Martt said, "I would have thrown off the Time-switch and rushed out at
once. But Brett wanted to talk about it."
Brett smiled. "It was difficult for us to remember that no haste was
needed. No haste--until we took the girl's Time-rate. And then we
would need all haste possible. We discussed what we were to do. We had
weapons--the electronic flash, for instance, with which we could have
struck down that giant as with a lightning bolt. But could we? I was
not sure--not absolutely sure--that the weapon would be operative. Or
that, perchance, this giant would not by some strange means be proof
against it. A man sixty feet tall is no mean adversary. Suppose he held
the girl before him? Would I dare attack?"
"I suggested," Martt put in, "that we take the normal Time-rate of the
girl, and be in hiding until the giant's size had dwindled to hers. The
dwarfs were growing. But there would only be three of them, against two
of us--and so far as we had seen, they were not armed."
Brett went on: "That didn't seem a good plan. The giant's size was, we
had calculated, rapidly dwindling. Within five minutes he would be the
girl's size. But suppose, instead of standing there during those five
minutes he picked up the girl--made off with her? It was too dangerous.
"At last we decided to make the vehicle, and thus ourselves, somewhat
larger. At the risk seriously of frightening the girl, we decided to
take a stature larger than the giant. Thus, since he was not armed, we
would have little difficulty keeping the girl from harm.
"The forest glade within which our vehicle was hovering was ample for
the growth. We adjusted the mechanisms; and in a few moments of growth
we had reached the determined point. We shut off the switches; the
vehicle fell its few inches to the ground. . . .
"The scene clarified. We were in a somber forest of dull,
orange-colored vegetation. Above us was a deep purple sky, with a few
drifting clouds, and stars gleaming up there in the darkness. They were
the stars of that last universe we had passed; unnatural of aspect, for
they seemed unduly close and unduly small.
"It was not day--nor yet was it night. A queerly shimmering twilight;
shadowless, for the light seemed inherent to everything.
"We were aware of all this in an instant, but we did not stop to regard
it, for Time now was passing. The girl and her assailants were now,
we knew, in full motion. With the flash cylinders in hand we stepped
hastily from the vehicle doorway.
"The forest trees were saplings no higher than ourselves. We plunged
through them, came to the other glade. The girl was sitting up with
hands pressed to her breast in terror--a tiny figure of a girl not as
long as my hand. The dwarfs were so small I did not see them at first;
they were standing beside her--an inch perhaps in height. The giant,
with what drug acting upon him we could only guess, had dwindled until
he was only about half our own present height. He had dropped his
tree-bludgeon, which now was too large for him, and was stooping down
to seize the girl. His leer, with the reality of motion upon it, was
horrible.
"Momentarily we had stopped at the edge of the glade. The figures
there were aware of us. The girl screamed--a little voice, shrill with
terror, an agony of sudden fear--at her assailants, and doubtless most
of all at ourselves. The giant--I can no longer call him that, since
we saw him as no more than three feet tall--at our appearance he
straightened. Stared at us. Surprize, then fear swept his ugly hairy
face. He shouted something to his tiny companions.
[Illustration: "The girl screamed--a little voice, shrill with terror,
an agony of sudden fear."]
"Martt's hand went up; he fired his cylinder. But he was confused--and
the nearness of the girl to his mark made him aim high. The bolt
missed; lodged harmlessly in a tree with a ripping of its bark. I
rushed forward to seize our adversary, but he eluded me, leaped over
the girl. I was afraid of trampling her--I stepped backward--clutched
Martt, fearful of what he might do.
"It had all happened in a moment. The dwarfs had vanished; but the
other man--he was now no higher than my knees--was standing by a tree
behind the girl. He shouted again; and now the terror had left his
face and he was grinning, I saw his hand go swiftly to his mouth. Had
he taken more of his strange drug? Had he warned his two companions to
do the same? I think so, for before my eyes he was swiftly diminishing
in size. I knelt carefully beside the girl. Her figure--smaller than
my foot and near it--was huddled into a little ball, her head against
her upraised knees. She may have fainted; I did not heed her, save to
be careful my movements did not strike her. With arm stretched over
her I reached for the man. But he hopped away and eluded me. Still
grinning. As small now as my little finger he stood half hiding behind
a grass-blade. On hands and knees I pursued him. But like an insect, he
was too quick for me. Smaller always until I was probing the grass with
my fingers to find him--saw him momentarily like an ant in size as he
leaped into a tangle of tiny grass-blades and was gone.
"I had forgotten my weapon. Illogically I had had no desire to kill
that tiny figure--only to catch it. But Martt had had no such feelings.
He was stamping around the glade--trying to stamp upon the other
figures--and mumbling angrily to himself. I called to ask if he had
caught them. He didn't know. He had seen them momentarily--seen them
raise their hands to their mouths. But they had dwindled so fast, they
were lost in a moment.
"The girl was unconscious, lying there in a huddled little heap. Gently
I raised her, held her in the palm of my hand. She was white as a
little waxen figure--white and beautiful; and so small I scarce dared
to touch her with my huge rough fingers.
"Martt brought water from the lake. I rested my hand on the ground,
with her still lying in it. And then presently she opened her eyes."
Brett paused, and as he gazed at each of us in turn I thought I had
never seen his face so earnest. And there was upon it, too, a look
almost of exaltation--a look which transfigured it. He added gently:
"You three--my father, my sister, my friend, I have no need to hide
from you my emotions. I think then--incongruously perhaps, for that
little figure of girlhood lying there so soft and warm in the palm of
my hand--I think then my love for her was born."
Hide his emotions! He could not had he wished. This love in his
heart was written plain on his face, to soften it, to uplift it to
something--or so it seemed to me--something just a little more than
human. A touch, perchance, of divinity. And I think now that love does
that--if only for some fleeting moment--to each one of us.
He went on very softly: "She opened her eyes. I was afraid she would
be frightened. I tried to look very gentle, compassionate. I held
my hand very still. I think that for an instant Martt and I stopped
breathing. . . She opened her eyes--met mine. I saw in hers a flash
of terror. But something, strangely, must have conquered it--against
all reason as she stared at me. Stared while the terror faded, and her
little lips parted and smiled a welcome and a thanks. . ."
_CHAPTER 9_
"DWINDLING GIANTS FROM LARGENESS UNFATHOMABLE"
There was not one of us who would have interrupted Brett when he paused
to light an arrant-cylinder and to choose what next he would tell us.
He was speaking softly, reminiscently, and with a curious gentleness.
"I carried her to the vehicle, showed it to her. Obviously she could
understand nothing of my words; but she was very quick to read my
gestures; smiling readily now, with her fear quite gone. And sitting
up in the palm of my hand, with her arm flung about my thumb to steady
her, she bade me raise her to my ear. Her words--the softest, the
tiniest of human voices--what she said was wholly unintelligible, save
that I understood her name was Leela.
"She stood beside a tree at a distance while we re-entered the vehicle
and brought it down to a size normal to her; and came out of it to
confront her."
Martt burst out: "I tell you that was when I realized how beautiful she
is. Say, you never saw a girl like her--you can't describe it----"
"I'm not trying," said Brett with his gentle smile. "She met us--there
by the vehicle--to us then, Frannie, she was about your size--perhaps
a little smaller. She took our hands, laid them against her forehead
as though with a gesture of welcome. And led us presently to her
home--the house near by. Her father (her mother is dead) her father is
a musician. Noted--very high of rank and standing among his people. A
kindly old man, with gray and black hair worn long to the base of his
neck. We--Martt and I--didn't let ours grow, though as you see we took
their mode of dress."
"How long were you there?" I asked.
"We slept perhaps three hundred times," he answered. "There are no
days and nights--always that same half-luminous twilight. No change
of seasons--or very little. It is nature in her softest mood. Nothing
to struggle against--life made easy. Too easy. . . It was not we who
learned Leela's language, but she, like an unnatural precocious child,
who learned ours. . . We created a commotion among the people; the
ruler sent for us. . . Oh, I have so much I'd like to tell you. But
Martt can tell it--after----"
He checked himself suddenly. His words, some vague hint of what he
almost had added, sent an ominous chill to my heart; and I saw, too,
that Dr. Gryce had felt it, for a cloud came to his face and in his
eyes I saw fear lurking.
But Brett went on at once: "I'd like to tell you of these people. A
race at peace with nature and themselves. The struggle for existence
all in the past. Decadence. The down-hill grade. Only by struggle can
Man progress, Father. This race, with the peak of its civilization
thousands of generations in its Past, gently resting, with the
inevitable decadence drawing it inexorably back to the barbarism
from whence it sprung. I'd like to tell you of their customs, their
government--their mode of life. . . Some other time--or Martt will
tell you. . . It was all so beautiful--so romantic. . . Music--their
strange, beautiful arts--Music as Leela's father gave it--Art to take
the place of Science and Industry. . . You ask Martt to tell you about
the dancing--the pageants, if you want to call them that, to which we
went so many times with Leela. . . But just now I'm tired--I think I've
talked too much--and I'm worried--and it seems to press me, against
all the logic of our Science, that I have no time to spend, telling all
this to you. . ."
Brett, indeed, seemed suddenly tired, or perhaps harassed at the
thoughts which had come to him. I had been so absorbed--as had all of
us--that we had given no heed to the passing hours. Abruptly I realized
that the room was chill with early morning; through the window I saw
the flush of the eastern sky.
Martt followed my glance. "Why, it's dawn! Brett's been talking all
night."
Brett said strangely: "Too long! Father, this gentle race living out
there in such seeming security had just been visited by beings from
the great world outside it. A world known to them only by legend of
their past ages which they scarce knew to be true or false. Those three
assailants of Leela's--and other men like them--had suddenly appeared
as dwindling giants coming down out of largeness unfathomable. They had
already destroyed a city. . ."
Brett's voice had risen; he was talking faster now; and there was
a touch of wildness in his tone--a wildness perhaps born of his
exhaustion, and the emotional stress under which I knew now he had been
laboring all night.
"Our arrival there, Father--the three assailants of Leela--I think the
larger, him whom we have called the 'giant'--I think he is leader of
the invaders from that greater world. Our appearance--our own power to
change size which perhaps he observed there in the forest--must have
frightened him. The invaders vanished. But at the end of those months
we lived there--another of these giants was seen.
"They're coming back again--to threaten Leela and all her people! I
came here to see you, Father--to tell you all I've told--and to leave
Martt. But I'm going back--to do what I can against this threat--this
invasion. And I want to go back to Leela. She----"
"She was afraid to come with us," Martt put in. "I wanted her to
come--and now I want to go back with Brett. We've been arguing about it
for days--he won't let me go back with him--he's stubborn----"
Brett reiterated: "I'm going back. I'm going alone. As soon as I've
slept--I've got to sleep now--you, you'll excuse me--let me take a
good long sleep--I'm too tired to argue about it now. . . Good night,
Frannie, dear--good night, Father--good night, Frank."
He was presently gone from the room. Dr. Gryce had been sitting beside
me and I put my hand on his arm. His face was quite colorless; his
voice, suddenly very old and helpless, was murmuring, "I don't want him
to go out there again. I'm afraid--and I don't want him to do it. . ."
_CHAPTER 10_