twenty or thirty
feet and faded into the sunlit air. It was a crescent fence of light,
from one end of the butte, out in a fifteen foot loop around the prone
Nixon, bending until it touched the other end of the butte.
At the same moment Gorts rushed in, between the six-inch vertical
light-bars. Nixon could feel them with tiny electro-torches burning at
the knots of the ropes binding him. The ropes fell away. He was free.
The Gorts scattered in a panic, running out between the upstanding
purple rays.
Nixon's clothes were smouldering in several places from the tiny
torches. The flesh of his wrists was burned. He beat out the
smouldering fabric and staggered to his feet.
"Careful now, giant!" It was Tork's voice coming in to him from beyond
the radiance of the bars of purple light. Somehow Tork's sneering
warning enraged Nixon. Was this a cage? A cage of light-fire in
which these damnable little creatures thought they could hold the
Earth-giant? He'd show them!
Nixon's rage blurred his reason or he would have been more wary. With
an oath that was thunder to the Orites, he hurled himself against the
purple bars. The Orites' apprehensive cries mingled with a crackling,
hissing shower of sparks. It was as though Nixon had struck something
solid. He was aware of a shock, a resisting thrust, a repulsion that
galvanized all his body as it hurled him backward.
Enveloped by the spark-shower, with his clothes smouldering and his
flesh burned, he fell writhing in the center of his purple cage.
* * * * *
Nixon barely clung to his senses. Then after a moment he knew that
his head was clearing, that he was brushing his smouldering clothes
frantically with his hands. Around him the radiance from the glowing
purple bars was dazzling. But presently he could see between them, and
see the crescent of blue sky overhead. Between two of the bars, in the
six-inch vertical slit of space, an Orite figure appeared. It was Nona.
She came carefully in and stood looking at him.
"You are not too badly hurt?" she said anxiously. "You should not have
tried that."
"So they send _you_?" Nixon said bitterly. "What for? To get me ready
for some new trickery?"
Then Nixon saw that her father was behind her. "We understand your
feelings," Frane said. "I would trust you, but you see I have not
enough power here. I am only a man of science; I have nothing to do
with the government. Not many of the Gorts will take orders from me."
He seemed wholly sincere, so that Nixon smiled grimly. "All right. I
think I _am_ beginning to understand."
And Tork, who in rank was only Frane's assistant, seemed to have the
confidence of those Government leaders.
"The Gorts will come and bring you food and water," Nona said.
"There will be five hundred Gorts just to be trained for your needs,"
Frane offered. "If they come now, you will not harm them so that they
have to attack and kill you?"
Whatever thoughts of wishful thinking Nixon had had that these little
people could kill him, now certainly were dispelled. "Okay," Nixon
agreed. "You have my promise. I won't hurt the Gorts."
"Thank you," Frane said gravely. He turned away....
V
A dozen or more of the Orana days and nights went by. Nona often came
to talk with the giant. Then she brought a young Orite with her named
Loto. He seemed about her own age. He spoke English. He was, Nona said,
studying to be a scientist. From him and Nona, Nixon now learned many
details of the little asteroid world. The rotation of Orana on its
axis gave an alternate daylight and darkness of about six hours each.
There was about the same gravity as Earth, because the asteroid was so
extremely dense. And the moon here was a smaller twin of Orana, one
revolving around the other.
The days were mostly sunlit, sometimes with swirls of orange and purple
clouds. There was no rain; the rain fell only during the infrequent
storms. The nights were opalescent moonlight; then with a period when
the moon-twin had moved into the hours of the day, and showed only as a
dull crescent in the sunlight.
Through the glowing purple bars, Nixon could see the miniature Orite
world busy with its routine of life. The cairn-mound of Frane's
laboratory was only a few yards distant along the cliff. Day and night
its tiny oval windows gleamed with the violet radiance.
Still Nixon had no idea of why he had been brought here. He had
demanded it of Nona and Loto, but always they avoided it. Nona looked
frightened, and the youthful Loto was gravely solemn. To say the least,
their look was anything but reassuring. Then one day, they told him.
"You are a giant," Nona said. "Originally my father wanted to study the
growth-factors of larger creatures. On our first visit to your Earth,
several of them were brought here. They were very young, not too
terribly big then to be caught and brought here. But they grew so fast."
Again that queer look was on her face as she added, "They are all dead
now, except one. It is, I think, what you call a panther. It is caged
in a cave--" She gestured. "Out there in a nearby valley--a cave, with
the purple barrage like this across the entrance."
"Studying the growth of larger creatures," Nixon echoed. "And now these
animals are all dead but one! What you're trying to tell me--your
father and Tork experimented on them. Is that it?"
"In the interest of science," Loto said hastily. "That is done on your
Earth, isn't it?"
And then they had realized that, if the growth-drug Frane was after was
to be effective on the human Orites, a human giant from Earth would be
the best on which to experiment. So Tork had been sent to get one.
Nixon stared. "Keep me here, telling me I'll not be harmed until you're
ready to vivisect me!"
"No! No--" the Orite girl cried vehemently. "Not that! Never! Father
has promised it!"
"He has found that his work does not need it," Loto said earnestly.
"Believe us, that is true. The panther has not yet been used. Perhaps
it never will be. And Frane does not need you. He thought that he
would. But now he's almost sure it isn't necessary."
"And Tork is still trying to persuade your leaders to have Frane--use
me?" Nixon demanded.
"Yes," Loto admitted. "That is so. You see, the drugs are so terribly
important to us--"
"But my father needs nothing more," Nona said. "Except perhaps, my
giant, there will be blood samples--"
"And a little tissue to be studied with our microscopes," Loto put in.
"And secretion, perhaps, from the pituitary gland--"
A grave little group of scientists, with Frane, came one day for
specimens from the giant. Then they came again. Their tiny surgical
instruments were like needles pricking and Nixon only laughed grimly.
But would Frane succeed with his experiments? It seemed now as though
Nixon's life hung on that. Then there was a day when Nona said
impulsively,
"My father is more sure than ever of success. But Tork refuses to
believe it."
"Refuses?" Nixon echoed. "Look here, what do you mean by that? I reckon
there's still plenty you're not telling me, Nona."
There was indeed! There was so much going on out there in the busy
little Orite world that the caged giant could not see. Nona and Loto
tried to explain it.
"Tork is surely planning something," Loto said. "Something more than
just working for the success of the drug."
There had been rumors of trouble. Talk of plans that were being made by
secret meetings in the night. And Tork's followers seemed increasing.
More and more the rumors involved him as a leader.
"Planning what?" Nixon demanded. "Is he aiming to seize your
government?"
Perhaps it was that. Frane himself could not believe that Tork had any
sinister plans; for so many years he had trusted Tork. And Frane was
absorbed with his work. An impractical old man.
"So are most of our leaders," Loto said bitterly. "Too old. What you
would call rusting on the job."
"One thing I'm sure," Nixon said. "Whatever that fellow Tork is up to,
he'd mighty well like to tack my hide to his cabin door."
* * * * *
The days passed. And Nixon saw himself like a monstrous dumb creature
waiting to be slaughtered. There must be something that he could do
to get out of here! He began planning it and as the plan evolved, the
thing looked feasible, if only he could persuade Nona and the youthful
Loto!
He put his plan to them one evening when they came to talk to him, as
they now did quite often. In the glow of the purple bars he sat with
the two small figures perched on his upraised knee.
"Look," Nixon said softly. "I'm not willing to go on like this. And
you--you're just stalling around giving Tork and his men every chance
to pull off what they're after."
Nixon felt desperate, and he knew he looked it--ragged and dirty, his
clothes tattered where the barrage had burned them, and his face with
sunken cheeks covered by a ragged growth of black beard. And he knew he
was ill. The lack of exercises perhaps, because always on Earth Allen
Nixon had been used to great muscular activity. The food and water the
Gorts brought him, lately had been distasteful. It was strange stuff,
at best. And there was the apprehension of his fate--the damnable
sitting and waiting.
"Whatever Tork is after," Nixon was saying, "it's something Frane would
not want. Nor you--nor any of those who are like you. For your sake as
well as mine, you've got to go into this with me."
He persuaded them at last. Loto had the youthful, reckless enthusiasm
of youth. He was like Nixon himself, in that! And they both trusted the
giant.
"Tonight will be best," Loto said. "Greev will be on duty--"
Greev was one of the Orite guards in charge of the barrage mechanism.
His little post was back in a recess on a ledge of the butte. From
where Nixon was sitting its cave-entrance was dimly visible off at the
left end where the barrage ended at the rock-face. To Nixon it was
about ten feet up; to the Orites it was a climb of about a hundred
feet, up a steep winding rock-path from the other side of the butte.
Greev was a rough fellow who had seemed much interested in Nona. Often
he had urged her to come up there and sit with him through the long
tedious hours of his duty.
"What time would be best?" Nixon demanded.
"I could go soon after the moon-rise," Nona said.
An hour from now. Nona would talk to the guard. She would contrive that
just for a moment or two they would leave the little cave-entrance,
walking along the ledge in the shimmer of the moon. And, unseen, Loto
would be up there.
"It can be done," Nixon said. "You're sure you understand the
mechanisms, Loto?"
"Oh yes, yes."
Perched on the seated giant's upraised knee, Loto and Nona suddenly
clutched at the huge folds of his trousers to keep from falling as the
knee jerked. And Nixon's hand had gone up to his forehead--a sweep of
wind that was like a little swirl of storm.
"What's the matter?" Loto demanded anxiously.
"I don't know," Nixon murmured. "I sure feel sick."
A wave of nausea and dizziness had swept him, convulsing his muscles.
"This food I get here don't seem to agree with me," Nixon added.
"Lately, I--"
He sucked in his breath as the inescapable thought came to him.
"Poison!" he gasped. "That's it! Poisoning me--those damned little--"
"Not so loud!" Loto murmured. "You're voice is a roar. It could be
heard up there in the control room."
Poisoning the giant! His body was so tremendous that they could only
give him enough to be slow-acting, making him gradually sick. Nona and
Loto were aghast. More than ever now, this plan to free the giant and
let him rule this world as Frane and the others would want it ruled,
must succeed tonight.
"Maybe it isn't poison. It could be a sleeping drug," Loto said.
"Sure! To knock me out and vivisect me!" Nixon rasped grimly. "What
difference?"
* * * * *
For a time longer they discussed the details of their plan, while Nixon
sat fighting the weird feelings that were sweeping him. Then Nona and
Loto quietly left, walking out between the upstanding purple bars.
And Nixon was alone, waiting for moon-rise.... This cursed sickness!
He fought with it. He was bathed in cold sweat now, with a shuddering
chill creeping through him. But it was some hours since he had had
anything to eat or drink. He'd certainly take nothing more.
The minutes slowly dragged, with an apprehension of tenseness in
the waiting Nixon. Now doubts were assailing him. Would Greev be
suspicious, with Nona coming up to visit him tonight when she had
always refused before? Would Loto be able to get into the control room
unseen? Sometimes Gorts were around up there. Would they oppose him?
And where was Tork tonight? At this time, almost always he was in
his apartment in one of the pyramid-cities. Frane now was in his
laboratory; Tork would join him there later. But sometimes Tork
vanished on one of his mysterious missions. And it occurred to Nixon
that possibly tonight, with poison slowly overcoming the giant, Tork
himself might be planning to do something....
Then Nixon suddenly was aware that out through the glowing purple bars,
the stars were paling above the distant cliffs. The moon was rising.
The time had come! Nixon still sat quiet, hunched against the face
of the rock. Diagonally up over his head, the little entrance of the
control room was visible. It glowed with radiance. Occasionally the
tiny blob of Greev showed as he moved about. Was Loto already up there?
He had said that there were places where he could climb up without
using the path. And to a six-inch Orite the ledge up there outside the
control room was broken and crag-strewn so that Loto easily could hide.
Now Nixon saw the figure of Nona, a pale little blob in the moonlight
as she mounted the path. A moment more and she was in the glowing
recess with Greev. No Gort had challenged her. Good enough! Another
interval and then the guard and Nona came out on the ledge, stood a
moment and then moved along it.
Loto's chance! Slowly Nixon stood up, stretching as though casually
yawning. His head reeled. His ears were roaring. This accursed
sickness!... But now he saw the blob of Loto in the control room! Nixon
tensed.
A sudden humming and hissing of current sounded overhead. The barrage
went down! The purple bars of light crackled for an instant and were
gone!
The giant was free! Overhead he heard the shout of Greev. A spreading
alarm, with the voice of Gorts up on the rock; and others out on the
rocky slope. Nixon leaped. He was aware that it was a staggering step
so that he almost fell. But he recovered himself, staggered on toward
the rock-slope. Everywhere there was a turmoil of frightened little
voices. This damnable dizziness! But it could be conquered. Nixon shook
himself, trying to straighten and get his balance. Now he was aware
that a line of Gorts was before him. Behind him the glow of the barrage
sprang up again, Greev had evidently rushed back to his post. But it
was too late! The giant was out!
In that confused instant, with all the moonlit scene swaying before
him, Nixon saw that the attacking Gorts were dragging up lines of wires
mounted in foot-high frames. Grids of wire, with cables that led to
little wheeled batteries. And Tork was with them. Nixon heard his voice
and saw his little figure scurrying in the background. Perhaps Tork
had planned this before the barrage went down, or perhaps he had just
come, responding to the alarm.... What matter? Nixon could scatter this
strange little attack with a kicking, scrambling rush....
In that second Nixon knew that his thoughts were blurred by the roaring
in his head. He knew that he was staggering ahead to scatter the Gorts.
But there was no time. The grids of wires glowed and crackled. For just
another moment it seemed that they were building up the electronic
potential of a bolt. Then one of them reached it. A little puff of
crackling violet leaped upward. It struck Nixon in the chest.
Nixon knew nothing except that he was staggering, falling....