_Combat of Titans_
"Aura, you think you know where Groff may have gone--those times he went
out into the hills?"
"Yes. I think so. Lee--that giant, I think now I understand what must
have happened."
The giant shape of Franklin, a mile or two from them, had stood for a
moment and then had receded, vanished momentarily as he moved backward
behind the hills. Lee and Aura, stunned, still stood beside the little
rocky path. Lee's mind was a turmoil of confusion, with only the
knowledge that he must do something now, quickly. There were no weapons
here in this peaceful little realm. Four or five of these madmen
villains--what need had they of weapons? The monstrous power of size.
The thought of it struck at Lee with a chill that seemed turning his
blood to ice. The monster that Franklin had become--with a size like
that he could scatter death with his naked hands.
* * * * *
"I remember now," Aura was gasping. "There was a time when your
grandfather was working on his science. Groff was helping him then. Your
grandfather taught Groff much."
"Working at what?"
"It was never said. Then your grandfather gave it up--he had decided it
would not be wise here."
* * * * *
Some individual apparatus, with the size-change principle of the
space-globe? And Groff had gotten the secret. An abnormality here--Groff
with the power of evil latent within him, tempted by this opportunity.
What could he have hoped to accomplish? Of what use to him would it be
to devastate this little realm? Bitter irony swept Lee. Of what use was
vast personal power to anyone? Those madmen of Earth's history, with
their lust for conquest--of what use could the conquest be to them? And
yet they had plunged on.
He realized that with Groff there could have been a wider field of
conquest. Groff had heard much of Earth. With the power of size here, he
could master this realm; then seize the space-globe. Go with it to
Earth. Why, in a gigantic size there, he and a few villainous companions
could master the Earth-world. A mad dream indeed, but Lee knew it was a
lustful possibility matched by many in Earth's history.
And then Franklin had come here. Franklin, with his knowledge of Earth
which Groff would need. Franklin, with his inherent feeling of
inferiority--his groping desire for the strength and power of size. What
an opportunity for Franklin!
Lee heard himself saying out of the turmoil of his thoughts: "Then,
Aura--out there in the hills they've got some apparatus, of course,
which--"
His words were stricken away. From somewhere in the glowing dimness near
at hand there was a groan. A gasping, choking groan; and the sound of
something falling.
"Lee--over there--" Aura's whispered words were drab with horror.
* * * * *
A figure which had been staggering among the rocks near them, had
fallen. They rushed to it. Vivian! She was trying to drag herself
forward. Her hair, streaming down in a sodden mass, was matted with
blood. Her pallid face was blood-smeared. Her neck and throat were a
welter of crimson horror. Beside her on the ground lay a strange-looking
apparatus of grids and wires--a metal belt--a skeleton helmet.... She
was gripping it with a blood-smeared hand, dragging it with her.
"Vivian--Vivian--"
"Oh--you, Lee? Thank Gawd I got to you--"
Her elbows gave way; her head and shoulders sank to the rock. Faintly
gasping, with blood-foam at her livid lips, she lay motionless. But her
glazing eyes gazed up at Lee, and she was trying to smile.
"I went with them--that damned Franklin--he thought I was as bad as
him--" Her faint words were barely audible as he bent down to her. "Just
want to tell you, Lee--you're perfectly swell--I guess I fell for you,
didn't I? That's over now--just wanted you to know it anyway. There's
one of the damned mechanisms they've got--"
"Where are they, Vivian?"
"A cave, not very far from here--down that little ravine--just
ahead--they're in there--four or five of them, getting ready to--" Blood
was rattling in her throat, choking her. She tried, horribly, to cough.
And then she gasped:
"I stole this mechanism. He--Franklin--he caught me--slashed me. He
thought I was dead, I guess--but--when he had gone, I got this
mechanism--trying to get to you--"
Her choking, rattling breath again gave out. For a moment she lay with a
paroxysm of death twitching her. And then, very faintly she gasped:
"Sort of nice--I was able to do one good thing--anyhow. I'm glad of
that--"
The paroxysm ended in a moment. Her white lips were still trying to
smile as the light went out of her eyes and she was gone. Trembling, Lee
stood up, with the mute, white-faced Aura clinging to him. It was fairly
obvious how the weird mechanism should be adjusted--anklets, the
skeleton helmet of electrodes, the belt around his waist, with its
grids, tiny dials and curved battery box. In a moment he stood with the
wires strung from his head, to wrist, ankles and waist. There seemed but
one little control switch that would slide over a metal arc of intensity
contacts.
"Oh, Lee--what--what are you going to do--?" Aura stood white with
terror.
"She said--four or five of them in a cave near here--perhaps they
haven't yet gotten large--"
* * * * *
Down in a little ravine Lee found himself running forward in the
luminous darkness. He called back, "Aura--you stay where you are--you
hide, until it's over--"
Then, in the turmoil of his mind, there was no thought of the girl.
There was only the vision of old Anthony lying back there so
helpless--his burning eyes bitter with this thing which had so horribly
come to his little realm. To meet force with force was the only answer.
It was not Lee's plan to increase his size for a moment now. By doing
that, almost at once he would be discovered. And perhaps there were
still four or five of the murderers, still not giants, in a cave nearby.
The dim rocky ravine, heavy with shadows, led downward. He came to a
tunnel opening, advancing more cautiously now. And then, as he turned an
angle ahead of him, down a little subterranean declivity a luminous cave
was visible. Groff's hideout. At one of its entrances here Lee stood for
an instant gasping. The five men were here--Groff and four of his
villainous companions.
The five bodies lay strewn--horribly mangled. And the wreckage of their
size-change mechanisms was strewn among them.
So obvious, what had happened! Franklin had been the first to get large.
And at once he had turned on them. Franklin, the weakling who dared not
have any rivalry! And now Franklin was outside, out in the hills, a
raging, murderous monster. For a moment, in the grisly shambles of the
little cave Lee stood transfixed. Then his hand was fumbling at his
belt. He shoved the small switch-lever.
There was a shock--a humming--a reeling of his senses. It was akin to
what he had felt on the space-globe, but stronger, more intense now. For
an instant he staggered, confused. The wires strung on him were glowing;
he could feel their heat. Weird luminous opalescence streamed from
them--it bathed him--strange electrolite radiance that permeated every
minute fibre of his being.
With his head steadying, Lee suddenly was aware of movement all about
him. The dim outlines of the cave-room were shrinking with a creeping,
crawling movement. Cave-walls and roof all shrinking, dwindling, drawing
down upon him. Under his feet the rocky ground seemed hitching forward.
This little cave! In a moment while he stood shocked into immobility,
the cave was a tiny cell. Down by his feet the gruesome mangled corpses
were the size of children. The cave-roof bumped his head. He must get
out of here! The realization stabbed him. Why, in another moment or two
these dark walls would close upon him! Then with instant changing
viewpoint he saw the true actuality. He was a growing giant, crouching
here underground--a giant who would be crushed, mangled by his own
monstrous growth.
* * * * *
Lee turned, staggered into the little tunnel, shoved his way out. The
walls pressed him; they seemed in a moment to close after him as he
gained the outer glowing darkness.... There was only a narrow slit in
the dwindling cliff to mark the tunnel entrance. Lee had the wits to
crouch in a fairly open space as he stared at the dwindling trees, the
little hills, all shrinking. Franklin must be around here somewhere.
Franklin doubtless would see him in a moment.
And then as Lee rose up, Franklin saw him. Lee put a hand on one of the
little hills at his waist, vaulted it so that he faced Franklin with
what seemed no more than a hundred feet between them. For that second
Franklin was transfixed. Amazement swept his face. His muttering was
audible:
"Why--why--what's this--"
An adversary had come to challenge his power. As Lee bounded
forward, on Franklin's face while he stood transfixed, there was
wonderment--disappointment--sudden instinctive fear--and then wild rage.
He stooped; seized a boulder, hurled it at the oncoming Lee. It missed;
and then Lee was on him, seizing him.
Franklin's body had not been enlarging, but as he saw Lee coming, his
hand had flung his switch. They gripped each other now, swaying, locked
together, staggering. Franklin still was more than head and shoulders
above Lee. His huge arms, with amazing power in them, bent Lee backward.
He stumbled, went down with Franklin on him. "Got you! Damn you," he
said.
* * * * *
His giant hands gripped Lee's throat, but Lee was aware that his own
body was enlarging faster than Franklin's, upon which the size-current
had only now started to act. If Lee could only resist--just a little bit
longer! His groping hands beside him on the ground seized a rock.
Monstrous strangling fingers were at this throat--his breath was gone,
his head roaring. Then he was aware that he had seized a rock and struck
it up into Franklin's face. For a second the hands at Lee's throat
relaxed. He gulped in air, desperately broke free and staggered to his
feet.
But Franklin was up as quickly. The tiny forest trees crackled under
Lee's tread as again he hurled himself viciously on his antagonist....
* * * * *
At the head of the distant ravine, the numbed Aura crouched alone,
staring out at the hills with mute horror--staring at the two monstrous
giants slugging it out. Franklin was the larger. She saw Lee rise up,
and with a hand on one of the hills, vault over it. Giants that loomed
against the sky as they fronted each other and then crashed together,
went down.
Lee was underneath! Dear God--
Two monstrous bodies--Lee was lying with a ridge of crags under his
shoulders.... Franklin's voice was a blurred roar of triumph in the
distance. Then she saw Lee's groping hand come up with a monstrous fifty
foot boulder. He crashed it home.
They were up again. Their giant staggering lunges had carried them five
miles from her. They were almost the size of fighting titans. The
blurred distant shapes of them were silhouettes against the glow of the
sky. The forest out there was crackling under their tread ... a blurred
roar of breaking, mangled trees....
It was just a few seconds while Aura stared, but each second was an
eternity of horror. Then one of the monstrous figures was toppling. A
great boulder had crashed on Franklin's head; he had broken loose,
staggering while Lee jumped backward and crouched.
For just a second the towering shape of the stricken Franklin loomed up
in the sky. And then it fell crashing forward. A swift-flowing stream
was there, and the body fell across it--blocking the water which dammed
up, then turned aside and went roaring off through the mangled forest.
* * * * *
Lee, again in his former size, sat at old Anthony's bedside, with Aura
behind him. The news of the combat out there against the sky had come to
Anthony--the excitement of it, too much for his faltering old heart....
"But you will be all right, grandfather. The thing is over now."
"Yes. All right--of course, Lee. Just a visitor here--and you will take
my place--"
He lay now--as old Anna Green had been that night--just on the brink.
"Lee, listen to me--those mechanisms--the space-globe--Lee, I realize
now there is no possibility that we could help Earth--and surely it
could only bring us evil here. What we have found here--don't you see,
back on Earth each man must create it for himself. Within himself: He
could do that, if he chose. And so you--you must disconnect
us--forever--"
"Yes, grandfather--"
"And I--guess that is all--"
For some time he seemed to hover on the brink, while Lee and Aura,
sitting hand in hand, silently watched him. And then he was gone.
* * * * *
The last of the mechanisms irrevocably was smashed. The little line of
vacuums and tubes of the space-globe's mechanisms went up into a burst
of opalescent light under Lee's grim smashing blows.
Then silently he went outside and joined Aura. Behind them, down the
declivity toward the village, the people were gathering. He was silent,
his heart pounding with emotion, as he faced them from a little
eminence--faced them and heard their shouts, and saw their arms go up to
welcome him.
Slowly he and Aura walked down the slope toward his waiting people. And
with her by his side, her hand in his, Lee Anthony knew then that he had
found fulfillment--the attainment of that which is within every man's
heart--man's heritage--those things for which he must never cease to
strive.
THE END
Transcriber's Note
Minor corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made without
comment. Variations in spelling, capitalization, and hyphenation have
been retained to match the original document.
End of Project Gutenberg's The World Beyond, by Raymond King Cummings