Dr. Gryce was with us. Together we four men got the interior end of the
pole upon the table inside. A tremendous switch lever was there. But
the pole slipped, rolled down. I expected it to break at the doorway
point where it was so small outside, but it did not. The expanding
doorway had pushed us farther back. Another tree on the other side
fell. Above us the vehicle's tower loomed like a cathedral spire.
Tremendous now, the vehicle had grown until it was almost touching the
house. A fence had been trampled, had vanished beneath its giant bulk.
And the growth was increasingly rapid. If we could not check it . . .
If it got wholly beyond control--this monster, growing . . . forever
growing, to a size infinitely large--larger than our earth itself. . . .
I must have been standing stupidly confused. I heard Dr. Gryce
imploring, "Take hold of it, Frank! We must lift it. We must--our last
chance----"
But Brett pushed us away. "I'm going inside. I can move the switch--let
go of me, Father! That switch--it isn't too big yet--but it will be in
a minute. Let go of me!"
"No! No, Brett! The shock as you went in--you couldn't take it so
suddenly. It might hurt you--kill you. And the switch is too big for
your strength."
It was out of control--this monster, growing, inexorably growing--it
was pushing at the house--a great white giant pushing gently but with
an irresistible power at the little toy house beside it. I could see
the house shifting on its foundations; a corner of it tilted downward.
[Illustration: "The vehicle was out of control, pushing at the house
like a great white giant."]
"Brett! Father! Try it now. One last try." Martt and Frannie had the
pole again in position. With a last despairing effort we raised it;
slid it up over the giant table-edge; caught the wide flaring side of
the giant switch. Pushing--despairingly; five of us, pigmies struggling
there at that giant threshold. The switch moved. Our pole held its
place; the switch moved farther, clicked with a tremendous snap that
reverberated about us. The growth of the monster was checked. It stood
there serene, triumphant, with the little house, tilted, but still
standing bravely beside it.
White, shaken, we ceased our efforts. Frannie gasped, "We--we only
wanted to make it a normal size--so you could load it up with the
furniture and things. But it--it got away from us."
Dr. Gryce said, "It is a lesson--perhaps a lesson which we needed
forced upon us." He gestured to the great quiescent white building
which had spread itself over most of the devastated garden. "A lesson,"
he repeated. "We must guard this power carefully. In unskilled
or unscrupulous hands it is a power for evil almost unthinkable.
This monster here--if it had gotten beyond us--if we had lost its
control--this could destroy the Universe!"
_CHAPTER 3_