_The Escape_
To Babs and me the ride in the golden cage strapped to Polter's chest
as he made his escape outward into largeness was an experience awesome
and frightening almost beyond conception. We heard the alarm in the
palace on the island. Polter rushed to Dr. Kent's laboratory door,
looked in, and in a moment banged it shut. Babs and I saw very little.
We knew only that something horrible had happened; we could see only a
blur with formless things in the void beneath our bars; and there were
the choking fumes of chemicals surging at us.
Polter rushed through the castle corridor. We heard rumbling distant
shouts.
"The drug is loose! The drug is loose! Monsters! Death for everyone!"
The room swayed with horrible dizzying lurches as Polter ran. We clung
to the lattice bars, our legs and arms entwined. There were moments
when Polter leaped, or suddenly stooped, and our reeling senses all
but faded.
"Babs! Babs, darling, don't let go! Don't lose consciousness!"
If she should be limp, here in this lurching room, her body to be
flung back and forth across its confines--that would be death in a
moment. I feared I could not hold her. I managed to get an arm about
her waist.
"Babs!"
"I'm--all right, George. I can stand it. We're--he is enlarging."
"Yes."
I saw water far beneath us, lashed into a turmoil of foam with
Polter's wading steps. There was a brief swaying vista of a toy city;
starlight overhead; a lurching swaying miniature of landscape as
Polter ran for the towering cliffs. Then he climbed and scrambled into
the tunnel-mouth. Had he turned at that instant doubtless he would
have seen the rising distant figures of Glora, Alan and Dr. Kent. But
he did not see them, evidently. Nor did we.
Polter spoke only very occasionally to Babs. "Hold tightly!" It was a
rumbling voice from above us. He made no move to touch the cage,
except that a few times the great blur of his hand came up to adjust
its angle.
* * * * *
The lurching and jolting was less violent in the tunnel. Polter's
frenzy to escape was subsiding into calmness. He traversed the tunnel
with a methodical swinging stride. We were aware of him climbing over
the noisome litter of the dead giant's body which blocked the tunnel's
further end. We heard his astonished exclamations. But evidently he
did not suspect what had happened, thinking only that the stupid
messenger had miscalculated his growth and been crushed.
We emerged into a less dim area. Polter did not stop at the fallen
giant. Nothing mattered now to him, quite evidently, save his own
rapid exit with Babs from this atomic realm. His movements seemed
calm, yet hurried.
We realized now how different was an outward journey from the trip
coming in. This was all only an inch of golden quartz! The stages
upward were frequently only a matter of growth in size; the distances
in this vast desert realm of golden rock always were shrinking. Polter
many times stood almost motionless until the closing dwindling walls
made him scramble upward into the greater space above.
It may have been an hour, or less. Babs and I, from our smaller
viewpoint, with the landscape so frequently blurred by distance and
Polter's movements, seldom recognized where we were. But I realized
that going out was far easier in every way than coming in. Easier to
determine the route, since usually the diminishing caverns and gullies
made the upward step obvious.... We knew when Polter scrambled up the
incline ramp.
It seemed impossible for us to plan anything. Would Polter make the
entire trip without a stop? It seemed so. We had no drugs. Our cage
was barred beyond possibility of our getting out. But even if we had
had the drugs, or had our door been open, there was no escape. An
abyss of distance was always yawning beyond our lattice--the sheer
precipice of Polter's body from his chest to the ground.
"Babs, we must make him stop. If he sits down to rest, you might get
him to take you out. I must reach his drugs."
"Yes. I'll try it, George."
* * * * *
Polter was momentarily standing motionless as though gazing around
him, judging what to do next. His size seemed stationary. Beyond our
bars we could see the distant circular walls as though this were some
giant crater-pit in which Polter was standing. Then I thought I
recognized it--the round, nearly vertical pit into which Alan had
plunged his hand and arm. Above us then was a gully, blind at one end.
And above that, the outer surface, the summit of the fragment of
golden quartz.
"Babs! I know where we are! If he takes you out, keep his attention.
I'll try and get one of his black vials. Make him hold you near the
ground. If I see you there, in position where you can jump, I'll
startle him. Oh, Babs, dear, it's desperately dangerous but I can't
think of anything else. Jump! Get away from here. I'll keep his
attention on me. Then I'll join you if I can--with the drug."
Polter was moving. We had no time to say more.
"Yes! Yes, I'll try it, George." For just an instant she clung to me
with her soft arms about my neck. Our love was sweeping us in this
desperate moment, and it seemed that above us was a remote Earth world
holding the promise of all our dreams. Or were we star-crossed, doomed
like the realm of the atom? Was this swift embrace now marking the end
of everything for us?
Babs called, "Dr. Polter?"
We could feel his movements stopping.
"Yes? You are all right, Babs?"
She laughed--a ripple of silvery laughter--but there was tragic fear
in her eyes as she held her gaze on me. "Yes, Dr. Polter, but
breathless. Almost dead, but not quite. What happened? I want to come
out and talk to you."
"Not now, little bird."
"But I want to." To me it was a miracle that she could call so lightly
and hold that note of lugubrious laughter in her voice. "I am hungry.
Don't you think of that? And frightened. Take me out."
* * * * *
He was sitting down! "You remind me that I am tired, Babs. And hungry,
also. I haf a little food. You shall come out for just a short time."
"Thank you. Take me carefully."
Our tilted cage was near the ground as he seated himself. But still it
was too far for me to jump.
I murmured, "Babs--"
"Wait, George! I'll fix that. You hide! If he looks in he'll see you,
where you are now!"
I scrambled back to my hiding place. Polter's huge fingers were
fumbling at our bars. The little door sprang open.
"Come, Babs."
He held the cupped bowl of his palm to the doorway. "Come out."
"No!" she called. "It is too far down!"
"Come. That iss foolish."
"No! I'm afraid. Put the cage on the ground."
"Babs!" His finger and thumb came reaching in to seize her, but she
avoided them.
"Dr. Polter! Don't! You'll crush me!"
"Then come out on my hand."
He seemed annoyed. I had scrambled back to the doorway; I knew he
could not see me so long as the cage remained strapped to his shirt
front.
I whispered, "I can make it, Babs!"
Polter was apparently on one elbow, half turned on his side. From our
cage, the sloping gleaming white surface of his stiff glossy
shirt-bosom went down a steep incline. His belt was down there, and
the outward bulging curve of his lap--a spreading surface where I
could land like a scuttling insect, unobserved, if only Babs could
hold his attention.
I whispered vehemently. "Try it! Go out! Leave me! Keep talking to
him!"
She called instantly, "Very well, then. Bring your hand! Closer!
Carefully! It seems so high up here!"
* * * * *
She swung herself to his palm, and flung her arms about the great
pillar of his upcrooked finger. The bowl of his hand moved slowly
away. I heard her calling voice, and his overhead rumble.
I chanced it! I could not determine the exact position, or which way
he was looking.
Again I heard Bab's voice. "Careful, Dr. Polter. Don't let me fall!"
"Yes, little bird."
I let myself down from the tilted doorway, hung by my hands and
dropped. I struck the ramp-like yielding surface of his shirt-bosom. I
slid, tumbling, scrambling, and landed softly in the huge folds of his
trouser fabric. I was unhurt. The width of his belt, high as my body,
was near me. I shrank against it; I found I could cling to its upper
edge.
My hold came just in time. He shifted, and sat up. I was lifted with a
swoop of movement. When it steadied I saw above me the top of his
knee. His left leg was crooked, the foot drawn close to him. Babs was
perched up there on the knee summit. His right leg was outstretched. I
was at the right side of his belt. I could dart off along that curving
expanse of his leg and leap to the ground. If he would hold this
position! One of the pouches of his belt was near me. The vial in it
was black. The enlarging drug! I moved toward it.
But Babs was too high to jump from that summit of his crooked knee! I
think she saw me at his belt. I heard her voice.
"I cannot eat up here. It is too high. Oh, please be careful how you
move! I am so dizzy, so frightened! You move with such great jerks!"
He had what seemed a huge surface of bread and meat. He was breaking
off crumbs to put before her. I reached the pouch of his belt. The
vial was as long as my body. I tugged to try and lift it out.
* * * * *
All the giant contours of Polter's body shifted as he cautiously
moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between his
thumb and forefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stood
beside the bread and meat he had placed there.
And she had the courage to laugh! "Why this--this is an enormous
sandwich! You will have to break it."
He was leaning over her, half turned on his left side. The vial came
free. I shoved it; but I could not control its weight. I pushed
desperately. It slid over the round brink of his right hip, and fell
behind him. I heard the tinkling thud of it down on the rocks.
There was no alarm. I could not chance leaping from his hip. I
scurried along the convex top of his outstretched leg, and beyond his
knee I jumped.
I landed safely. I could see the black vial back across the broken
rock surface, with the bulge of Polter's hip above it. I ran back and
reached the vial; tugged at its huge stopper. The cork began to yield
under my panting, desperate efforts. In a moment I would have a pellet
of the enlarging drug; make away with it; startle Polter so that Babs
might dart off and escape.
The huge stopper of the vial was larger than my head. It came suddenly
out. I flung it away, plunged in my hand, and seized an enormous round
pellet.
Then abruptly the alarm came, and I had not caused it! Polter ripped
out a startled, rumbling curse and sat upright. Under the curve of his
leg, I saw that Babs had been momentarily neglected. She was running.
Across the boulder-strewn plain, two tiny men had appeared. Polter had
seen them.
They were the enlarging figures of Dr. Kent and Alan!