He went slower, stopped at the waist-high laboratory building. As
he stooped to put Loto and Nona on the ground, a tiny figure came
scurrying from a side door. Nixon had no chance to seize it. In an
instant it had disappeared into the shadows.
"Run inside!" Nixon said. "See what happened."
There was a turmoil in the little building; tiny running footsteps and
the horrified voices of the Orite chemists who had been working there.
Then in a moment a group of them came out. They were carrying Frane.
The sobbing Nona was with them; Loto came, solemn and grim. Silently
the giant Nixon stepped back, then knelt, gazing down in awe at the
miniature tragedy here at his feet.
[Illustration: _He knelt down in amazement._]
Loto explained what had happened. Frane had taken the completed drug
into his office. Tork evidently had been lurking, waiting for this
moment. He had killed one of Frane's men who got in his way, darted in
and stabbed the unsuspecting Frane....
"Then that was Tork I saw running out," Nixon said. He checked his
impulse to jump up and rush away to seize the damned murderer. How
could you find a tiny, scurrying, six-inch figure in this expanse of
moonlit crags?
Frane was not dead, but he obviously was dying. They had laid him
on the ground. He saw Nixon's face so high above him, and he called
faintly.
"Come closer, giant. Tork was triumphant--he told me what he had
planned. I was so stupid--I would never believe ill of him--"
Tork had planned to organize an expedition to go to Earth. With the
growth-drug, they would go in their normal small size. Then on Earth,
they would use the drugs and get large. There was no real limit to
growth through Frane's drug. Frane had meant it to be governed by
environmental needs but the more one took the larger he would grow.
Giants on Earth! They could make themselves what on Earth would be men
a hundred feet tall.
"Tork always said your Earth is so much better a world than Orana could
ever be," Frane was saying. "With fighter-Gorts a hundred feet tall on
Earth, he felt surely that your world could be conquered."
And many of the Orites here, and the Gorts they controlled, had felt
the lure of it. The Orite Government would oppose it. They would have
no desire to embark upon the murderous conquest of a neighboring world.
Then Tork and his followers would have seized the Government. And more
of the Orites would have rallied around him, of course. It is instinct
to follow a successful leader.
But with the Earth-giant dominating Orana now, Tork's fellow plotters
had melted away.
"Well," Nixon murmured grimly, "what does he think he can do now?"
The answer came almost with Nixon's grim question. "Look!" Loto gasped.
"Off there!"
Then Nixon saw it. In the notch between the towering rocks where the
pass led into the broad adjoining valley, a figure had appeared, not
a tiny six-inch figure but an upright man-shape that seemed about
as high as Nixon's waist. It was Tork, and he was half as big as
the Earth-giant now! Long since, Tork's clothes had burst with tiny
shreds that had dropped away so that his bluish flesh glistened in the
moonlight.
For an instant Nixon stood transfixed. And as he stared he saw that
Tork was almost visibly growing! Already he seemed a little taller. The
moonlight showed his face; he was leering with triumph. Another giant
to challenge Nixon's mastery of the Orite world! Soon he would be as
big as Nixon ... then larger....
* * * * *
With the shock of realization, Nixon tensed, bounded forward. Instantly
Tork disappeared, ducking back into the pass. Almost at once Nixon
stopped his pursuits. This could be a fatal error, chasing the growing
Tork who might elude him long enough to become so large that he could
kill Nixon easily!
"Get me some of the drug!" Nixon called. "Run in there, Loto--get it
quick! He'll be larger than I am in a few minutes, by the look of him!"
"In my office," the dying Frane gasped faintly. "There were three
cylinders."
Loto and several of the chemists ran in. It seemed an eternity of
waiting, with Nixon's mind picturing his enlarging adversary out there
in the other valley. But it was only a moment before Loto and the
chemists came back. The drug-cylinders were gone! Tork had made away
with them all!
Nixon turned and ran for the pass. That damnable delay! He cursed
himself for having waited to try and get the drug! Tork by now might
already be too big to handle....
The broad valley beyond the pass lay shining in the moonlight. The
lines of trees and the little orange river were off to the left. For
a moment Nixon stood peering. Was Tork here? Evidently the Orites who
lived here had seen him. Their tiny cries sounded. Nixon could see
terrified groups of them running.
Then the figure of Tork suddenly rose up from a rock-cluster on the
other side of the little river. He had been crouching behind a line
of trees. Now with a cry of triumph he straightened, bounded over the
river. He was about Nixon's size. He shouted,
"Not a giant any more, are you? Well, this is the end of you, Earthman!"
Tork was holding a dripping chunk of rock which he had seized from the
river bank. He flung it, but Nixon ducked. The rock went thudding out
across the valley. Then as Nixon held his ground, crouching, Tork's
body struck him. The impact knocked Nixon backward, so that he fell
with Tork on top of him. It startled him; he had not realized that
Tork's body would be so solid, far heavier now than Nixon's.
Then they were rolling, locked together, jabbing, pummeling. In a rough
and tumble, Nixon had always been very handy. He was exceedingly agile,
and now the heavier Tork could not hold him. In a moment Nixon was up.
He found himself at the edge of the babbling little stream. He seized
a tree. It was thick, half as big as himself. Desperately he wrenched
it up. The knob of heavy roots made it like a maul, a bludgeon. Tork
was scrambling up. Nixon hit him with a swing of the tree root. He
staggered, went down, this time with Nixon on top of him.
[Illustration: _He wrenched up a tree and swung it._]
But now Nixon realized that Tork was a full head taller. As they
struggled, with Tork heaving up, trying to ward off Nixon's blows,
Nixon could feel his antagonist's body expanding. It was gruesome.
It shot a fear through Nixon. If he didn't kill Tork now in a moment
or two, he never would! And Tork knew it. He was fighting on the
defensive, just waiting until Nixon would be only a stripling in his
grip.
Then they were rolling again on the ground. They were close beside the
stream, with the brittle underbrush crackling under their plunging
bodies. Several times Nixon had gotten a grip on Tork's throat, but
always the strength of Tork's big hands had broken it. Now Nixon was
desperately trying to roll Tork into the water. Evidently the Orite
didn't realize it. He lunged, and as Nixon twisted and heaved, Tork
went backward with his head and shoulders splashing. The stream was a
foot or two deep here, babbling over stones. Tork's head went down; the
water splashed over his face. And then again Nixon gripped him by the
throat. In Nixon was the grim thought that this was the way one gripped
'gators under water. His hands pressed down; his body was sprawled,
braced and taut to hold the lunging Tork.
The orange water was lashed into turgid green foam. Tork was coughing,
choking. It was easier to hold his head down now. His hands tore at
Nixon's wrists but could not break the hold. Then Nixon could feel
the plucking hands and the lunges of Tork's huge body growing weaker.
Through an interval Nixon clung, and then he released his grip and
staggered panting to his feet. In the babbling stream the big body of
Tork lay motionless; a horrible, goggling, staring face blue with the
orange water lapping over it....
* * * * *
An Orana year went by, a succession of brief days and nights while
Nixon worked and planned to help the Orites build their little world
into something safer, more comfortable than it had been before. Frane
had died. The Orite doctors and surgeons could not save him. The
growth-drug was gone. Tork had hidden the tiny cylinders somewhere,
but they had never been found, and no more of the drug could be made.
Certainly not now; Frane and Tork were the only ones who knew the
full details of the process. Nixon felt that was just as well. A thing
diabolic. Like atomic fission, in evil hands it could wreck its world.
Now, with the year passed, it had been agreed that they were to take
the giant back to Earth. Loto and Nona set out with Nixon along with
a group of the Orite scientists and leaders and a few hundred of the
Gorts, most of whom had been on the trip before.
It was the same little spaceship. Now the giant need not lie bound,
he could crouch carefully on one elbow, or shift a little if he was
wary of his movements. The trip seemed far quicker than before, with
Loto and Nona to talk to and all his tiny friends here in the humming
interior around him. Then through the bow-port the mellow, crescent
Earth swung into view, a great cloud-mottled disc.
Then one Earth-night they were sliding down through the stratosphere,
skimming an ocean and over the land ... Florida. Nixon's heart pounded
as he gazed down at it. The Florida moon was brilliant in the sky as
the gleaming little cylinder slid silently into a patch of wire-grass
and rested on the ground. Only a marsh-hen was disturbed, rising with
its discordant cry and winging away.
The cylinder opened and Nixon rose up and out of it. The top closed
again, and from a lower tiny doorway of the glistening ten-foot shape,
a few of the little Orite figures came out, gazed upward. His friends.
"Goodbye, my giant," Nona called. They were all waving.
What was there to say?
"Goodbye," Nixon spoke softly. "I sure wish you well."
They turned, went back inside. The port closed. The sleek, tiny ship
slid upward and away into the moonlight. It was a shining little streak
for a moment; then a glistening dot, small as a firefly. Then it was
gone.
For a moment Nixon stood with a strange sense of loss upon him. But
here was Earth. Home. A light was burning in the cabin across the
sandspit. The bayou glistened in the moonlight.
Silently Nixon turned and walked up the oyster-shell beach toward his
home.