_The Black and White Flags_
"It Seems so strange, Dianne, our being alone together."
"Strange, Frank?" Her laugh was like the pealing of little fairy bells.
"Strange? Why, when we were children we were together nearly all the
time."
Six years now since I had been alone with Dianne. She had been my
sister. We were alone now in the abyss--I was very conscious of how
alone we were. We sat by a rock, resting. We had found a pool of water.
This was our first stopping since we had escaped from Togaro.
We had no food, but we felt that we could get out of the rock fragment
to father before the need of it would be serious. We had encountered no
Togarites. This vast abyss--these endless mountains, cañons and caverns
of rock--seemed able to hold friends and enemies innumerable, and yet
never force them together.
We had at first got small enough to escape from the Togarite
encampment; had run, cautiously making our size larger so that the
running would take us an appreciable distance from the camp. Once away
from immediate pursuit, we started our upward journey in earnest.
We had soon found ourselves lost. It was all a strange, desolate,
unknown region to me. But Dianne had traveled it before; as we grew
larger, the main configurations of the dwindling region became familiar
to her. She found a route different from that which the Togarite
expedition had proposed using.
Discussing it with Dianne, I found myself puzzled at her confidence in
finding her way out and still avoiding the Togarite parties who were
ahead of us. Strange physical conditions, those of this size-change
traveling! Yet a moment's thought made the matter clear.
Traveling inward--becoming small--the slightest deviation from the
true direction would lead the traveler into vast new realms. Countless
universes spreading at his feet. There was space here, limitless. In
the size we were when upon Mita there was around us in just that single
atom countless light-years of astronomical distance. Coming back, we
left the atom. It shrank to a microscopical point. We grew larger than
the atoms; larger than the molecules.
Space within this fragment of rock which father was guarding was
constantly shrinking. Yet even in the abyss of the Togarite camp it was
a vast space. I cannot calculate it. But envisaging the distance from
one side of the rock fragment to the other, let us call it a thousand
miles.
We grew still larger. Soon, to us, there would be only five hundred
miles of distance in here. Then one hundred. Then one mile. Then only a
few feet, until at last we would emerge and see that all the space had
shrunk to the size of our hand.
Thus, coming out, all roads led in very nearly the same direction.
There was no solidity to the rock when viewed from the smaller
viewpoint; there is, indeed, no solidity to anything. A growing body,
avoiding being crushed, would at last emerge, no matter in what
direction it went.
Do I make it clear? I hope so.
At last we stopped, between the drug doses, to rest. We were at the
bottom of a vast circular caldron. Tumbled crags strewn in heaps. The
opposite rim, some ten miles away, was dimly visible in the gloom.
There were shadows in here now; it seemed that overhead a vague sheen
of light was apparent. We were near the top. Soon we would be out. I
touched Dianne's hand.
"You think we're larger--ahead of all the Togarites now?"
"Yes, I think so."
I did, also. It was imperative that we get out of the rock first, get
up there and warn father what was coming. If we did that, the expanding
Togaro hordes wouldn't have a chance.
"We'll have to rig up a black and white flag as a signal to father. You
remember, Dianne? I told you I'd arranged that with him. But how the
deuce can we?"
She surprised me by drawing from her robe a square of white fabric with
black stripes upon it.
"Dianne!"
"I found a chance to make it, Frank--on the ship when Togaro sent me to
another cabin."
She displayed it proudly. "Is it all right?"
It certainly was. A flag about two feet square. I stood up now and
spread it out.
"We'll wave it--like this, Dianne. Father will see it when we're still
very small."
I showed her how we'd wave it.
"Frank! Stop!"
Her gaze was off across the dim abyss of the caldron.
"Over there, Frank! Do you see something moving? I do!"
Miles away, partly up the opposite cliffside of the caldron, it seemed
that something was moving. The light was very dim, yet distant objects
were unnaturally sharp and clear. Something moving off there. We
stared. Then we thought we saw human figures standing on that far-off
cliff, and something waving.
"A flag, Frank!"
It seemed a flag. A black and white flag, something like our own,
waving at us!
The space-voyage which Drake, Ahlma, and Alt made from the doomed
planet, was very similar to this one I had just taken on the Togaro
ship. The Mitans landed in the abyss of rock. A hundred miles, or a
thousand, from the Togarite camp? There is no one to judge.
It was a full day, perhaps, after Togaro landed. A similar scene of
activity ensued, save that nearly three times as many people were here;
unorganized, badly equipped, refugees struggling upward, not bent upon
conquest, seeking only safety.
The voyage had been a busy one for Drake. He had tried to organize
things. There was not enough food or enough of the expanding drug for
this multitude. Drake organized it into smaller divisions, each in
charge of one of the Mitan officials.
When they landed, and the ship was hidden, the refugees began moving
upward in size, the leader of each party going ahead with food and
drugs, expanding them and dealing them out to his people.
It was the same system that Togaro was using. A slow journey upward,
stopping at each stage to erect a new encampment.
And immediately upon disembarking, Mitan leaders were sent out as
scouts--alert to locate the Togarites, and to avoid them.
In the first encampment Drake sat in consultation with Jain.
"I think, Jain, this is the best we can do. Get part way up--get all
the people up to that size--and then wait."
There was room down here to avoid the Togarites. But farther up in the
dwindling space a clash would be inevitable.
"You wish to go ahead of us?"
"Yes, with Alt and Ahlma. They know the way. We will take this black
and white flag." (Ahlma had made a flag.) "We can travel fast, Jain.
We'll go out and see my father. He controls everything up above. The
Togarites can't get out--and if we keep away from them, we're safe
enough. No use killing any of our Mitan people by fighting down in
here."
"But what about us?" Jain demanded with a touch of suspicion.
"I'll come back to you, Jain. Warn my father that this Togarite horde
may try to make a rush out, or get out by trickery. Warn him--and make
arrangements so that he can distinguish you Mitans from the Togarites.
Then, in small parties, we will go out."
Drake, Ahlma, and Alt started upon their journey. They went swiftly.
Thousands of miles, perhaps, from Dianne and me at the beginning. Like
us, they got safely ahead of the Togarites. At one stage they sighted a
Togaro party, but managed to avoid and pass it without being discovered.
The dwindling space near the top brought them in our vicinity. They
were standing on the caldron rim, and saw our black and white flag as I
tentatively waved it for Dianne. They waved their own.
We were cautious approaching one another, each suspecting an enemy
ruse. But we came together at last.
Reunion! The five of us here, with all the Togarites presumably behind
us; and father and the safety of our blessed earth close overhead. It
seemed, with Drake and Alt here with me--with Ahlma and Dianne babbling
news of what had happened to each other--that all our dangers were at
an end. It was an inexpressible relief.
We grew out of the caldron into the space above, the huge familiar
valley. I remembered it; but it seemed rather darker now than it had
been before.
With our flags out, we stood expanding. Above this valley was the upper
surface of the rock fragment. Once we got up there to the summit,
father would see us. I wondered if he would be on guard. Or Foley? Or
the other man--Ransome--whom we employed? It had only been a few days
since Alt and I left here. Days? The events which had crowded them made
them seem months to my memory.
The valley shrank and closed in upon us. A pit now.
"Drake, shall we climb out? Or wait a little longer?"
It seemed best for us to start climbing. It was no more than a hundred
feet up. Easy enough, with us three men to help the girls.
We scrambled up the rocky slope. We were halfway up when it had
dwindled so that the upper rim was barely ten feet above us. There was
light up there, and vague, blurred shadows of form in the hazy sky.
"Jump, Dianne. Here, I've got you."
We scrambled out of the closing pit, and stood a moment expanding upon
the upper surface. Jagged rock spires were around us, a broken area of
crags upon the summit of the rock. A few acres up here, and down over
an abyss was the surface of the granite slab.
The scene shrank further, and then the last drug we had taken ceased
its action. We stood on a narrow, jagged peak of rock. A slope led down
beside us to a broad, undulating plain. It was only ten feet down.
Alt stood with the girls. Drake and I were together, waving our flags.
We saw things dimly at first--the brighter light up here confused us.
"Frank, you think he sees us?"
"What is that, off there?"
There was something very strange here! A chill swept over me. Drake was
not familiar with the surroundings father and I had prepared for the
guarding of the rock, but I was. This seemed a very strange scene now!
Words choked me. I stood clutching Drake.
"What is it, Frank--what's the matter?"
This light overhead was not the light father and I had rigged up! There
was no giant microscope up there in the sky.
Vague blurred shapes of a ceiling and wall were up there, and a
light--but not our light in the guarded room of our house at King's
Cove.
This vast plain, gleaming dimly rough and undulating in the light--it
should have been our granite slab. But it was not!
Realization surged over me with a chilling rush of horror. This was a
different room. There were people here; I heard an echoing rumble of
their giant voices. But not father, nor Foley nor Ransome!
The rock fragment had been moved, stolen from father and taken
somewhere else! These were enemies, guarding the rock upon the top of
which we stood fatuously waving our little black and white flags!