"Not far. I was so big, I jumped up just as these walls almost closed
upon me."
He and the girl were very much smaller than that now. They lay down,
feet first, at the top of the slide. For a moment he hesitated. How far
down would it be for them in this size? But every moment of hesitation
was making that worse!
"All right, Lea. Here we go."
Half sliding, half climbing, they started. The smooth, marble-like
slide had roughened. Little stones began sliding with them. "Easy!" he
gasped. "Don't go too fast!"
He clutched her; they slid together a dozen feet; wildly scrambled to
a stop. Then Lea lost her foothold. He gripped at her, and lost his
own. Then they were bumping, rolling with a clatter of loosened stones
coming after them. And then the terrified Carter was aware of a fall.
And a rock struck his head with a bursting roar of light as his senses
slid off into the soundlessness of oblivion....
* * * * *
He came to himself with the knowledge that Lea was holding him,
kneeling beside him in a luminous darkness. "Oh, you are all right
now?" she murmured anxiously.
"Yes. I guess so." Dizzily he sat up. "What happened?"
"We fell."
"You--it didn't hurt you?"
"No. I guess not much."
The action of the drug had worn off. As his head cleared he saw that
the rocks were motionless; the ground on which he sat at last was
steady. Around them now was a great void of luminous darkness with
an undulating landscape of naked rocks dimly visible. In a moment
it seemed to Carter that his eyes were becoming accustomed to the
darkness. He could see, far away in the distance where the ground rose
up seemingly to meet the sky.
"Shall we take another pellet now, Lea?" he suggested at last.
"All right," she agreed.
Again they took the drug; and gazed appraisingly about them as the
luminous, naked landscape crawled and shifted with its outward, upward
motion. Tremendous journey downward into smallness! Carter had had
no conception of the immense new distances which would open before
them as they dwindled. For another hour, then two hours--three hours
perhaps--they ran, and walked and climbed downward. Lea, with judgment,
perception and memory far greater than any Earth-girl could have, had
remarked well the main features of her upward climb, so that now she
could recognize them. But more often than not, the way was obvious--by
mathematical law, it was usually the first large aperture to open near
them. Soon Carter was nimbly alert to get into it before it was too
large, so that often a step or two downward, or a drop of six feet or
so, would represent a long and dangerous descent if they had waited
until they were smaller.
Again the drug wore off. "Shall we rest again?" he suggested.
She assented, and he made her lie with her head cushioned by his lap.
Around them the phosphorescent darkness showed distant wilds of barren
wastes. It was a ragged plateau here, with giant cliffs in the distance
that rose thousands of feet against the blurred purple sky. He and Lea
had jumped down from those cliffs only a little while ago--and it had
been a drop of only waist high.
Poor little Lea.... No wonder she had been terrified when she made
this weird journey alone! Was she asleep now? He sat gazing drowsily
down at her head on his lap; her delicate little profile, with eyes
closed, her pale-gold hair framing her face, never had seemed so
beautiful as now with the glowing phosphorescent of the rocks upon it.
The luminous light made her delicate skin take on an added opalescent
look. How beautiful she was! She would be radiant down there among
her own people. They would be very glad to see her. That young fellow
Artone--he no doubt would be especially glad to see her. She had said
that Artone was handsome and courageous. She was very fond of him, no
doubt....
Perhaps Carter himself had dozed a little, here with his back against a
rock. His fingers were entwined in a lock of Lea's pale-gold hair which
he had been caressing. And suddenly it seemed that he heard something
moving near them. It snapped him into startled alertness.
"Lea, wake up!" he whispered. He shook her a little. "Lea--"
"Oh--yes, George?"
"Quiet! Not so loud! I thought I heard something!"
He held her against him as she sat up-right. Staring over her shoulder,
he could see nothing but the tumbled spread of crags around them. Then
the sound came again--a scratching, scuttling tread as though something
gigantic were scampering on the rocks.
"George--" Lea faintly screamed. Her hand pressed her breast in
terror as she shrank back against him. From around a nearby boulder
a tremendous insect had come scuttling--a monstrous, reddish oblong
thing, with a pinched body twenty feet in length and crooked jointed
legs. With huge waving feelers, it stood for an instant motionless. Its
great compound eyes, like clusters of tiny lanterns, glared balefully.
And then without warning it came lunging at them!
* * * * *
Carter and the girl scrambled to their feet. The monstrous insect came
with scuttling, scratching tread. Its antennæ, waving from the top of
its ugly round head, furiously lashed. The mandibles of its great jaws
worked as though with anticipation of devouring these tiny victims.
"Lea--this way--jump--"
They scurried sidewise. It flashed to Carter that they must take the
drug--the enlarging drug--grow large to fight this horrible adversary.
But there was no time now to get out the vial. Frantically they darted
behind a little group of rocks. The huge red insect, like a charging
bull, went past them. Then, fifty feet away, it stopped; reared up on
its two hind legs as though puzzled. The luminous radiation from the
rocks showed it more plainly now--long bulging body with six crooked
legs; body pinched in the middle grotesquely like a spindly waist so
small that it seemed as though the twenty-foot body might break in half.
"It doesn't see us, George--"
"Quiet!"
They crouched among the rocks. There seemed no place else they could
hide. Could they out-distance the horrible thing in a straightaway
run? Carter did not think so; certainly he did not dare try it. He was
fumbling with the drug-vial now. And then the monstrous insect saw
them! It whirled; dropped to its six legs. The two great compound eyes
again were glaring; and now on the top of its flattened, smooth-shelled
head, near the sockets of the waving feelers, three other little eyes
were visible--gleaming spots of light.
"Here, Lea--take these pellets--quickly--"
The giant insect was coming forward again, more slowly this time as
though cautiously to stalk its tiny prey. Carter dropped two of the
pellets into the trembling girl's extended palm; and took two himself.
They were the violet ones--the diminishing drug. In the panic of the
moment he could not select the others. His head reeled as he took the
double dose, but he clung to Lea. In the swaying phantasmagoria of the
luminous scene, he was aware that the monstrous scuttling thing again
was charging head on. The rocks here were swaying, enlarging with a new
acceleration, the spaces between them rapidly opening up.
In those horrible seconds, there was nothing Carter could think of to
do but fling himself and the girl flat on the ground, squeezing into an
opening which a moment ago would have been too small for them. Vaguely
he was aware of the sound of the monster's claws as they scratched on
the rocks. It came with a rush. It was a monster thirty or forty feet
long in a moment. Carter had a dim vision of the broad under surface of
the tremendous body as it scrambled almost directly over him--scuttling
headlong over the clump of rocks among which its dwindling prey were
crouching.
"Now, Lea--up! Run!"
They staggered over the swaying, outward-crawling ground. In a moment
Carter turned to look back. Far behind them in the glowing darkness,
the insect again had reared up, vainly searching for them--a titan
thing now, its reddish body looming a hundred feet or more above the
ground. For a second or two it showed etched against the blur of sky,
its eyes glaring like distant lighthouse lamps. Then an expanding
cluster of nearby rocks intervened and they could no longer see it.
"We've got to be careful, Lea. Do things quickly or we'll get lost
in size." With the attacking monster gone, Carter's wits came back
to make him aware of a new danger. They had not intended to take
this double dose of the diminishing drug. Gripping the girl, Carter
stood unsteadily, peering around at the swaying scene. The apparent
enlarging of the landscape was greatly accelerated, so swift that it
was dizzying. But he could still recognize the main familiar features.
Here was the rift into which they had determined they must go....
* * * * *
The doubled drug, though accelerated in action, seemed to last no
longer than a smaller dose. But it was two hours or more of wild
scrambling. Then at last Carter was aware by the visible slowing of the
expanding scenes, that again it was wearing off.
"Well, thank God for that, Lea," he murmured. "Don't let's try anything
like that again."
They were resting, preparing to take more of the drug, when on the
bottom of Lea's ragged short shirt Carter saw a tiny ant crawling,
evidently disturbed by the movement. He stared; then he reached,
squashed it between thumb and forefinger.
"Just an ant," he said. "But those red ones can bite. You must have
gotten it on you in the garden when we left." A sudden thought made his
jaw drop. A red ant--an eighth of an inch long maybe--six legs--a body
pinched in the middle....
"Why, good Lord, Lea," he gasped. "There could have been more red ants
on us. One of them dropped off while we were getting small--then while
we slept it found us and attacked us! That was the monster that nearly
got us!"
Just an ant! What an amazing difference size could make!
Surely they still had much to learn about this weird traveling!
Carter could see that the cliffs here were honeycombed with
tunnel-passages and cave-mouths. After resting a while they took more
of the drug and went on.
They merely touched the pellet to the tongue. The dim landscape began
slowly opening; and at intervals they repeated the tiny doses of the
drug. They were walking forward, Lea eagerly leading now. To Carter
it seemed that they had mounted a hill, topped a rise--emerged at
last into the open. He stood amazed. The void of sky here suddenly
showed infinite distance--a gigantic black firmament. In a great dome,
myriads of stars were glittering--gems strewn upon the black velvet of
the heavens, with faint effulgent patches of remote nebulæ, star-dust
strewn across the sky!
"There--the sky of my world," Lea murmured. "We need more of the drug
now, George. Still, we are so very big--it would be dangerous to go
forward in a size like this."
They tasted the drug several times. Lea would not let him move more
than a few steps each time down the small declivity. Then they came to
where the ground now seemed fairly level. It slowly shifted and crawled
under their feet as they dwindled. And suddenly, as they walked slowly
forward, Carter was aware that the ground wasn't rocky under them now.
It was softer, with little scrunching ridges and lumps which he could
feel through the battered soles of his shoes.
"There is the lake," Lea said presently. Her hand flung out with a
gesture. He stared to one side with a new awe. Twenty or thirty feet
away he had noticed a little patch of yellow sheen on the ground. But
it was hundreds of feet away now--a pool of shimmering water with a
path of glowing starlight upon its rippled surface. Behind it there
seemed to be wooded hills ... tiny trees....
* * * * *
Quite suddenly--so suddenly indeed that the thing momentarily made
Carter's head reel--his viewpoint changed. As though his eyes were
thousands of feet in the air, he felt himself dizzily staring down
at a little town of streets and buildings that clustered along the
nearer lakeshore. He saw himself as he actually was, a monstrous Titan,
standing here with his head reared thousands of feet into the sky and
Lea's world shimmering peacefully in the starlight almost at his feet!
The ground under them was still expanding from the last small dose of
the drug. The shining lake and the little city were growing larger,
seeming to rise up; but they were also visually receding.
"We sure better start walking forward," Carter suggested. "It'll be an
awfully long walk if we don't make speed before we get much smaller."
She agreed, and they hastened their pace. The ground crunched audibly
now under their tread. Presently Carter could hear that it was a
very queer crunch--a swishing, crackling of tiny sounds. Puzzled,
he suddenly stopped and bent down. Under his feet a tiny forest was
spread--strange-shaped, gray-blue trees, none of them more than an inch
or two in height. Beneath his tread they were mangled--tiny furred
twigs mashed and strewn, and some of them thrust by his weight into the
soft ground.
Slowly the forest rose up, closed over their heads. Dark glades were
here now. The soft air was perfumed by the flowers. The phosphorescence
of the ground, more apparent in this arboreal dimness, streamed up to
meet the effulgence of starlight which filtered down from overhead.
It was a peaceful, glowing forest of strange twilight. And suddenly
Carter was aware of the stirring of bird-life in the trees; the sound
of insect life under foot. New realms of infinitesimal smallness!
"Taroh evidently hasn't started anything while you were gone," he said.
"Everything looks okay here. No need to worry over Taroh now, Lea. Not
with us here, with the drugs. Your world is in no danger now."
No danger? Within the city gates close ahead a sudden shrill cry
rose up and floated out over the glowing forest. A cry of startled
wonderment; of fear. Then others took it up--a chorus of terror within
the little city. Along the top of the city wall the figures of the
sentries, etched against the sky, were running.
"Why, what the devil--" Carter murmured.
Lea, in a panic, was gripping him. "Oh, George, look--off there by the
lake!"
Far off beyond the crescent tip of the starlit lake a giant figure
loomed! The starlight painted a huge man's head and shoulders--bullet
head of close-clipped hair.
"Taroh!" Lea gasped.
Monstrous enlarging giant! He stood for a moment, head and shoulders
above the forest trees, peering down at the lake and the little city.
And then he came striding forward!
* * * * *
"Lea, dear--" Carter was clutching her by the shoulders. "Lea, you run
on into the city. Find your father--you stay with him, Lea."
"Oh, George--what is it you do? The enlarging drug--"
Hastily he dumped the pellets into his palm. The white ones this time.
How many should he take? He swallowed two; replaced the others.
"George--" He felt her gripping him as his senses reeled.
"George--" She gasped it in terror as she saw him towering beside her.
"It's all right--I'll take care of Taroh. Run, Lea! Run--"
Her little face was down at his waist. For a second she stared up;
terrified--and wistful.
"You will--come back, George?"
"Yes. I'll come back--" He gave her a gentle shove; he stood staring as
he saw her dwindling figure dart between the dwindling trees. Then he
turned and ran back. Soon he was threading the narrowing spaces between
the trees which were hardly as high as his head....
Where was Taroh now? In the swooping, shrinking scene, for a minute or
two Carter had wildly run away from the city. He was stooping now,
trying to keep below the dwindling tree-tops. Momentarily he did not
see his adversary. But off in the distance there was the crackling of
breaking twigs. It sounded like brush-fire. Abruptly it occurred to
Carter that he did not dare delay any longer. Taroh, gigantic, in a
moment might be demolishing the city. He stopped his advance; waited
a moment and stood erect. The trees were well below his knees now. A
hundred feet or so away was a patch of shimmering water like a great
pool. He could see the spread of little city beside it, the tallest of
its buildings not so high as his waist.
Off to the left was Taroh. Carter's heart leaped with triumph. Taroh
seemed now not much more than a head taller than himself--massive
chest and shoulders garbed in a leather garment, with knee breeches of
leather beneath. A stalwart, heavy-set fellow. To Carter's viewpoint he
was some seven feet tall. But he seemed shrinking a trifle. Carter was
overtaking him in size!
Taroh saw him now! The starlight showed a look of amazement that for a
second spread on his evil, heavy-featured face. Then he whirled from
the edge of the pool; and as Carter darted backward to lure him away
from the city, like a bull Taroh came charging, lunging, crashing
through the tiny trees. He was far enough from the city now--Carter
gauged it, and then suddenly turned, faced his adversary and then
leaped for him.
The impact of their bodies knocked Carter backward. He fell, with
his huge antagonist on top of him. It was the weight of a powerful,
thick-set three-hundred-pound man nearly a foot taller than himself. He
felt big arms around him; saw Taroh's face, contorted with rage. Locked
together, they rolled, mangling the tiny forest. Then, despite Carter's
agility, he felt himself pinned, with his adversary sprawled on top
of him. A slowly shrinking adversary? To the panting, lunging, wildly
twisting Carter it seemed so. But it was a negligible shrinkage now.
He felt Taroh's powerful hands at his throat. Over him the bullet head
was etched against the starlit sky. Then the evil face pressed down,
leering, triumphant, with muttering floating words, and hot panting
breath.
Carter's senses were whirling. The strangling fingers at his throat had
shut off his breathing. His head began to roar. Wildly he fought to
get loose, but could not.... The end for George Carter ... Lea--poor
little Lea--this would be the end for her and her people also ... all
doomed....
* * * * *
In those terrifying, strangling seconds, dimly Carter was aware of
the shrinking ground pulling in under his threshing body. The crushed
forest was like thick mangled fern-clumps. Was this water here? One
of his flailing arms went down into a little puddle beside him. His
hand struck a rock in the water. Instinctively, with fading senses,
he gripped it; heaved it up, dripping; tried to crash it on Taroh's
head, which was close above him. He heard his adversary grunt. It
was a glancing blow; but Carter was aware of the strangling fingers
momentarily loosening at his throat. He gulped in the blessed air; and
with clearing head, despairingly he lunged, broke loose and heaved
Taroh off.
Abruptly the crouching Taroh's hand went to his mouth. He was taking
more of the enlarging drug! Carter tried to do the same. But he had no
time; with a roar, again his adversary sprang at him. They clinched;
staggered, but both kept on their feet. And within Carter's arms now
he could feel the bulk of Taroh expanding! A rapid expansion. Soon he
would be ten feet tall.... You couldn't win a rough and tumble like
this against a giant ten feet tall.... Was this a rocky wall here
beside them?... It seemed that Carter dimly could see looming rocks.
Despairingly he was trying to break loose from Taroh, get away long
enough to take more of the drug. But his triumphant antagonist was
holding him as they staggered on their feet. Taroh was content to
clinch. His massive body was horribly huge now--so huge that Carter's
face was pressed against the chest of the leather jerkin.
It was now or never. Despairingly Carter knew it. In another minute he
would be a puny child in the grip of this monstrous growing giant. He
could see now that there was a towering rock wall here beside them.
Carter's failing hand struck it. Would some of the rocks be loose?
The dwindling wall pressed forward against him like a thing alive. His
despairing fingers roved it. A loose chunk of rock--he found one. It
was too large to grip. Then, in a moment, it had shrunk so that his
fingers encircled one of its jagged ends. Desperately he tugged; tore
it loose. It was a chunk of metallic rock as big as his head. With all
the power he could muster, he crashed it sidewise against Taroh's huge
temple. It was a direct blow, this time. Carter seemed to hear the
gruesome cracking skull. He felt the huge arms around him loosen, drop
away. For a second Taroh seemed to stand balanced, with buckling knees.
A dead man on his feet. Then he fell, lay sprawled on his back with the
inch-high forest trees crushed beneath him.
And one of his outstretched dead arms struck across a rill of
shimmering water--a river that backed up against the Titan arm, then
turned aside and went roaring off through the mangled forest!...
* * * * *
At the city gates the running Lea had paused. She could hear that the
city was in a wild turmoil of terror; shouting, running guards; people
awakening in the middle of the time of sleep; appearing in windows or
on rooftops; shouting at each other, or running out into the streets,
gathering in milling, terrified groups. All staring at the monstrous
fighting giants that loomed above the distant forest trees beyond the
end of the lake.
And at the city gate, unnoticed by the gathering crowd, little Lea
stood alone, gazing. Only she of everyone, knew the meaning of that
weird combat. Which of the distant struggling giants was George? At
first she could not tell. And then she saw him....
Combat of Titans. Waist high above the forest trees and steadily
looming higher, they stood swaying out there by the end of the lake.
Then presently they fell, with a cataclysmic distant roar as they
crashed down. She saw a huge arm go down into the lake. George's arm!
Her heart seemed stuck in her throat as breathlessly she stared.
Was George winning? His hand, with a dripping boulder as big as her
father's castle perhaps, came heaving from the lake. The distant
dripping water was a monstrous opalescent cascade in the starlight.
Then a great wave from it came surging down the lake. It beat with
a roar against the city embankment; some of it rolled up into the
streets, so that the terrified people there rushed screamingly back.
The giant figures were on their feet again. She could not see them
clearly. They were so far away now--just blurred monstrous shapes
looming into the sky. Fighting men, each of them bigger than all the
city of Helos. Then presently they were fading shadows, big as all the
sky, blurring with it. The roaring sound of them was only a monstrous
fading whisper. And then they were gone.
Was the battle over? Who had won?... To each of us, himself is the
center of the Universe.... The white-faced, trembling little Lea stood
at the city gate staring at the empty luminous distance. And because
she was a woman, she wanted George to have won--for herself, as well as
for the fate of her people....
* * * * *
In the lamplit Carter living room, George sat with his father and
Alice. He was in his bathing suit; ragged, dirty and blood-smeared. He
had told them now of his weird experience; how he had killed Taroh;
and then, still getting large, had come on and emerged again into his
normal Earth-world....
"You've still got some of the drugs?" Professor Carter said finally.
"Good Lord, George--a trip like that, you could have been killed a
hundred times. You accomplished your purpose--I'm glad of that. Taroh
is dead. No use trying to connect that world with this one any further.
It's against nature. And those drugs--the most diabolic things that
exist in the world today. I'll demonstrate them to our scientists--then
we'll have them destroyed."
Did the blind little Alice perhaps feel differently? Her sensitive
fingers caressed the stubble of beard on George's blood-smeared face.
"In the morning you'll tell me all about Lea?" she murmured. "I--I
really loved her, George."
"Yes--yes, of course I will," he agreed. He avoided his father's demand
for the drugs. "In the morning, Dad," he said. "Don't worry--I'll be
careful of them. You and Alice better get to bed now. For me, I want a
bath and shave. And a lot of sleep. I'm about all in."
He kissed his father affectionately. His caress as he embraced his
blind little sister lingered for just a moment.
"Good night, Alice dear."
"Good night, George."
There was no one to see young George Carter as, later that night, he
furtively tiptoed downstairs. Quietly he left the house, went down to
the little rock garden where the moonlight gleamed on the old sundial
and its metal pointer. And he did not come back....
That was more than a year ago. They found his scrawled little note:
"Don't worry over me--I'll return shortly."
But so far, he has not. The sundial is in the Carter living room
now; the room is closed off and never used. If you go to the small
New England village, perhaps Professor Carter would let you see the
sundial. A microscope has been erected over it. A light always shines
on the old metal pointer.
Professor Carter is somewhat a grouchy, dogmatic old fellow. You might
not like him. But despite that, there is never a day passes that for
hours he does not sit at the microscope, peering downward so futilely
little of the way, straining his eyes, hoping and praying that his son
will return.
And often, too, the blind little Alice sits there, listening, waiting
for the tiny voice which will tell her that her brother has emerged.
She is sure he will come; it would not be like him to go and never
return at all. She wishes, too, that he would bring Lea back with
him....
If you should go to see the Carters, go at night. Gaze up at the
immensity of the distant stars, the faintest nebulæ over the house.
They are thousands, millions, trillions of light-years away--distances
beyond conception of the human mind. Then go in and stand by the
sundial in the Carters' little living room. You'll see, quite plainly,
the tiny abrasion on the narrow top edge of the triangular sundial
pointer. Lea's world, infinitely distant, beyond the reach of any
microscope, is there--her world with its own remote heavens, and its
own myriad tiny atoms--and each of them holding still other infinitudes
of smallness.