_The Combat of Size_
The astounded Polter was taken wholly by surprise. He could have had
no idea that anyone was following him. He thought he was alone with
the tiny Babs in this rock-strewn metal desert. What he saw as he
scrambled to his feet were four insect-size humans, two of them at a
distance, and two within reach of him, and all of them scampering in
different directions. The ground was littered with crags and boulders;
was ridged and pitted, pock-marked, with tiny crater-holes and caves.
The four scuttling figures almost instantly had disappeared from his
sight.
I did not see where Babs went. I turned from the black vial of
Polter's enlarging drug, and with the huge pellet under my arm I ran
leaping over the rough ground and flung myself into a gully. I lay
prone, flattened against a rock. In the murky distance of a pseudo-sky
overhead, the monstrous head and shoulders of Polter were visible. I
could see down to just below his waist. The empty cage with its door
flapping open hung against his shirt-front. He had stooped to try and
recover Babs. And instinctively his hands went to his belt to seize
his enlarging drug.
They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent vial of the
diminishing element. But his black vial was gone. His frown spread
into fear as he searched for it in the other compartments of his belt.
I had thought that he had more than one black vial, but now it seemed
not. His huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He flung a wild
glance around him.
Through the open end of my gully I saw in the distance, miles away,
the enlarging figure of Alan rising up. Then it ducked back of a
distant rocky peak. Polter undoubtedly saw it. He was fumbling with
his opalescent vial, and with confused panic upon him he made the
mistake of taking the diminishing drug. And instantly seemed to regret
it. His curse rumbled above me. His glance went down to the rocks at
his feet, and there he saw lying his black vial with its stopper out.
His body already was beginning to dwindle. He stooped, seized the
vial, and took the enlarging drug. The shock of it made him stagger;
momentarily he disappeared from my line of vision but I could hear his
panting breath and the unsteady pound of his footsteps.
* * * * *
I still held that huge round ball of the drug. I seized a loose stone
and frantically knocked off a chunk--heaven knows how much, I do not.
I shoved it into my mouth, chewed and hastily swallowed it. And with
the lurching, swaying, shrinking gully closing in upon me, I ran to
get out of its distant open end.
I was heading toward where Alan and his father were lurking. I came
from the gully into the open, just as the walls closed behind me. The
whole scene was a dizzying blurred sway of contracting movement. I saw
that I was in a circular valley now some five miles in diameter, with
its jagged enclosing walls rising sheerly perpendicular out of sight
in the haze overhead.
Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so away. His back
at that instant was turned to me. He was now no more than three or
four times my own height. He scrambled against the valley cliff-wall
as though trying to find a foothold to climb up it. He went a little
way, but fell back.
Near me, Alan and old Dr. Kent suddenly appeared. I was larger. They
flung themselves at my knees. Alan gasped:
"You, George! You got Babs?"
"Yes--Babs is around somewhere! Stay down here! Don't lose her in
size! Stay small! Search and--"
"But George--"
"I'll tackle Polter. I've taken--God, I don't know how much I've taken
of the drug!"
They were shrinking down by my boot-tops. Alan shouted suddenly,
"There's Babs! Thank God, there's Babs!"
She was too small; I could not see her, nor even hear her, though she
must have been calling to them. Alan again screamed up at me with his
little voice:
"She's here, George! You--go on and get Polter! I can't overtake you
you--haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice was fading away. "Go
on and get him, George! This time--get him--"
* * * * *
I swung with a staggering step around to face the open valley. It was
shrunken now to barely half a mile of width. Its smooth walls rose
some two or three thousand feet to an upper circular horizon with
murky distance overhead. Polter stood across from me. He had tried to
climb out but could not. He saw me and came lurching. We were a
quarter of a mile from each other. I ran forward through a shifting
scene of shrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting ground.
Quarter of a mile? It seemed hardly more than a score of running
strides before Polter loomed close ahead of me. He was still nearly
twice my size. I stooped, seized a loose boulder, and flung it. I
missed his face, but, as his hand went up carrying a bared
knife-blade, by fortunate chance the stone struck his wrist. The knife
dropped to the rocks. He stooped to recover it, but I was upon him. As
I felt his huge arms go around me, half lifting me, my foot struck the
knife. But in an instant it was swept down into smallness beneath us
as we expanded above it.
Both of us were unarmed in this combat of size. I was a half-grown
youth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard his panting words,
grimly triumphant:
"This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many many years!
The hunchback--takes his revenge--now--"
He lifted me. His great arms were horribly powerful, but I could feel
them dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just a few moments--if I could
last a few moments!... My feet were off the ground, my chest close
pressed against the little golden cage between us. He had a hand
shoving back my head; his fingers sought my throat. I wound my legs
around him, and then he tried to throw me down and fall upon me. But
we had twisted and my back was to the cliff. The rocks were shoving at
us, insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polter
staggered with me. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off my
breath. My senses whirled. His grim sardonic face over me was blurred
to my sight. I tore futilely at my throat to break his choking grip.
All the world was a roaring chaos to my fading senses. Then in the
blur I saw horror sweep his expression. His fingers involuntarily
loosened. I got a breath of blessed air, gasping, and my sight
cleared.
Walls were closing around us! We were in a pit barely ten feet wide,
with the top a few feet above Polter's head. The nearer wall shoved us
again. Our bodies almost filled the shrinking pit! Polter lurched and
cast me off. I half fell, striking my shoulder against the opposite
wall, and I saw Polter leap at the dwindling brink and scramble out.
I was nearly wedged. As I rose, the top of the pit only reached my
waist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground, and was on hands and
knees. Instead of standing up, he lurched at me; tried to shove me
back. But I was out. I clutched at him. We were almost of a size now.
We rolled on the ground, locked together; rolled to the brink of the
pit and over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed beneath
our threshing bodies!
* * * * *
At the side of the circular valley Alan and Dr. Kent crouched with the
smaller figure of Babs between them. They saw Polter and me as two
swaying gigantic forms locked in a death struggle, towering against
the sky. Tremendous expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; saw
the great hunched Polter bend me backward, choking me.
Our bodies lurched. Our huge legs with a single step brought us to the
center of the valley. It was a shrinking valley to Alan, Babs and Dr.
Kent, for they too, were enlarging. But the fighting giant figures
were growing faster. In only a moment their shoulders were up there in
the sky, pressing against the narrowing cliff-walls.
Alan gasped. "But George will be crushed! Look at him!"
Horror swept them as they crouched watching. The enormous pillars of
Polter's legs towered straight up from near at hand. Alan was aware of
himself screaming:
"George--out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"
As though his microscopic voice could reach me--my head hundred of
feet above him. But he screamed it again. This was all in a few
horrible moments, though it seemed to the three watchers an eternity.
Alan was helpless to aid me; they had taken all of the enlarging drug
they had.
Then they saw Polter cast me off. I lurched and struck, with my
shoulders wedged against the cliff directly over where they crouched.
The overhead sky was darkened as Polter scrambled upward.
Alan was still screaming futilely, "George--up! Get out!"
Babs huddled with white, horrified face, staring. Then I went out
after Polter. My disappearing legs were great dark blurs in the sky.
Alan saw the valley now contracted to a thousand feet of width, with
its cliffs equally as high. Then everything was smaller.... The sky
overhead went dark again; from cliff to cliff a segment of our rolling
bodies momentarily spanned the opening.
* * * * *
And presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to a pit. He
stood up. "Hurry! Now we can get out after them. Up there!"
The opening above was empty. Polter and I were fighting some distance
away....
Dr. Kent was soon large enough to scramble out of the pit. Alan handed
the little Babs up to him and followed. Alan saw that they were now in
a long gully, blind at one end with a five hundred-foot perpendicular
cliff. Against the wall, the titanic form of Polter stood at bay. And
I was fronting him. The summit of the cliff was lower than our waists.
Triumph swept Alan; he saw that I was the larger! As Polter bored into
me my backward step crossed the full width of the gully. Alan shouted:
"Down! Babs--Father!"
They had barely time to flatten themselves in a narrow crevice between
upstanding rocks before my foot crashed down. For an instant the sole
of my boot formed a flat black ceiling as it trod and spanned the
rocks. Then it lifted; was gone with a blurred swoop. They saw the
white blur of my hand come down and snatch a tremendous boulder,
raising it with a great sweep of movement into the sky. They saw me
crash it against Polter; but it only struck his shoulder. He roared
with anger. The whole sky was roaring and rumbling with our shouts and
our panting breathing, and the ground was clattering, pounding with
our giant tread. Huge loose boulders were tumbled in an avalanche
everywhere.
Again it seemed to Alan that our lurching, heedlessly surging bodies
must be crushed within these contracting walls. Only our locked,
intertwined legs were visible; our bodies were lost in the sky. Then
it seemed to Alan that I had heaved Polter upward. And followed him.
We disappeared. There was a distant overhead rumble, and the murky
sky, with vague patches of far-distant illumination in it, became
empty of movement....
The walls presently were again closing upon Alan and his companions.
They ran out of the open end of the shrinking little gully and came to
a new upward vista....
* * * * *
I found myself a full head and shoulders taller than Polter. And he
was tiring, panting heavily. His face was cut and bleeding from the
blows of my fists. The rock I heaved struck his shoulder. He roared,
head down, and bored into me. He was heavier than I. His weight flung
me back. My foot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I did
not know that Babs, Alan and their father were huddled under those
stones!
My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee caught me in
the stomach, all but knocking the breath from me. He was desperate,
oblivious to the closing walls. And as he flung his arms with a grip
about my neck, hanging, trying to bear me down, I saw in his blazing
dark eyes what seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with a
sudden frenzied madness he realized that he was beaten. And tried to
pull us to the ground and let the walls crush us.
I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us forward. I broke
his hold. His body was jammed back against a lowering wall. Its top
seemed almost at our knees. I shoved frantically. He fell backward and
I jumped after him.
We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, crawling into
itself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead; there seemed a
distant circular horizon of emptiness around us.
Polter was lying in a heap. But it was trickery, for as I incautiously
bent over him his hand crashed a rock against my head. I reeled, with
all the world turning black, but did not fall. There was a horrible
instant when my senses were going, but I fought to hold them. Blood
from a wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I was
staggering. Then I realized I was grimly tossing my head, shaking the
blood away; and little by little my sight came back.
Polter was on his feet, rushing me. His fist came with an upward swing
at my chin, but I ducked my head aside at the last moment.
And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisaged how
gigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with miles
of distance and a shadowy, dimly radiant abyss beyond its circular
horizon. And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A titan, looming here
in the sky!...
* * * * *
My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swing
went wild, though I leaped backward from it. He staggered, and his
arms dropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watching
him while I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instants when
an expression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knocked
him out.
It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, overtaxed from
this strain; and I think there at the last, he realized it. The blood
drained suddenly from his face and lips, leaving them livid. I saw
fear, then a wild horror in his eyes. He stood swaying. Then his knees
gave way and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where I
stood gazing at him--fell forward on his face, his titanic length
spread all across the top of this rocky landscape!
For a moment I did not move. My head was reeling, my ears roaring.
Blood streamed into my eyes. I wiped it away with a torn sleeve and
stood panting, gazing at the glowing distance around me.
I was a titan, standing there. The body of Polter was shrinking at my
feet. The circular abyss of emptiness came nearer as this rocky
eminence contracted.
Suddenly my attention went to the sky overhead. Vague distant lights
were there. Then a broad flat blur seemed spread over me. Light
everywhere was growing. Beyond the nearby brink of the abyss was a
white reflected radiance from beneath. Abruptly I realized there was a
level, flat white plain running far off there in the distance.
Overhead a radiance contracted into a spot of light. A shape in the
sky moved! I heard a far-away rumble--a human voice!
The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the length of my
forearm I stood, a titan.
And then, with a shock of realization, I saw how tiny I was! This was
the broken top of that fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut!
I was standing there, under the lens of the giant microscope in
Polter's dome-room laboratory, with half a dozen astounded Quebec
police officials peering down at me!