_The Girl an Inch Tall_
We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, between
Orleans and the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a moment showed dimly
white through the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higher
than Niagara. Further ahead, the lights of the little village of St.
Anne de Beaupré were visible with the gray-black, towering hills
behind them. Historic region! But Alan and I had no thoughts for it.
"Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne; we pass this
side of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a tower
siren."
I cut in the mufflers, and switched off our wing-lights. It was
illegal, but we were past all thought of that. We were both desperate;
the slow prudent process of acting within the law had nothing to do
with this affair. We both knew it.
Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzard
our muffled engine could not be heard.
Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"
We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead--wild mountainous country
stretching northward to the foot of Hudson Bay. The blizzard was
roaring out of the north and we were heading into it. I saw, on what
seemed a dome-like hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level,
a small cluster of lights which marked Polter's property.
"Fly over it once, George. Low--we can chance it. And find a place to
land outside the walls."
We presently had it under us. I held us at five hundred feet, and cut
our speed to the minimum of twenty miles an hour facing the gale,
though it was sixty or seventy when we turned. There were a score or
two of hooded ground lights. But there was little reflection aloft,
and in the murk of the snowfall I felt we would escape notice.
We crossed, turned and went back in an arc following Polter's outer
curved wall. We had a good view of it. A weird enough looking place,
here on its lonely hilltop. No wonder the wealthy "Frank Rascor" had
attained local prominence!
* * * * *
The whole property was irregularly circular, perhaps a mile in
diameter covering the almost flat dome of the hilltop. Around it,
completely enclosing it, Polter had built a stone and brick wall. A
miniature wall of China! We could see that it was fully thirty feet
high with what evidently were naked high-voltage wires protecting its
top. There were half a dozen little gates, securely barred, with
doubtless a guard at each of them.
Within the wall there were several buildings: a few small stone houses
suggesting workmen's dwellings; an oblong stone structure with smoke
funnels which seemed perhaps a smelter; a huge, dome-like spread of
translucent glass over what might have been the top of a mine-shaft.
It looked more like the dome of an observatory--an inverted bowl fully
a hundred feet wide and equally as high, set upon the ground. What did
it cover?
And, there was Polter's residence--a castle-like brick and stone
building with a central tower not unlike a miniature of the Chateau
Frontenac. We saw a stone corridor on the ground connecting the lower
floor of the castle with the dome, which lay about a hundred feet to
one side.
Could we chance landing inside the wall? There was a dark, level
expanse of snow where we could have done it, but our descending plane
would doubtless have been discovered. But the mile-wide inner area was
dark in many places. Spots of light were at the little wall-gates.
There was a glow all along the top of the wall. Lights were in
Polter's house; they slanted out in yellow shafts to the nearby white
ground. But for the rest, the whole place was dark, save a dim glow
from under the dome.
I shook my head at Alan's suggestion. "We couldn't land inside." We
had circled back and were a mile or so off toward the river. "You saw
guards down there. But that low stretch outside the gate on this
side--"
A plan was coming to me. Heaven knows it was desperate enough, but we
had no alternative. We would land and accost one of the gate guards.
Force our way in. Once inside the wall, on foot in the darkness of
this blizzard, we could hide; creep up to that dome. Beyond that my
imagination could not go.
* * * * *
We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of the gates. We
left the plane and plunged into the darkness. It was a steady upward
slope. A packed snowfield was under foot, firm enough to hold our
shoes, with a foot or so of loose soft snow on its top. The falling
flakes whirled around us. The darkness was solid, Our helmeted
leather-furred flying suits were soon shapeless with a gathering white
shroud. We carried our Essens in our gloved hands. The night was cold,
around zero I imagine, though with that biting wind it felt far
colder.
From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up.
"There it is, Alan. Easy now! Let me go first." The wind tore away my
words. We could see the narrow rectangle of bars at the gate, with a
glow of light behind them.
"Hide your gun, Alan." I gripped him. "Hear me?"
"Yes."
"Let me go first. I'll do the talking. When he opens the gate, let me
handle him. You--if there are two of them--you take the other."
We emerged from the darkness, into the glow of light by the gate. I
had the horrible feeling that a shot would greet us. A challenge came,
at first in French, then in English.
"Stop! What do you want?"
"To see Mr. Rascor."
We were up to the bars now, shapeless hooded bundles of snow and
frost. A man stood in the doorway of a lighted little cubby behind the
bars. A black muzzle in his hand was leveled at us.
"He sees no one. Who are you?"
Alan was pressing at me from behind. I shoved back, and took a step
forward. I touched the bars.
"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaper man from Montreal. I must see Mr.
Rascor."
"You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece is there--out
there to the left. Bare your face; he talks to no one without the face
image."
* * * * *
The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only this extended
hand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible.
I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't you open
the gate? It's cold out here. We have important business. We'll wait
with you."
Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby doorway was the
open darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from the
gate showed for a few feet.
I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in my
coat pocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the
guard was gone! Then I saw him crouching back of a metal shield. His
voice rang out.
"Stand!"
A light struck my face--a little beam from a television sender beside
me. It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely
time to make a move. I realized my image was now doubtless being
presented to Polter. He would recognize me!
I ducked my head, yelling: "Don't do that! You frighten me!"
It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I was aware of its
buzz.
From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leaped at me. It struck my hood.
There was a heavy, sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. I
felt my senses going. The cubby room was turning dark; was roaring.
I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the faint
hiss of his Essen. And his choked, horrified voice:
"George--come back! Run! Don't fall! Don't!"
I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, that
Alan's inert body was falling on top of me....
* * * * *
I recovered consciousness after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria
of wild, drugged dreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there were
dim muffled voices and the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was
lying on the ground, and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat
was off. Then I realized that I was bound and gagged.
I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with a
black gag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim open
space. Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome was
overhead. This was a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly
lighted. The figures of men were moving about, their great misshapen
shadows shifting with them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile of
golden rock--chunks of gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, and
larger, heaped loosely into a mound ten feet high.
Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feet
above the concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. It
cast a circular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a
foot or two above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with
its twenty-foot cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubes
were glowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A man
sat in a chair on the platform at the microscope's eyepiece.
I saw all this with a brief glance, then my attention went to a white
stone slab under the giant lense. It rested on the platform floor, a
two-foot-square surface of smooth white stone like marble. A little
roped railing a few inches high fenced it. And in its center lay a
fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut!
There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced. I
recognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gag
with futile, horrified effort. I could no more than writhe; and I
could not make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared
with horror.
The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope.
And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They were
nearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could see
them clearly. Bab's slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--pale
blue, now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallen
disheveled to her shoulders. I could not see her face. She did not cry
out. Polter was half dragging her as she resisted him; and then
abruptly she ceased struggling.
I heard his gutteral voice. "That iss better."
* * * * *
They mounted to the platform. It seemed to me that they must have been
far away; they were very small. Abnormally small. I blinked. Horror
surged over me. Their figures were dwindling as they stood there!
Polter was saying something to the man at the microscope. Other men
were nearby, watching. All normal, save Polter and Babs. A moment
passed. Polter was standing by the chair in which the man at the
microscope was sitting. And Polter's head barely reached its seat!
Babs was clinging to him, now. Another moment. They were both little
figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walking with swaying
steps toward the tiny railing of the white slab. The white reflection
from the slab plainly illumined then. Polter's arm was around Babs. I
had not realized how small they were until I saw Polter lift the rope
of the four-inch little fence, and he and Babs stooped and walked
under it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from them in the center of
the white surface. They walked unsteadily toward it. But soon they
were running.
My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something touch my
face! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No one had noticed my writhing
movements, and Alan was still in drugged unconsciousness. Something
tiny and light and soundless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! I
jerked my head aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, I
saw the tiny figure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warning
gesture to her lips--a human girl in a filmy flowing drapery. Long
pale golden tresses lay on her white shoulders; her face, small as my
little fingernail, colorful as a miniature painted upon ivory, was so
close to my eyes that I could see her expression--warning me not to
move.
There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she stood, but in a
moment she moved out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back of
my head. My ear was near the ground. A tiny warm hand touched my
ear-lobe; clung to it. A tiny voice sounded in my ear.
"Please do not move your head! You might kill me!"
There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny voice came
again.
"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"