THEY OPENED THE PANDORA'S BOX OF ATOMIC TRAVEL

When George Randolph first caught sight of Orena, he was astounded byits gleaming perfection. Here were hills and valleys, lakes and streams, glowing with the light of the most precious of metals. And, moreastonishing than that, it was a world of _miniature_ perfection--aninfinitely tiny universe within a golden atom!

But for Randolph it was also a world aglow with danger. Somewhere in itstiny vastness were the friends he had to rescue. Captives of a madman, they had been reduced to native Orena size; to return to Earth theyneeded the growth capsules Randolph was bringing them. It was up toRandolph to find them--and quickly--for the longer they stayed tiny, thecloser they came to passing BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

 FRANZ POLTER He found a gold mine in a land where there was no gold. 

 DR. KENT His scientific studies could mean life or death to an entire universe!

 GEORGE RANDOLPH He crossed the border into Canada, and found himself in another world. 

 ALAN KENT Twenty feet tall, or two inches high--which should he be?

 GLORA She was only as large as a thumbnail, but she carried a gigantic secret. 

 BABS KENT Did she live in a golden cage or a magnificent palace?

 BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT

 by RAY CUMMINGS

 ACE BOOKS, INC. 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. 

 BEYOND THE VANISHING POINT Copyright ©, 1958, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 Printed in U. S. A. 

CHAPTER I

It was shortly after noon of December 31, 1970, when the series of weirdand startling events began which took me into the tiny world of an atomof gold, beyond the vanishing point, beyond the range of even thehighest-powered electric-microscope. My name is George Randolph. I was, that momentous afternoon, assistant chemist for the Ajax InternationalDye Company, with main offices in New York City. 

It was twelve-twenty when the local exchange call-sorter announcedAlan's connection from Quebec. 

"Hello, George? Look here, you've got to come up here at once. ChateauFrontenac, Quebec. Will you come?"

I could see his face imaged in the little mirror on my desk; theanxiety, tenseness in his voice, was duplicated in his expression. 

"Well--" I began. 

"You must, George. Babs and I need you. See here.... "

He tried at first to make it sound like an invitation for a New Year'sEve holiday. But I knew it was not that. Alan and Barbara were my bestfriends. They were twins, eighteen years old. I felt that Alan wouldalways be my best friend; but for Babs, my hopes, longings, went fardeeper, though as yet I had never brought myself to the point of tellingher so. 

"I'd like to come, Alan. But--"

"You've got to George! I can't tell you everything over the public air. But I've seen _him_: He's diabolical. I know it now!"

_Him_! It could only mean, of all the world, one person!

"He's here!" he went on. "Near here. We saw him today! I didn't want totell you, but that's why we came. It seemed a long chance, but it's he, I'm positive!"

I was staring at the image of Alan's eyes; there was horror in them. Andhis voice too. "God, George, it's weird! Weird, I tell you. Hislooks--he--oh I can't tell you now! Only, come!"

 * * * * *

I was busy at the office in spite of the holiday season, but I droppedeverything and went. By one o'clock that afternoon I was wheeling mylittle sport Midge from its cage on the roof of the Metropole building, and went into the air. 

It was a cold gray afternoon with the feel of coming snow. I made a goodtwo hundred and fifty miles at first, taking the northboundthrough-traffic lane which today the meteorological conditions hadplaced at an altitude of 6, 200 feet. 

Flying is largely automatic. There was not enough traffic to bother me. The details of leaving the office so hastily had been too engrossing forthought of Alan and Babs. But now, in my little pit at the controls, mymind flung ahead. They had located him. That meant Franz Polter, forwhom we had been searching nearly four years. And my memory went backinto the past with vivid vision.... 

 * * * * *

The Kents, four years ago, were living on Long Island. Alan and Babswere fourteen at the time, and I was seventeen. Even then Babs wassomething kind of special to me. I lived in a neighboring house thatsummer and saw them every day. 

To my adolescent mind a thrilling mystery hung upon the Kent family. Themother was dead. Dr. Kent, father of Alan and Babs, maintained aluxurious home, with only a housekeeper and no other servant. Dr. Kentwas a retired chemist. He had, in his home, a laboratory in which he wasworking upon some mysterious problem. His children did not know what itwas, nor, of course, did I. And none of us had ever been in thelaboratory, except that when occasion offered we stole surreptitiouspeeps. 

I recall Dr. Kent as a kindly, iron-gray haired gentleman. He was sternwith the discipline of his children; but he loved them, and wasindulgent in many ways. They loved him; and I, an orphan, began lookingupon him almost as a father. I was interested in chemistry. He knew it, and did his best to help and encourage me in my studies. 

There came an afternoon in the summer of 1966, when arriving at the Kenthome, I ran upon a startling scene. The only other member of thehousehold was a young fellow of twenty-five, named Franz Polter. He wasa foreigner, born, I understood, in one of the Balkan Protectorates; hewas here, employed by Dr. Kent as laboratory assistant. 

He had been with the Kents, at this time, two years. Alan and Babsdidn't like him, nor did I. He must have been a clever, skillfulchemist. No doubt he was. But he was, to us, repulsive. A hunchback, with a short, thick body; dangling arms that suggested a gorilla; barrelchest; a lump set askew on his left shoulder, and his massive headplanted down with almost no neck. His face was rugged in feature; a widemouth, a high-bridged heavy nose; and above the face a great shock ofwavy black hair. It was an intelligent face; in itself, not repulsive. 

But I think we all three feared Franz Polter. There was always somethingsinister about him, that had nothing to do with his deformity. 

When I came, that afternoon, Babs and Polter were under a tree on theKent lawn. Babs, at fourteen, with long black braids down her back, bare-legged and short-skirted in a summer sport costume, was standingagainst the tree with Polter facing her. They were about the sameheight. To my youthful imaginative mind rose the fleeting picture of ayoung girl in a forest menaced by a gorilla. 

I came upon them suddenly. I heard Polter say:

"But I lof you. And you are almos' a woman. Some day you lof me. "

He put out his thick hand and gripped her shoulder. She tried to twistaway. She was frightened, but she laughed. 

"You--you're crazy!"

He was suddenly holding her in his arms, and she was fighting him. Idashed forward. Babs was always a spunky sort of girl. In spite of herfear now, she kept on struggling, and she shouted:

"You--let me go, you--you hunchback!"

He did let her go; but in a frenzy of rage he hauled back his hand andstruck her in the face. I was upon him the next second. I had him downon the lawn, punching him; but though at seventeen I was a reasonablyhusky lad, the hunchback with his thick, hairy gorilla arms proved muchstronger. He heaved me off. The commotion had brought Alan and withoutwaiting to find out what the trouble was, he jumped on Polter. Betweenus, I think we would have beaten him pretty badly. But the housekeepersummoned Dr. Kent and the fight was over. 

Polter left for good within an hour. He did not speak to any of us. ButI saw him as he put his luggage into the taxi which Dr. Kent hadsummoned. I was standing silently nearby with Babs and Alan. The look heflung us as he drove away carried an unmistakable menace--the promise ofvengeance. And I think now that in his warped and twisted mind he wastelling himself that he would some day make Babs regret that she hadrepulsed his love. 

What happened that night none of us ever knew. Dr. Kent worked late inhis laboratory; he was there when Alan and Babs and the housekeeper wentto bed. He had written a note to Alan; it was found on his desk in acorner of the laboratory next morning, addressed in care of the familylawyer to be given Alan in the event of his death. It said very little. Described a tiny fragment of gold quartz rock the size of a walnut whichwould be found under the giant microscope in the laboratory; and toldAlan to give it to the American Scientific Society to be guarded andwatched very carefully. 

This note was found, but Dr. Kent had vanished! There had been amidnight marauder. The laboratory was on the lower floor of the house. Through one of its open windows, so the police said, an intruder hadentered. There was evidence of a struggle, but it must have been short, because neither Babs, Alan, the housekeeper, nor any of the neighborshad heard anything. And the fragment of golden quartz was gone!

The police investigation came to nothing. Polter was found in New York. He withstood the police questions. There was nothing except suspicionupon which he could be held, and he was finally released. Immediatelythereafter, he disappeared. 

Neither Alan, Babs nor I saw Polter again. Dr. Kent had never been heardfrom to this day, four years later when I flew to join the twins inQuebec. And now Alan told me that Polter was up there! We had neverceased to believe that Dr. Kent was alive, and that Polter was themidnight marauder. As we grew older, we began to search for Polter. Itseemed to us, that if we could once get our hands on him, we could dragfrom him the truth which the police had failed to get. 

The call of a traffic director in mid-Vermont brought me back from thesememories. My buzzer was clanging; a peremptory halting signal day-beamcame darting up at me from below. It caught me and clung. I shouted downat it. 

"What's the matter?" I gave my name and number and all the details inone breath. Above everything I had no wish to be halted now. "What's thematter? I haven't done anything wrong. "

"The hell you haven't, " the director roared. "Come down to threethousand. That lane's barred. "

I dove obediently and his beam followed me. "Once more, like that, youngfellow--" But he went busy with somebody else and I didn't hear the endof his threat. 

I crossed into Maine in mid-afternoon. It was already twilight. The skywas solid lead and the landscape all up through here was gray-white withsnow in the gathering darkness. I passed the City of Jackman, crossingfull over it to take no chances of annoying the border officials; and afew miles further, I dropped to the glaring lights of InternationalInspection Field. The formalities were soon finished. I was ready totake-off when Alan rushed at me. 

"George! I thought I could connect here. " He gripped me. He waswild-eyed, incoherent. He waved his taxiplane away. "I'm going with you, George. I'm almost out of my mind. I can't--I don't know what's happenedto her. She's gone, now--"

"Who's gone? Babs?"

"Yes. " He pushed me into my plane and climbed in after me. "Don't talk. Get us up! I'll tell you then. I shouldn't have left. "

When we were up in the air, I swung on him. "What are you talking about?Babs gone?"

I could feel myself shuddering with a nameless horror. 

"I don't know what I'm talking about, George. I'm about crazy. TheQuebec police think I am, anyway. I've been raising hell with them foran hour. Babs is gone! I can't find her. I don't know where she is. "

He finally calmed down enough to tell me what happened. Shortly afterhis radiophone to me in New York, he had missed Babs. They had had lunchin the huge hotel and then walked on the Dufferin Terrace--the famouspromenade outside looking down over the Lower City, the great sweep ofthe St. Lawrence River and the gray-white distant Laurentian mountains. 

"I was to meet her inside. I went in ahead of her. But she didn't come. I went back to the Terrace but she was gone. She wasn't in our rooms. Nor the library, the lobby--anywhere. "

But it was afternoon, in the public place of a civilized city. In thedaylight of the Dufferin Terrace, beside the long ice toboggan slide, under the gaze of skaters on the ice-rink and several hundred holidaymerrymakers, a young girl could hardly be murdered, or kidnapped, without attracting attention! The Quebec police thought the youngAmerican unduly excited about his sister, who was missing only an hour. They would do what they could, if by dark she had not rejoined him. Theysuggested that doubtless the young lady had gone shopping. 

"Maybe she did, " I agreed. But in my heart, I felt differently. "She'llbe waiting for us in the Hotel when we get there, Alan. "

"But I'm telling you we saw Polter this morning. He lives here--notthirty miles from Quebec. We saw him on the Terrace after breakfast. Recognized him immediately of course. "

"Did he see you?"

"I don't know. He was lost in the crowd in a minute. But I asked ayoung French fellow if he knew him. He did know him, as Frank Rascor. That must be the name he wears now. He's a famous man up here--wellknown, immensely rich. I didn't know if he saw us or not. What a fool Iwas to leave Babs alone, even for a minute. "

We were speeding over a white-clad valley with a little frozen riverwinding down its middle. Night had almost come. The leaden sky was lowabove us. It began snowing. The lights of the small villages along theriver were barely visible. 

"Can you land us, Alan?"

"Yes, surely. At the Municipal Field just beyond the Citadel. We can getto the Hotel in five minutes. "

 * * * * *

It was a flight of only half an hour. During it, Alan told me aboutPolter. The hunchback, known now as Frank Rascor, owned a mine in theLaurentians, some thirty miles from Quebec City--a fabulously productivemine of gold. It was an anomaly that gold should be produced in thisregion. No vein of gold-bearing rock had been found, except the one onPolter's property. Alan had seen a newspaper account of the strangenessof it; and on a hunch had come to Quebec, being intrigued by thedescription of the mine owner. He had seen Frank Rascor on the DufferinTerrace, and recognized him as Polter. 

Again my thoughts went back into the past. Had Polter stolen thatmissing fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut which had beenbeneath Dr. Kent's microscope? We always thought so. Dr. Kent had somesecret, some great problem upon which he was working. Polter, hisassistant, had evidently known, or partially known, its details. Andnow, four years later, Polter was immensely rich, with a "gold mine" inmountains where there was no other evidence of gold!

I seemed to see some connection. Alan, I knew, was groping with a dimidea, so strange he hardly dared voice it. 

"I tell you, it's weird, George. The sight of him. Polter--heavens, onecouldn't mistake that build--and his face, his features, just the sameas when we knew him. "

"Then what's so weird?" I demanded. 

"His age. " There was a queer solemn hush in Alan's voice. "George, whenwe knew Polter, he was about twenty-five, wasn't he? Well, that was fouryears ago. But he isn't twenty-nine now. I swear it is the same man, buthe isn't around thirty. Don't ask me what I'm talking about. I don'tknow. But he isn't thirty. He's nearer fifty! Unnatural! Weird! I feltit, and so did Babs, just that brief look we had of him. "

I didn't answer. My attention was on managing the plane. The lights ofLevis were under us. Beyond the City cliffs, the St. Lawrence lay in itsdeep valley; the Quebec lights, the light-dotted ramparts with theTerrace and the great fortresslike Hotel showed across the river. 

"Better take the stick, Alan. I don't know where the field is. And don'tyou worry about Babs. She'll be back by now. "

 * * * * *

But she was not. We went to the two connecting rooms in the tower of theHotel which Alan and Babs had engaged. We inquired with half a dozenphone calls. No one had seen or heard from her. The Quebec police weresending a man up to talk with Alan. 

"Well, we won't be here, " Alan called to me. He was standing by thewindow in Babs' room; he was trembling too much to use the phone. I hungup the receiver and went though the connecting door to join him. 

Babs' room! It sent a pang through me. A few of her garments were lyingaround. A negligee was laid out on the large bed. A velvet boudoirdoll--she had always loved them--stood on the dresser. Upon this Hotelroom, in one day, she had impressed her personality. Her perfume was inthe air. And now she was gone. 

"We won't be here, " Alan was repeating. He gripped me at the window. "Look. " In his hand was an ugly-looking, smokeless, soundless automaticof the Essen type. "And I've got another one for you. Brought them withme. "

His face was white and drawn, but his hands had steadied. The tremblewas gone out of his voice. 

"I'm going after him, George! Now! Understand that? Now? His place isonly thirty miles from here, out there in the mountains. You can see itin the daylight--a wall around his property and a stone castle which hebuilt in the middle of it. A gold mine? Hell!"

There was nothing to be seen now out of the window but the snow-filleddarkness, the blurred lights of Lower Quebec and the line of dock lightsfive hundred feet below us. 

"Will you fly me, George?"

"Of course. "

I was the one trembling now; the cool feel of the automatic which Alanthrust into my hand seemed suddenly to crystallize Babs' peril. I washere in her room, with the scent of her perfume around me, and thisdeadly weapon was needed! But the trembling was gone in a moment. 

"Yes, of course, Alan. No use talking to the police. I gave them all theinformation--a description of her, what you said she was wearing. Nosense dragging Polter's name into it, with nothing tangible to go on. The police won't ransack the castle of a rich man just because you can'tfind your sister. Come on. You can tell me what this place is like as wego. "

 * * * * *

Bundled in our flying suits we hurried from the Hotel, climbed theCitadel slope and in ten minutes were in the air. The wind sucked at us. The snow now was falling with thick, huge flakes. Directed by Alan, Iheaded out over this ice-filled St. Lawrence, past the frozen Iled'Orleans, toward Polter's mysterious mountain castle. 

Suddenly Alan burst out, "I know what father's secret was! I can pieceit together now, from little things that were meaningless when I was akid. He invented the electro-microscope. You know that. The infinitelysmall fascinated him. I remember he once said that if we could see farenough down into smallness, we would come upon human life!"

Alan's low, tense voice was more vehement than I had ever heard itbefore. "It's clear to me now, George. That little fragment of goldenquartz which he wanted me to be so careful of contained a world withhuman inhabitants! Father knew it, or suspected it. And I think thechemical problem on which he was working aimed for some drug. I know itwas a drug they were compounding, Polter said so once, a radioactivedrug; I remember listening at the door. A drug, George, capable ofmaking a human being infinitely small!"

I did not answer when momentarily Alan paused. So strange a thing. Mymind whirled with it; struggled to encompass it. And like themeaningless individual pieces of a puzzle, dropping so easily into placewhen the key piece is fitted, I saw Polter stealing that fragment ofgold; abducting Dr. Kent--perhaps because Polter himself was not fullyacquainted with the secret. And now, Polter up here with a fabulouslyrich "gold mine. " And Babs, abducted by him, to be taken--where?

It set me shuddering. 

"That's what it was, " Alan reiterated. "And Polter, here now with whathe calls a 'mine. ' It isn't a mine, it's a laboratory! He's got fathertoo, hidden God knows where! And now Babs. We've got to get them, George! The police can't help us! It's just you and me, to fight thisthing. And it's diabolical!"

CHAPTER II

We soared over the divided channel of the St. Lawrence, between Orleansand the mainland. Montmorency Falls in a moment showed dimly whitethrough the murk to our left, a great hanging veil of ice higher thanNiagara. Further ahead, the lights of the little village of St. Anne deBeaupré were visible with the gray-black towering hills behind them. 

"Swing left, George. Over the mainland. That's St. Anne. We pass thisside of it. Put the mufflers on. This damn thing roars like a towersiren. "

I cut in the muffler and switched off our wing-lights. It was illegalbut we were past all thought of that. We were both desperate; the slowprudent process of acting within the law had nothing to do with thisaffair. We both knew it. 

Our little plane was dark, and amid the sounds of this night blizzardour muffled engine couldn't be heard. 

Alan touched me. "There are his lights; see them?"

We had passed St. Anne. The hills lay ahead--a wild mountainous countrystretching northward to the foot of Hudson Bay. The blizzard was roaringout of the North and we were heading into it. I saw, on what seemed likea dome-shaped hill perhaps a thousand feet above the river level, asmall cluster of lights which marked Polter's property. 

"Fly over it once, George, " Alan said. "Low--we can chance it. And finda place to land near the walls. "

We presently had it under us. I held the plane at five hundred feet, andcut our speed to the minimum of twenty miles an hour facing the gale, though it was sixty or seventy when we turned. There were a score or twoof hooded ground lights. But there was little reflection aloft, and inthe murk of the snowfall I felt we could escape notice. 

We crossed, turned and went back in an arc following Polter's curvedouter wall. We had a good view of it. A weird enough looking place, hereon its lonely hilltop. No wonder the wealthy "Frank Rascor" had attainedlocal prominence!

The whole property was irregularly circular, perhaps a mile in diametercovering the almost flat dome of the hilltop. Around it, completelyenclosing it, Polter had built a stone and brick wall. A miniature ofthe Great Wall in China! We could see that it was fully thirty feet highwith what evidently were naked high-voltage wires protecting its top. There were half a dozen little gates, securely barred, with doubtless aguard at each of them. 

Within the walls there were several buildings: a few small stone housessuggesting workmen's dwellings; an oblong stone structure with smokefunnels which looked like a smelter; a huge domelike spread oftranslucent glass over what might have been the top of a mineshaft. Itlooked more like the dome of an observatory--an inverted bowl fully ahundred feet wide and equally as high, set upon the ground. What did itcover?

And there was Polter's residence--a castlelike brick and stone buildingwith a tower not unlike a miniature of the Chateau Frontenac. We saw astone corridor on the ground connecting the lower floor of the castlewith the dome, which lay about a hundred feet to one side. 

Could we chance landing inside the wall? There was a dark, level expanseof snow where we could have done it, but our descending plane doubtlesswould have been discovered. But the mile-wide inner area was dark inmany places. Spots of light were at the little wall-gates. There was aglow all along the top of the wall. Lights were on in Polter's house;they slanted out in yellow shafts to the nearby white ground. But forthe rest, the whole place was dark, save a dim glow from under the dome. 

I shook my head at Alan's suggestion that we land inside the walls. Wehad circled back and were a mile or so off toward the river. "Thetrees--and you saw guards down there. But that low stretch outside thegate on this side.... "

A plan was coming to me. Heaven knows it was desperate enough, but wehad no alternative. We would land and accost one of the gate guards. Force our way in. Once inside the wall, on foot in the darkness of thisblizzard, we could hide; slip up to that dome. Beyond that myimagination could not go. 

We landed in the snow a quarter of a mile from one of the gates. We leftthe plane and plunged into the darkness. 

It was a steady upward slope. A packed snowfield was underfoot, firmenough to hold our weight, with a foot or so of loose, soft snow on itstop. The falling flakes whirled around us. The darkness was solid. Ourhelmeted leather-furred flying suits were soon shapeless with agathering white shroud. We carried our Essens in our gloved hands. Thenight was cold, around zero I imagine, though with that biting wind itfelt far colder. 

From the gloom a tiny spot of light loomed up. 

"There it is, Alan. Easy now! Let me go first. " The wind tore away mywords. We could see the narrow rectangle of bars at the gate, with aglow of light behind them. 

"Hide your gun, Alan. " I gripped him. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes. "

"Let me go first. I'll do the talking. When he opens the gate, let mehandle him. You--if there are two of them--you take the other. "

We emerged from the darkness, into the glow of light by the gate. I hadthe horrible feeling that a shot would greet us. A challenge came, atfirst in French and then in English. 

"Stop! What do you want?"

"To see Mr. Rascor. "

We were up to the bars now, shapeless hooded bundles of snow and frost. A man stood in the doorway of a lighted little cubby behind the bars. Ablack muzzle in his hand was leveled at us. 

"He sees no one. Who are you?"

Alan was pressing at me from behind. I shoved him back, and took a stepforward. I touched the bars. 

"My name is Fred Davis. Newspaperman from Montreal I must see Mr. Rascor. "

"You cannot. You may send in your call. The mouthpiece is there--outthere to the left. Bare your face; he talks to no one without the faceimage. "

The guard had drawn back into his cubby; there was only his extendedhand and the muzzle of his weapon left visible. 

I took a step forward. "I don't want to talk by phone. Won't you openthe gate? It's cold out here. We have important business. We'll waitwith you. "

Abruptly the gate lattice slid aside. Beyond the cubby doorway was theopen darkness within the wall. A scuffed path leading inward from thegate showed for a few feet. 

I walked over the threshold, with Alan crowding me. The Essen in my coatpocket was leveled. But from the cubby doorway, I saw that the guard wasgone! Then I saw him crouching behind a metal shield. His voice rangout. 

"Stand!"

A light struck my face--a thin beam from a television sender beside me. It all happened in an instant, so quickly Alan and I had barely time tomake a move. I realized my image was now doubtless being presented toPolter. He would recognize me!

I ducked my head, yelling, "Don't do that!"

It was too late! The guard had received a signal. I heard its buzz. 

From the shield a tiny jet of fluid leapt at me. It struck my hood. There was a heavy sickening-sweet smell. It seemed like chloroform. Ifelt my senses going. The cubby room was turning dark, was roaring. 

I think I fired at the shield. And Alan leapt aside. I heard the fainthiss of his Essen, and his choked, horrified voice:

"George, run! Don't fall!"

I crumpled; slid into blackness. And it seemed, as I went down, thatAlan's inert body was falling on top of me.... 

 * * * * *

I recovered after a nameless interval, a phantasmagoria of wild, druggeddreams. My senses came slowly. At first, there were dim muffled voicesand the tread of footsteps. Then I knew that I was lying on the ground, and that I was indoors. It was warm. My overcoat was off. Then Irealized that I was bound and gagged. 

I opened my eyes. Alan was lying inert beside me, roped and with a blackgag around his face and in his mouth. We were in a huge dim open space. Presently, as my vision cleared, I saw that the dome was overhead. Thiswas a circular, hundred-foot-wide room. It was dimly lighted. Thefigures of men were moving about, their great misshapen shadows shiftingwith them. Twenty feet from me there was a pile of golden rock--chunksof gold the size of a man's fist, or his head, and larger, heapedloosely into a mound ten feet high. 

Beyond this pile of ore, near the center of the room, twenty feet abovethe concrete floor, there was a large hanging electrolier. It cast acircular glow downward. Under it I saw a low platform raised a foot ortwo above the ground. A giant electro-microscope was hung with itstwenty foot cylinder above the platform. Its intensification tubes wereglowing in a dim phosphorescent row on a nearby bracket. A man sat in achair on the platform at the microscope's eyepiece. 

I saw all this with a brief glance, then my attention went to a whitestone slab under the giant lense. It rested on the platform floor, atwo-foot square surface of smooth white marble. A little roped railing afew inches high fenced it. And in its center lay a fragment of goldenquartz the size of a walnut!

There was a movement across my line of vision. Two figures advanced. Irecognized both of them. And I strained at my bonds; mouthed the gagwith futile, frenzied effort. I could no more than writhe; and Icouldn't make a sound. I lay, after a moment exhausted, and stared withhorror. 

The familiar hunched figure of Polter advanced toward the microscope. And with him, his huge hand holding her wrists, was Babs. They werenearly fifty feet from me, but with the light over them I could see themclearly. Babs' slim figure was clad in a long skirted dress--pale blue, now, with the light on it. Her long black hair had fallen disheveled toher shoulders. I couldn't see her face. She did not cry out. Polter washalf dragging her as she resisted him; and then abruptly she ceasedstruggling. 

I heard his guttural voice. "That iss better. "

They mounted the platform. They were very small and seemed to be faraway. I blinked. Horror surged over me. Their figures were dwindling asthey stood there. Polter was saying something to the man at themicroscope. Other men were nearby, watching. All were normal, savePolter and Babs. A moment passed. Polter was standing by the chair inwhich the man at the microscope was sitting. And Polter's head barelyreached its seat! Babs was clinging to him now. Another moment and theywere both tiny figures down by the chair-leg. Then they began walkingwith swaying steps toward the miniature railing of the white slab. Thewhite reflection from the slab plainly illumined them. Polter's arm wasaround Babs. I had not realized how small they were until I saw Polterlift the rope of the little four-inch fence, and he and Babs stooped andwalked under it. The fragment of quartz lay a foot from them in thecenter of the white surface. They walked unsteadily toward it. But soonthey were running. 

My horrified senses whirled. Then abruptly I felt something touch myface! Alan and I were lying in shadow. No one had noticed my writhingmovements, and Alan was still in drugged unconsciousness. Something tinyand light and soundless as a butterfly wing brushed my face! I jerked myhead aside. On the floor, within six inches of my eyes, I saw the tinyfigure of a girl an inch high! She stood, with a warning gesture to herlips--a human girl in a filmy flowing robe. Long, pale golden tresseslay on her white shoulders; her face, small as my little fingernail, colorful as a miniature painted on ivory, was so close to my eyes that Icould see her expression--warning me not to move. 

There was a faint glow of light on the floor where she stood, but in amoment she moved out of it. Then I felt her brush against the back of myhead. My ear was near the ground. A tiny warm hand touched my ear lobe;clung to it. A tiny voice sounded in my ear. 

"Please do not move your head. You might kill me!"

There was a pause. I held myself rigid. Then the tiny voice came again. 

"I am Glora, a friend. I have the drug! I will help you!"

CHAPTER III

It seemed that Alan was stirring. I felt the tiny hand leave my ear. Ithought that I could hear faint little footfalls as the girl scamperedaway, fearful that a sudden movement by Alan would crush her. I turnedcautiously after a moment and saw Alan's eyes upon me. He too had seen, with a blurred returning consciousness, the dwindling figures of Babsand Polter. I followed his gaze. The while slab with the golden quartzunder the microscope seemed empty. The several men in this huge circulardome-room were dispersing to their affairs; three of them sat whisperingby what I now saw was a pile of gold ingots stacked crosswise. But thefellow at the microscope held his place, his eyes glued to its apertureas he watched the vanishing figures of Polter and Babs on therock-fragment. 

Alan was trying to convey something to me. He could only gaze and jerkhis head. I saw behind his head the figures of the tiny girl on thefloor behind him. She wanted evidently to approach his head, but didn'tdare. When for an instant he was quiet, she ran forward, but at oncescampered back. 

From the group by the ingots, one of the men rose and came toward us. Alan held still, watching. And the girl, Glora, seized the opportunityto come nearer. We both heard her tiny voice:

"Do not move! Close your eyes! Make him think you are stillunconscious. "

Then she was gone, like a mouse hiding in the shadows near us. 

Amazement swept Alan's face; he twisted, mouthed at his gag. But he sawmy eager nod and took his cue from me. 

I closed my eyes and lay stiff, breathing slowly. Footsteps approached. A man bent over Alan and me. 

"Are you no conscious yet?" It was the voice of a foreigner, with aqueer, indescribable intonation. A foot prodded us. "Wake up!"

Then the footsteps retreated, and when I dared to look, the man wasrejoining his fellows. It was a strange looking trio. They wereheavy-set men in leather jackets and short, wide knee-length trousers. One wore tight, high boots, and the others a sort of white buckskin, with ankle straps. All were bare-headed--round, bullet heads ofclose-clipped black hair. 

I suddenly had another startling realization. These men were not ofnormal size as I had assumed! They were eight or ten feet tall at thevery least! And they and the pile of ingots, instead of being close tome, were more distant than I had thought. 

Alan was trying to signal me. The tiny girl was again at his ear, whispering to him. And then she came to me. 

"I have a knife. See?" She backed away. I caught the pinpoint gleam ofwhat might have been a knife in her hand. "I will get a little larger. Iam too small to cut your ropes. You lie still, even after I have cutthem. "

I nodded. The movement frightened her so that she leaped backward; butshe came again, smiling. The three men were talking earnestly by theingots. No one else was near us. 

Glora's tiny voice was louder, so that we both could hear it at once. 

"When I free you, do not move or they may see that you are loose. I getlarger now--a little larger--and return. "

She darted away and vanished. Alan and I lay listening to the voices ofthe three men. Two were talking in a strange tongue. One called to theman at the microscope, and he responded. The third man said suddenly:

"Say, talk English. You know damn well I can't understand that lingo. "

"We say, McGuire, the two prisoners soon wake up. "

"What we oughta do is kill 'em. Polter's a fool. "

"The doctor say, wait for him return. Not long, what you call three, four hours. "

"And have the Quebec police up here lookin' for 'em? An' that damn girlhe stole off the Terrace. What did he call her, Barbara Kent?"

"These two who are drugged, their bodies can be thrown in a gully downbehind St. Anne. That what the doctor plan to do, I think. Then thepolice find them--days maybe from now--and their smashed airship withthem. "

Gruesome suggestion!

The man at the microscope called, "They are almost gone I can hardly seethem any more. " He left the platform and joined the others. And I sawthat he was much smaller than they--about my own size possibly. 

There seemed six men here altogether. Four now, by the ingots, and twoothers far across the room where I saw the dark entrance of thecorridor-tunnel which led to Polter's castle. 

Again I felt a warning hand touch my face, and saw the figure of Glorastanding by my head. She was larger now--about a foot tall. She movedpast my eyes; stood by my mouth; bent down over my gag. I felt thecautious slide of a tiny knife-blade inserted under the fabric of thegag. She hacked, tugged at it, and in a moment ripped it through. 

She stood panting from the effort. My heart was pounding with fear thatshe would be seen; but the man had turned the central light off when heleft the microscope, and it was far darker here now than before. 

I moistened my dry mouth. My tongue was thick, but I could talk. 

"Thank you, Glora. "

"Quiet!"

I felt her hacking at the ropes around my wrists. And then at my ankles. It took her a long time, but at last I was free! I rubbed my arms andlegs; felt the returning circulation in them. 

And presently Alan was free. "George, what--" he began. 

"Wait, " I whispered. "Easy! Let her tell us what to do. "

We were unarmed. Two, against these six, three of whom were giants. 

Glora whispered, "Do not move! I have the drugs. But I can not give themto you when I am still so small. I have not enough. I will hide--there. "Her little arm gestured to where, near us, half a dozen boxes werepiled. "When I am large as you, I come back. Be ready, quickly to act. Imay be seen. I give you then the drug. "

"But wait, " Alan whispered. "Tell us--"

"The drug to make you large. Large enough to fight these men. I hadplanned to do that myself, until I saw you held captive. That girl ofyour world the doctor just now steal, she is friend of yours?"

"Yes! But--" A thousand questions were springing in my mind, but thiswas no time to ask them. I amended, "Go on! Hurry! Give us the drug whenyou can. "

The little figure moved away from us and disappeared. Alan and I lay aswe had before. But now we could whisper. We tried to anticipate whatwould happen; tried to plan, but that was futile. The thing was toostrange, too astoundingly fantastic. 

How long Glora was gone I don't know. I think, not over three or fourminutes. She came from her hiding place, crouching this time, and joinedus. She was, probably, of normal Earth size--a small, frail-looking girlsomething over five feet tall. We saw now that she was quite young, still in her teens. We lay staring at her, amazed at her beauty. Hersmall oval face was pale, with the flush of pink upon her cheeks--a facequeerly, transcendingly beautiful. It was wholly human, yet somehowunearthly, as though unmarked by even the heritage of our Earthlystrifes. 

"Now! I am ready. " She was fumbling at her robe. "I will give you eachthe same. "

Her gestures were rapid. She flung a quick glance at the distant men. Alan and I were tense. We could easily be discovered now, but we had tochance it. We were sitting erect. Alan murmured:

"But what do we do? What happens? What--"

On the palm of her hand were two pink-white pellets. "Take these--onefor each of you. Quickly!"

Involuntarily we drew back. The thing abruptly was gruesome, frightening. Horribly frightening. 

"Quickly, " she urged. "The drug is what you call highly radioactive. Andvolatile. Exposed to the air, it is gone very soon. You are afraid? No, I assure you it is not harmful. "

With a muttered curse at his own reluctance, Alan seized the smallpellet. I stopped him. 

"Wait!"

The men momentarily were engaged in a low-voiced, earnest discussion. Idared to hesitate a moment longer. 

"Glora, where will you be?"

"Here. Right here. I will hide. "

"We want to go after Mr. Polter, " I gestured. "Into the little piece ofgolden rock. That's where he went with the Earth girl, isn't it?"

"Yes. My world is there--within an atom there in that rock. "

"Will you take us?"

"Yes! But later. "

Alan whispered vehemently, "Why not now? We could get smaller, now. "

But she shook her head. "That is not possible. We would be seen as weclimbed the platform and crossed the white slab. "

"No, " I protested, "not if we get very small, hiding here first. "

She was smiling, but urgently fearful of this delay. "Should we get thatsmall, then it would be, from here"--she gestured toward themicroscope--"to there, a journey of very many miles. Don't youunderstand?"

This thing so strange!

Alan was plucking at me. "Ready, George?"

"Yes. "

I put the pellet on my tongue. It tasted slightly sweet, but seemed tomelt quickly and I swallowed it hastily. My heart, was pounding, butthat was apprehension, not the drug. A thrill of heat ran through myveins as though my blood were on fire. 

Alan was clinging to me as we sat together. Glora again had vanished. Inthe background of my whirling consciousness the sudden thought hoveredthat she had tricked us; done to us something diabolical. But thethought was swept away in the confused flood of impressions upon me. 

I turned dizzily. "You all right, Alan?"

"Yes, I--I guess so. "

My ears were roaring, the room seemed whirling, but in a moment thatpassed. I felt a sudden growing sense of lightness. A humming was withinme--a soundless tingle. The drug had gone to every tiny microscopic cellin my body. The myriad pores of my skin seemed thrilling with activity. I know now that it was the exuding volatile gas of this disintegratingdrug. Like an aura it enveloped me, acted upon my garments. 

I learned later much of the principles of this and its companion drugbut I had no thought for such things now. The huge dimly illumined roomunder the dome was swaying. Then abruptly it steadied. The strangesensations within me were lessening, or I forgot them, and I becameaware of externals. 

The room was shrinking! As I stared, not with horror now, but withamazement and a coming triumph, I saw everywhere a slow, steady, crawling movement. The whole place was dwindling. The platform, themicroscope, were nearer than before, and smaller. The pile of ingots, and men near there, were shifting toward me. 

"George! My God--this is weird!"

I saw Alan's white face as I turned toward him. He was growing at thesame rate as myself evidently, for in all the scene he only wasunchanged. 

We could feel the movement. The floor under us was shifting, crawlingslowly. From all directions it contracted as though it was beingsqueezed beneath us. In reality our expanding bodies were pushingoutward. 

The pile of boxes which had been a few feet away, were thrustingthemselves at me. I moved incautiously and knocked them over. Theyseemed small now, perhaps half their former size. Glora was standingbehind them. I was sitting and she was standing, but across the litterour faces were level. 

"Stand up!" she murmured. "You all right now. I hide!"

I struggled to my feet, drawing Alan up with me. Now! The time foraction was upon us! We had already been discovered. The men wereshouting, clambering to their feet. Alan and I stood swaying. Thedome-room had contracted to half its former size. Near us was a littleplatform, chair and microscope. Small figures of men were rushing at us. 

I shouted, "Alan! Watch yourself!"

We were unarmed. These men might have automatic weapons. But evidentlythey did not. Only knives were in their hands. The whole place wasringing with shouts. And then a shrill siren alarm from outside startedclanging. 

The first of the men--a few moments before he had seemed a giant--flunghimself upon me. His head was lower than my shoulders. I met him with ablow of my fist in his face. He toppled backward; but from one sideanother figure came at me. A knife-blade bit into the flesh of my thigh. 

The pain seemed to fire my brain. A madness descended upon me. It wasthe madness of abnormality. I saw Alan with two dwarfed figures clingingto him. But he threw them off, and they turned and ran. 

The man at my thigh stabbed again, but I caught his wrist and, as thoughhe were a child, whirled him around me and flung him away. He landedwith a crash against the shrunken pile of gold nuggets and lay still. 

The place was in a turmoil. Other men were appearing from outside. Butthey now stood well away from us. Alan backed against me. His laugh rangout, half hysterical with the madness upon him as it was upon me. 

"God! George, look at them! So small!"

They were now hardly the height of our knees. This was now a smallcircular room, under a lowering concave dome. A shot came from the groupof Pygmy figures. I saw the small stab of flame, heard the zing of thebullet. 

We rushed, with the full frenzy of madness upon us--enraged giants. Whatactually happened I cannot recount. I recall scattering the littlefigures; seizing them; flinging them headlong. A bullet, tiny now, stungthe calf of my leg. Little chairs and tables under my feet werecrashing. Alan was lunging back and forth; stamping; flinging his tinyadversaries away. 

There were twenty or thirty of the figures here now. I feared that theymight produce more up-to-date weapons. But my fears were unfounded: soonI saw these figures making their escape. 

The room was littered with wreckage. I saw that by some miracle ofchance the microscope was still standing, and I had a moment of sanity. 

"Alan! Watch out! The microscope--the platform! Don't smash them! AndGlora be careful not to hurt her!"

I suddenly became aware that my head and my shoulders had struck thedome roof. Why, this was a tiny room! Alan and I found ourselves backedtogether, panting in the small confines of a circular cubby with anarching dome close over us. At our feet the platform with the microscopeover it hardly reached our boot tops. There was a sudden silence, brokenonly by our heavy breathing. The tiny forms of humans strewn around uswere all motionless. The others had fled. 

Then we heard a small voice. "Here! Take this! Quickly! You are toolarge. Quickly!"

Alan took a step. And sudden panic was on us both. Glora was here at ourfeet. We did not dare turn; hardly dared to move. To change positionmight have crushed her now that she had left her hiding place. My leghit the top of the microscope cylinder. It rocked but did not fall. 

Where was Glora? In the gloom we could not see her. We were in a panic. 

Alan began, "George, I--"

The contracting inner curve of the dome bumped gently against my head. Our panic and confusion turned into cold fear. The room was closing into crush us. 

I muttered, "Alan! I'm going out!" I braced myself and heaved againstthe side and top curve of the dome. Its metal ribs and heavytranslucent, reinforced glass plates resisted me. There was an instantwhen Alan and I were desperately frightened. We were trapped, to becrushed in here by our own horrible growth. Then the dome yielded underour smashing blows. The ribs bent; the plates cracked. 

We straightened, pushed upward and emerged through the broken dome, withhead and shoulders towering into the outside darkness and the wind andsnow of the blizzard howling around us. 

CHAPTER IV

"Glora--that was horrible!"

We stood, again in normal size, with the wrecked dome-laboratory aroundus. The dome had a great jagged hole halfway up one of its sides, through which the snow was falling. The broken bodies strewn around weregruesome. 

Alan repeated, "Horrible, Glora. The power of this drug is diabolical. "

Glora had grown large after us and had given us the companion drug. Ineed not detail the strange sensations of our dwindling. We were so soonto experience them again!

We had searched, when still large, all of Polter's grounds. Some of hismen undoubtedly escaped, made off into the blizzard. How many, we neverknew. None of them ever made themselves known again. 

We were ready to start into the atom. The fragment of golden quartzstill lay under the microscope on the white square of stone slab. We hadhurried with our last preparations. The room was chilling. We were allinadequately dressed for such cold. 

I left a note scribbled on a square of paper by the microscope. Withdaylight Polter's wrecked place would be discovered and the police wouldsurely come. 

_Guard this piece of golden quartz. Take it at once, very carefully, tothe Royal Canadian Scientific Society. Have it watched day and night. Wewill return. _

I signed it George Randolph. And as I did so, the extra ordinary aspectof these events swept me anew. Here in Polter's weird place I had beenliving in some strange fantastic realm. But this was the Province ofQuebec, in civilized Canada. These were the Quebec authorities I wasaddressing. 

I flung the thoughts away. "Ready, Glora?"

"Yes. "

Then doubts assailed me. None of Polter's men had gotten large enough tofight us. Evidently he did not trust them with the drug. We could wellbelieve that, for the thing misused, was diabolical beyond humanconception. A single giant, a criminal, a madman, by the power of giantsize alone, could menace and destroy beyond belief. The drug lost, orcarelessly handled, could get loose. Animals, insects eating it, couldroam the Earth, gigantic monsters. Vegetation nourished with the drug, might in a day overrun a big city, burying it with jungle growth!

How terrible a thing, if the realm of smallness were suddenly to emerge, consume this awe inspiring drug! Monsters of the sea, marine organisms, could expand until even the ocean was too small for them. Microbes ofdisease, feeding upon it--

Alan was prodding me. "We're ready, George. "

"Okay, let's go. "

This was not the largeness we were facing now, but smallness. I thoughtof Babs, down there with Polter, beyond the vanishing point in the realmof infinitely small. They had been gone an hour at least. Every momentlost now was adding to Babs' danger. 

Glora sat with us on the platform. Strange little creature! She waswholly calm now; methodical with her last directions. There had been notime for her to tell us anything about herself. Alan had asked her whyshe had come here and how she had gotten the drugs. She waved him away. 

"On the way down. Plenty of time then. "

"How long will it take us?" Alan demanded. 

"Not too long if we are careful with managing the trip. About tenhours. "

And now we were ready to start. She told us calmly:

"I will give you each your share of the drugs, but then you take only asI tell you. "

She produced from her robe several small vials a few inches long. Theywere tightly stoppered. The feel of them was cool and sleek; they seemedto be made of some strange, polished metal. Some of them were tintedblack while the others glowed opalescent. She gave each of us one vialof each kind. 

"The light ones are for diminishing, " she said. "We take them verycarefully, one small pellet only at first. "

Alan was opening one of his, but she checked him. 

"Wait! The drug evaporates very quickly. I have more to say. First wesit here together. Then you follow me to the white slab. We climb uponthe little rock. "

She laid her hands on my arms. Her blue eyes regarded us earnestly. Hermanner was naive; childlike. But I could not mistake her intelligence orthe force of character stamped on her face for all its dainty, etherealbeauty. 

"Alan--" She smiled at him, and tossed back a straying lock of her hairwhich was annoying her. "You pay attention, Alan. You are very young, reckless. You listen. We must not be separated. You understand that, both of you? We will be always in that little piece of rock. But therewill be miles of distance. And to be lost in size--"

What a strange journey upon which we were now starting! Lost in size?

"You understand me? Lost in size. If that happens, we might never findeach other. And if we come upon the Doctor Polter and the girl he holdscaptive--if we can overtake them--"

"We must!" I exclaimed. "And we must get started. "

She showed us which pellet to select. They were of several sizes, Ifound. And as she afterward told us, the larger ones were not onlylarger but of an intensified strength. We took the smallest. It wasbarely a thousandth part of the strength of the largest. In unison weplaced the pellets on our tongues, and hastily swallowed. 

The first sensations were as before. And, familiar now, they caused nomore than a fleeting discomfort. But I think I could never get used tothe outward strangeness!

The room in a moment was expanding. I could feel the platform floorcrawling outward beneath me, so that I had to hitch and change myposition as it pulled. We were seated together, Alan and I on each sideof Glora. My fingers were on her arm. It did not change size, but itslowly drew away with a space opening between us. Overhead, the domeroof, the great jagged hole there, was receding, lifting, moving upwardand away. 

Glora pulled us to our feet. "We had better start now. The distancegrows very far, so quickly. "

We had been sitting within five feet of the stone slab with its fourinch high railing around it. A chair was by the microscope eyepiece. Aswe stood swaying I saw that the chair was huge, and its seat level withmy head. The great barrel-cylinder of the microscope slanted sixty feetupward. The dome roof was a distant spread three hundred feet up in thedimness. The dome-room was a vast arena now. 

Alan and I must have hesitated, confused by the expanding scene--a slow, steady movement everywhere. Everything was drawing away from us. Even aswe stood together, the creeping platform floor was separating us. 

A moment passed. Glora was urging us on vehemently:

"Come! You must not stand there!"

We started walking. The railing around the slab was knee-high. The slabitself was a broad, square surface. The fragment of golden quartz lay inits center. It was now a jagged lump nearly a foot in diameter. 

The platform seemed to shift as we walked; the railing hardly camecloser as we advanced toward it. Then suddenly I realized that it wasreceding. Thirty feet away? No, now it was more than that--a great, thick rope, waist-high, with a huge spread of white surface behind it. 

"Faster!" urged Glora. We ran, and reached the railing. It was higherthan our heads. We ran under it, and cut out upon the white slab--alevel surface, larger now than the whole dome-room had been. 

Glora, like a fawn, ran in advance of us, her robe flying in the wind. She turned to look back. 

"Faster! Faster, or it will be too hard a climb!"

Ahead lay a golden mound of rock. It was widening; raising its topsteadily higher. Beyond it and over it was a vast dim distance. Wereached the rock, breathless, winded. It was a jagged mound like a greatfifty-foot butte. We plunged upon it and began climbing. 

The ascent was steep; precipitous in places. There were little gullies, which expanded as we climbed up them. It seemed as if we would neverreach the top, but at last we were there. I was aware that the drug hadceased its action. The yellow, rocky ground was no longer expanding. 

We came to the summit and stood to get back our breath. Alan and I gazedwith awe upon the top of a rocky hill. Little buttes and strewn boulderslay everywhere. It was all naked rock, ridged and pitted, and everywhereyellow-tinged. 

Overhead was distance. I could not call it a sky. A blur wasthere--something almost but not quite distinguishable. Then I thoughtthat I could make out a more solid blur which might be the lower lens ofthe microscope above us. And there were blurred, very distant spots oflight, like huge suns masked by a haze, and I knew that they were thehooded lights of the laboratory room. 

Before us, over the brink of a five hundred-foot drop, a greatglistening plain stretched into the distance. I seemed to see where itended in a murky blur. And far higher than our hilltop level ahorizontal streak marked the rope railing of the slab. 

"Well, " said Alan. "We're here. " He gazed behind us, back across therocky summit which seemed several hundred feet across to its oppositebrink. He was smiling, but the smile faded. "Now what, Glora? Anotherpellet?"

"No. Not yet. There is a place where we go down. It is marked in mymind. "

I had a sudden ominous sense that we three were not alone up here. Glora led us back from the cliff. As we picked our way among the nakedcrags, it seemed behind each of them an enemy might be lurking. 

"Glora, do you know if any of Dr. Polter's men might have the drug? Imean, do they come in and out of here?"

She shook her head. "I think not. He lets no one have the drug. Hetrusts not anyone. I stole it. I will tell you later. Much I have totell you before we arrive. "

Alan made a sudden, sidewise leap, and dashed around a rock. He cameback to us, smiling ruefully. 

"Gets on your nerves, all of this. I had the same idea you had, George. Might be someone around here. But I guess not. " He took Glora's hand andthey walked in advance of me. "We haven't thanked you yet, Glora, " headded. 

"Not needed. I came for help from your world. I followed the Dr. Polterwhen he came outward. He has made my world and my people, his slaves. Icame for help. And because I have helped you, needs no thanks. "

"But we do thank you, Glora. " Alan turned his flushed, earnest face backto me. I thought I had never seen him so handsome, with his boyish, rugged features and shock of tousled brown hair. The grimness ofadventure was upon him, but in his eyes there was something else. It wasnot for me to see it. That was for Glora; and I think that even then itspresence and its meaning did not escape her. 

We reached a little gully near the center of the hilltop. It was sometwenty feet deep. 

Glora paused. "We descend here. "

The gully was an unmistakable landmark--open at one end, forty feetlong, with the other end terminating in a blind wall which now loomedabove us. 

"A pit is here--a hole. I cannot tell just how large it will look whenwe are in this size. "

We found it and stood over it--a foot-wide circular hole extendingdownward. Alan knelt and shoved his hand and arm into it, but Glorasprang at him. 

"Don't do that!"

"Why not? How deep is it?"

She retorted sharply, "The Doctor Polter is ahead of us. How far away insize, who knows? Do you want to crush him, and crush that young girlwith him?"

Alan's jaw dropped. "Good Lord!"

We stood with the little pit before us, and another of the pelletsready. 

"Now!" said Glora. 

Again we took the drug, a somewhat larger pellet this time. The familiarsensations began. Everywhere the rocks were creeping with a slowinexorable movement, the landscape expanding around us. The gully wallsdrew back and upward. In a moment they were cliff walls and we were in abroad valley. 

We had been standing close together. We had not moved, except to shiftour feet as the expanding ground drew them apart. I became aware thatAlan and Glora were a distance from me. Glora called:

"Come, George! We're going down--quickly now. "

We ran to the pit. It had expanded to a great round hole some six feetwide and equally as deep. Glora let herself down, peered anxiouslybeneath her, and dropped. Alan and I followed. We jammed the pit; but aswe stood there, the walls were receding and lifting. 

I had remarked Glora's downward glance, and shuddered. Suppose, in someslightly smaller size, Babs had been among these rocks!

The pit widened steadily. The movement was far swifter now. We stoodpresently in a great circular valley. It seemed fully a mile indiameter, with huge encircling walls like a crater rim toweringthousands of feet into the air. We ran along the base of one expandingwall, following Glora. 

I noticed now that overhead the turgid murk had turned into the blue ofdistance. A sky. It was faintly sky-blue, and seemed hazy, almost asthough clouds were forming. It had been cold when we started. Theexertion had kept us fairly comfortable; But now I realized that it wasfar warmer. This was different air, more humid, and I thought the smellof moist earth was in it. Rocks and boulders were strewn here on thefloor of this giant valley, and I saw occasional pools of water. Therehad been rain recently!

The realization came with a shock of surprise. This was a new world! Afaint, luminous twilight was around us. And then I noticed that thelight was not altogether coming from overhead. It seemed inherent to therocks themselves. They glowed, very faintly luminous, as thoughphosphorescent. 

We were now well embarked upon this strange journey. We seldom spoke. Glora was intent upon guiding us. She was trying to make the bestpossible speed. I realized that it was a case of judgment, as well asphysical haste. We had dropped into that six-foot pit. Had we waited afew moments longer, the depth would have been a hundred feet, twohundred, a thousand! It would have involved hours of arduous descent--ifwe had lingered until we were a trifle smaller!

We took other pellets. We traveled perhaps an hour more. There were manyinstances of Glora's skill. We squeezed into a gully and waited until itwidened; we leapt over expanding caverns; we slid down a smoothyellowish slide of rocks, and saw it behind and over us, rising tobecome a great spreading ramp extending upward into the blue of the sky. Now, up there, little sailing white clouds were visible. And down wherewe stood it was deep twilight, queerly silvery with the dim light fromthe luminous rocks, as though some hidden moon were shining. 

Strange, new world! I suddenly envisaged the full strangeness of it. Around me were spreading miles of barren, naked landscape. I gazed offto where, across the rugged plateau we were traversing, there was arange of hills. Behind and above them were mountains; serrated tiers;higher and more distant. An infinite spread of landscape! And, as wedwindled, still other vast reaches opened before us. I gazed overhead. Was it--compared to my stature now--a thousand miles, perhaps even amillion miles up to where we had been two or three hours ago? I thoughtso. 

Then suddenly I caught the other viewpoint. This was all only an inch ofgolden quartz--if one were large enough to see it that way!

Alan had been trying to memorize the main topographical features of ourroute. It was not as difficult as it seemed at first. We were always farlarger than normal in comparison to our environment, and the maindistinguishing characteristics of the landscape were obvious--the blindgully, with the round pit, for instance, or the ramp slide. 

We had been traveling some three or four hours when Glora suggested arest. We were at the edge of a broad canyon. The wall towered severalhundred feet above us; but a few moments before, we had jumped down itwith a single leap!

The last pellet we had taken had ceased its action. We sat down to rest. It was a wild, mountainous scene around us, deep with luminous gloom. Wecould barely see across the canyon to its distant cliff wall. The wallbeside us had been smooth, but now it was broken and ridged. There wereravines in it, and dark holes resembling cave-mouths. One was near us. Alan gazed at it apprehensively. 

"I say, Glora, I don't like sitting here. "

I had been telling her all we knew of Polter. She listened quietly, seldom interrupting me. Then she said:

"I understand. I tell you now about Polter as I have seen him. "

She talked for five or ten minutes. I listened, amazed, awed by what shesaid. 

But Alan's insistence interrupted her. "Come on, let's get out of here. That tunnel-mouth, or cave, or whatever it is--"

"But we go in there, " she protested. "A little tunnel. That is our wayto travel. We are not far from my city now. "

Perhaps Alan felt what once was called a hunch, a premonition, thepresage of evil which I think comes strangely to us more often than werealize. Whatever it was, we had no time to act upon it. Thetunnel-mouth which had caused Alan's apprehension was about a hundredfeet away. It was a ten-foot, yawning hole in the cliff. Perhaps Alansensed a movement in there. As I turned to look at it a great, hairyhuman arm came out of the opening! Then a shoulder! A head!

The giant figure of a man came squeezing through the hole on his handsand knees! He gathered himself, and as he stood erect, I saw that he wasgrowing in size! Already he was twenty feet tall compared to us--athick-set fellow, dressed in leather garments, his legs and arms heavilymatted with black hair. He stood swaying, gazing around him. I stared upat his round bullet head, his villainous face. 

He saw us! Stupid amazement struck him, then comprehension. 

He let out a roar and came at us!

CHAPTER V

Glora shouted, "Into the tunnel! This way!" She held her wits and dartedto one side, with Alan and me after her. We ran through a narrow passagebetween two fifty-foot boulders which lay close together. Momentarilythe giant was out of sight, but we could hear his heavy tread andpanting breath. We emerged having passed him. He was taller now. Heseemed confused at our sudden scampering activity. He checked hisforward rush, and ran around the twin boulders. But we had squeezed intoa narrow ravine. He could not follow. He threw a rock. To us it was aboulder. It crashed behind us. To him, we were like scampering insects;he could not tell which way we were about to dart. 

Alan panted, "Glora, does this lead out?"

The little ravine seemed to open fifty feet ahead of us. Alan stopped, seized a chunk of rock, flung it up. I saw the giant's face above us. Hewas kneeling to reach in. The rock hit him on the forehead--a pebble, but it stung him. His face rose away. 

Again we emerged. The tunnel-mouth was near us. We reached it and flungourselves into its ten-foot width just as the giant came lunging up. Hewas far larger than before. Looking back, I could see only the lowerpart of his legs blocked against the outer light. 

"Glora! Alan, where are you?"

For a moment I did not see them. It was darker in this tunnel of brokenrocky walls, and jagged arching roof than outside. 

Then I heard Alan's voice: "George! Over here!"

They came running to me. For a moment we stood, undecided. My eyes werebecoming accustomed to the gloom. The tunnel was illumined by a dimphosphorescence from the rocks. I saw Alan fumbling for his vials, butGlora stopped him. 

"No. We are the right size. "

We were about a hundred feet back from the opening. The giant's legsdisappeared. But in a moment the round, light hole of the exit wasobscured again. His head and shoulders! He was lying prone. His greatarms came in. He hitched forward. The width of his expanding shoulderswedged. 

I think that he expected to reach us with a single snatch of histremendous arms. Or perhaps he was confused, or forgot his growth. Hedid not reach us. His shoulders stuck. Then suddenly he was trying toback out, but could not!

It was only a moment. We stood in the radiant gloom of the tunnel, confused and frightened. The giant's voice roared, reverberating aroundus. Anger. A note of fear. Finally stark terror. He heaved, but therocks of the opening held solid. Then there was a crack, a gruesomerattling, splintering--his shoulder bones breaking. His whole giganticbody gave a last convulsive lunge, and he emitted a deafening shrillscream of agony. 

I was aware of the tunnel-mouth breaking upward. Falling rocks--anavalanche, a cataclysm around us. Then light overhead. 

The giant's crushed body lay motionless. A pile of boulders, rocks andloose metallic earth was strewn upon his head and torso, illumined bythe outer light through a jagged rent where the cliff-face had fallendown. 

We were unhurt, crouching back from the avalanche. The giant's mangledbody was still expanding; shoving at the litter of loose rocks. In amoment it would again be too small for the broken cliff opening. 

I found my wits. "Alan, we've got to get out of here. God--don't you seewhat's happening?"

But Glora restrained us. She realized that the effect of the drug thegiant had taken was about at its end. The growth presently stopped. Thathuge noisome mass of pulp which once had been human shoulders no longerexpanded. 

I shoved Glora away. "Don't look!" I was shaking; my head was reeling. Alan's face, painted by the phosphorescence, was ghastly. 

Glora pulled at us. "This way! The tunnel is not too long. We go. "

But the giant had drugs, and perhaps weapons. "Wait!" I urged. "You twowait here. I'll climb over him. "

I told them why, and ran. I can only leave to the imagination that briefexploratory climb. The broken body seemed at least a hundred feet long;the mangled shoulders and chest filled the great torn hole in the cliff. I climbed over the litter. Indescribable, horrible scene! A river ofwarm blood was flowing down the declivity outward.... 

I came back to Glora and Alan. Under my arm was a huge cylinder vial. Itwas black, the enlarging drug. I set it down. They stared at me in mybloodstained garments. 

"George! You're--"

"His blood, not mine. " I tried to smile. "Here's the drug he carried. Evidently Polter was only sending him out because I found just the onedrug. "

"What'll we do with it?" Alan demanded. "Look at the size of it!"

"Destroy it, " said Glora. "See, that is not difficult. " She tugged atthe huge stopper, and exposed a few of the pellets--to us as large asapples. "The air will soon spoil it. "

We left it in the tunnel. I also had with me a great roll of paper whichhad been folded in the giant's belt, with the drug cylinder. We unrolledit, and hauled its folds to a spread some ten feet long. It was coveredwith a scrawled handwriting in pencil, but its giant characters seemedthick blurred strokes of charcoal. We could not read it; we were tooclose. Alan and Glora held it up against the tunnel wall. From adistance I could make it out. It was a note written in English, signed"Polter, " evidently to one of his men. 

It read:

_The two prisoners, kill them at once. That is better. It will be toodangerous to wait for my return. Put their bodies with their airplane. Crash it a mile from my gate. _

Full directions for our death followed. And Polter said he would returnby dawn or soon after. 

That gave me a start. By dawn! We had been traveling four or five hours. It was already dawn up there now!

"No, " Glora explained, "the time in here is different. A differenttime-rate. I do not know how much difference. My world speeds faster;yours is very slow. It is not the dawn up there quite yet. "

Again my mind strove to encompass these things--so strange. A fastertime-rate prevailed in here? Then our lives were passing more quickly. We were living, experiencing things, compressed into a shorter interval. It was not apparent: there was nothing to which comparison could bemade. I recalled Alan's description of Polter--not thirty years old ashe should have been, but nearer fifty. I could understand that, now. Aday in here was equal to only a few hours on our gigantic world outside. 

We walked the length of the tunnel. I suppose it was a quarter of amile, to us in this size. It wound through the cliff with a steadydownward slope. And suddenly I realized that we had turned downwardnearly half the diameter of a circle! We had turned over--or at least itseemed so. But the gravity was the same. I had noticed from thebeginning very little change. 

The realization of this tunnel brought a mental confusion. I lost allsense of direction. The outer world of Earth was under my feet, insteadof overhead. Then we went level. I forgot the confusion: this wasnormality here. We turned upward a little. Cross tunnels intersectedours at intervals. I saw caverns, open, widened tunnels, as though thismountain were honeycombed. 

"Look!" said Glora. "There is the way out. All these passages lead thesame way. "

There was a glow of light ahead. I recall that I was at that momentfumbling at my belt in two small compartments in which I was carryingthe two vials of the drugs which Glora had given me. Alan wore the samesort of belt. We had found them in the wrecked dome-room. I heard aclick on the ground at my feet. I was about to stoop to see what I hadkicked--only a loose stone, perhaps--but Glora's words distracted me. Idid not stoop. If only I had, how different events might have been!

The glow of light ahead of us widened as we approached, and presently westood at the end of the tunnel. A spread of open distance was outside. We were on a ledge of a steep rocky wall some fifty feet above a widelevel landscape. Vegetation! I saw trees--a forest off to the left. Arange of naked hills lay behind it. A mile away, in front and to theright, a little town nestled on the shore of shining water. There wasstarlight on the water! And over it a vast blue-purple sky was studdedwith stars. 

I gazed, with that first sudden shock of emotion, into the infinitedepths of interplanetary space! Light years of distance. Giganticworlds, blazing suns off there shrunken by distance now to little pointsof light. A universe was here!

But this was an inch of golden quartz!

Above my head were stars which, compared to my bodily size now, werevast worlds ten thousand light-years away! Yet, from the otherviewpoint, I had only descended perhaps an eighth, or a quarter of aninch, beneath the broken pitted surface of a little fragment of goldenquartz the size of a walnut--into just one of its myriads of goldenatoms!

CHAPTER VI

"My world, " Glora was saying. "You like it? See the starlight on thelake? I have heard that your world looks like this at night, in summer. Ours is always like this. No day, no night. Just like this--starlight. "Her hand went to Alan's shoulder. "You like it? My world?"

"Yes, Glora. It's very beautiful. "

There was a sheen on everything, a soft, glowing sheen ofphosphorescence from the rocks rising to meet the pale wan starlight. The night air was soft, with a gentle breeze that rippled the distantlake into a great spread of gold and silver light. 

The city was called Orena. I saw at once that we were about normal sizein relation to its houses and people. There were fields beneath ourledge, with farm implements lying in them; no workers, for this was thetime for sleep. Ribbons of roads wound over the country, pale streamersin the starlight. 

Glora gestured, "The giants are on their island. Everyone sleeps now. You see the island off there?"

Beyond the city, over the low stone roofs of its flat-topped dwellings, the silver spread of lake showed a green-clad island some three milesoff shore. The distance made its white stone houses seem small. But asI gazed, I realized that they were large compared to their environment, all far larger than those of the little town. The island was perhaps amile in length. Between it and the mainland a boat was coming toward us. It was a dark blob of hull on the shining water, and above it a queerlyshaped circular sail was puffed out, like a balloon parachute, by thewind. 

"The giants live there?" said Alan. "You mean Polter's men?"

"And women. Yes. "

"Are there many giants?"

"No. "

"How many?" I put in. "How large are they? In relation to us now, Imean. And to your normal size?"

"You ask so many questions so fast, George. There are two hundred ormore of the giants. And there are more than that many thousands of ourpeople, here. Slaves, because the giants are four times as large. Thislittle city, these fields, these hills of stone and metal, all this wasours to have in peace and happiness until your Polter came. "

She gestured. "Everywhere is a great reach of desert and forest. Thereare insects, but no wild beasts--nothing to harm us. Nature is kindhere. The weather is always like this. We were happy, until Poltercame. "

"And only a few thousand people, " Alan said. "No other cities?"

"What lies off in the great distance, we do not know. Our nation is tentimes what is here. We have a few other cities, and some of our peoplelive in the forests. "

She broke off. "That boat is coming for Polter. He is in the city nodoubt of that. The boat will take him and that girl you call Babs, tothe giant's island. His castle is there. "

I turned to Alan. "They must have arrived only recently. Before we goany further we have to decide what size to be. We can't be giganticbecause I'm sure he'd kill Babs if he sees us. We've got to plan!"

If we could get on that boat and go with him to the island--But in whatsize? Very small? But then, if we were very small it would take us hoursto get from here to the boat. Glora pointed out where it wouldland--just beyond the village where the houses were set in a sparsefringe. It would be there, apparently, in ten or fifteen minutes. Polterprobably was there now with Babs, waiting for it. 

In our present size we could not get there in time. It was two or threemiles at least. But a trifle larger--the size of one of Polter'sgiants--we would be able to make it. We would be seen, but in the palestarlight, keeping away from the city as much as possible, we might onlybe mistaken for Polter's people. And when we got closer we woulddiminish our size, creep into the boat, get near Babs and Polter andthen plan what to do. 

We climbed down from the ledge and stood at the base of the toweringcliff which reared its jagged wall against the stars. A field and a roadwere near us. The road seemed of normal size. A man was in the field. Hewas apparently about my height. He presently discarded his work, walkedaway from us and vanished. 

"Hurry, Glora. " Alan and I stood beside her while she took pellets fromher vials. We wanted our stature now to be four times what it was. Gloragave us pellets of both drugs, one of which was slightly more intensethan the other. 

"Polter made them this way, " she said. "The two taken at once give justthe growth to take us from this normal size to the stature of thegiants. "

Alan and I did not touch our own vials. We had used none of ourenlarging drug upon the journey, and the supply she had given us of theother was almost gone. 

As I took these pellets which Glora now gave us, standing there by theside of that road, I recall that I was struck with the realization thatnever once upon this journey had I conceived myself to be other thannormal stature. I am normally about six feet tall. I still felt--therein that golden atom--the same height. This landscape seemed of normalsize. There were trees nearby--spreading, fantastic-looking growths withgreat strings of pods hanging from them. But still--as I looked up tosee one arching over me with its blue-brown leaves and an air-vinecarrying vivid yellow blossoms--whatever the size of the tree, I couldonly conceive of myself as a normal man of six-foot stature standingbeneath it. The human ego always supreme! Around each man'sconsciousness of himself the entire universe revolves. 

We crouched on the ground when this growth now began; it would not do tobe observed changing size. Polter's giants never did that. Years before, he had made them large--his few hundred men and women. They were, Glorasaid, people both of this realm and from our great worldabove--dissolute criminal characters who had now set themselves up hereas the nucleus of a ruling race. 

In a moment now, we were the size of these giants. Twenty to twenty-fivefeet tall, in relation to the environment. But I did not feel so. As Istood up--still feeling myself in normal stature--I saw around me ashrunken little landscape. The trees, as though in a Japanese garden, were about my own height; the road was a smooth, level path; the littlefield near us had a toy fence around it. On another road nearby a manwas walking. In height he would barely have reached my knees. He saw usrise beside the trees. He darted off in alarm, and disappeared. 

I have taken longer to tell all this than the actual time which passed. We could see the boat coming from the island, and it was still a fairdistance off shore. We ran along the road, skirting the edge of thelittle town. None of its houses were taller than ourselves. The windowsand doorways were ovals into which we could only have inserted a head oran arm. Most of them were dark. Little people occasionally stared out, saw us run past, and ducked back, thankful that we did not stop toharass them. 

"This way, " said Glora. She ran like a faun, hardly winded, with Alanand me heavily panting behind her. "There are trees--thick trees--quitenear where the boat lands. We can get in them and hide and change oursize to smallness. But hurry, for we shall need a great deal of timewhen we are small!"

The little spread of town and the shining lake remained always to ourright. In five minutes we were past most of the houses. A patch ofwoods, with thick, interlacing treetops about our own height, lay ahead. It extended a few hundred feet over to the lake shore. The sailboat washeading in close. There was a broad starlit roadway at the edge of thelake, and a dock at which the boat was preparing to land. 

Would we be in time? I suddenly feared not. To get small now, withdistance lengthening between us and the boat, would be disastrous. Andwhere was Polter?

Abruptly we saw him. There had been only little people visible to us:none of our own height. The lake roadway by the dock was brightlystarlit. As we approached the intervening patch of woods it seemed thata crowd of little people were near the dock. Polter must have beensitting. But now he rose up. We could not mistake his thick hunchedfigure, the lump on his shoulders clear in the starlight with thegleaming lake as a background. The crowd of little figures were millingaround his knees. In the silence of the night the murmur of their voicesfloated over to us. 

"There he is!" Alan gasped. We all three checked our running; we were atthe edge of the patch of woods. "By God, there he is! Let's get largerand rush him! He's only a few hundred feet away!"

But Babs? Where was Babs?

"Alan, get down!" I crouched, pulling Alan and Glora with me. "Don't lethim see us! We can't rush him Alan, 'til we find Babs. He'd see uscoming and kill her. "

Of all the strange events that had been flung at us, I think this suddencrisis now most confused Alan and me.... To get larger, or smaller?Which? Yet something had to be done at once. 

Glora said, "We can get through the woods best in this size. We won't beseen and will be closer to the landing. "

We crouched so that the treetops were always well over us. The patch ofwoods was dark. A soil of black loam was under us, a thick softunderbrush reached our knees, and lacy, flexible leaves and brancheswere about shoulder height. We pushed them aside, forcing our way softlyforward. It was not far. The little murmuring voices of the crowd grewlouder. 

Presently we were crouching at the other edge of the woods. I softlyshoved the tree branches aside until we could all three get a clear viewof the strange scene now directly before us. 

And I saw a toy dock, at which a twenty-foot, bargelike open sailboatwas landing; a narrow starlit roadway, crowded with a milling throng ofpeople all no more than a foot and a half in height. The crowd milledalmost to where we were crouching, unseen in the shrubbery. 

Across the road by the dock, Polter stood with the crowd down around hisknees. In height he seemed the old familiar Polter. Bareheaded, with hisshaggy black hair shot with white. He was dressed in Earth fashion:narrow black evening trousers and a white shirt and collar with flowingblack tie. I saw at once what Alan had noticed--the change in him. Anabnormality of age. I would have called him now forty, or older. Beyondeven that there was an abnormality. A man old before his time; oryounger than he should have been for the years he had lived. Anindescribable mingling of something of the two worlds, perhaps. Itmarked him with a look at once unnatural and sinister. 

These were instant impressions. Glora was plucking at me. "On the whitechest of his shirt, something is there. "

Polter was coatless, with snowy white shirt and cuffs to his thickwrists. He was no more than fifty feet from us. On his shirt bosomsomething golden in color was hanging like a large bauble, an ornament, an insignia. It was strapped tightly there with a band about his chest, a cord, like a necklace chain, up to his thick hunched neck, and otherchains down to his belt. 

I stared at it. An ornament, like a cube held flat against his shirtfront--a little golden cube, ornate with tiny bars. 

I heard Alan murmuring, "A cage! Why George, it's--"

And then, simultaneously, realization struck me. It was a golden cagestrapped there. And I seemed to see that there was something in it. Atiny figure? Babs!

"I think he has her there, " Glora murmured. "You see the little box withbars? The girl, Babs, is a prisoner in there. " She spoke swiftly, vehemently. "He will take the boat to the island. "

She gripped us. "You think it really best to go? I do what you say. Ihad the wish to get to my father with these drugs. "

"No!" exclaimed Alan. "We must keep close to Polter!"

We were ready with our pellets. But a sudden activity in the road madeus pause. The crowd of little people were hostile to Polter. A sullenhostility. They milled about him as he stood there, gazing down at themsardonically. 

And abruptly he shouted at them in English. "You speak my language, someof you. Then listen!"

The crowd fell silent. 

"Listen. This iss your future Queen. Can you see her? She iss small now. But she has the magic power. Soon she will be large, like me. "

The crowd was shouting again. It surged forward, but it lacked a leader, and those in advance shoved backward in fear. 

Polter spoke again. "This girl from my world, you will like her. She isskind and very beautiful. When she iss large, you will see howbeautiful. "

A small stone suddenly came up from the throng of little people andstruck Polter on the shoulder. Then another. The crowd, emboldened, madea rush: surged against his legs. 

He shouted, "You do that? Why, how dare you? I show you what giants dowhen you make dem angry!"

From down by his knees he plucked the small figure of a man. The crowdscattered with shouts of terror. Polter had the struggling eighteen-inchfigure by the wrist. He whirled it around his head like a ninepin andflung it over the canopy of the dock far out into the shimmering lake!

CHAPTER VII

The trees around us expanded to towering forest giants. The underbrushrose up over our heads. We had taken a taste of the diminishing drug. Glora showed us how to touch it to our tongue several times, to adjustour size as we became smaller. It took us no more than a minute todiminish. We could hear the roar of the crowd, and Polter's voiceshouting. We ran forward through the great forest. It was a fairdistance out to the starlit road. We saw it as a wide shining esplanade. The people now were giants twice our height! Polter, himself toweringwith a seeming fifty-foot stature, was standing by the gigantic canopyof the dock. He had dispersed the crowd. There was an open space on theesplanade--a run for us of about a hundred feet. 

"We've got to chance it, " I murmured. "Make a run for it--now. "

We darted across. In the confusion, with all eyes centered on Polter, weescaped discovery. It was dim under the dock canopy. Polter had backedfrom the road and was walking to the barge. It lay like the length of anocean liner, its sail looming an enormous spread above it. The gunwalewas level with the dock. A dozen or more fifty-foot men were greetingPolter. They were amidships. 

I realize now that in those moments as we scurried aboard like wharfrats, we took wild chances. We made for the stern which momentarily wasunoccupied. To Polter and his men we were eight or nine inches tall. Wedropped over the gunwale, slid down the thirty or forty-foot incline ofthe interior and landed on the bottom of the boat. 

There were many places where we could safely hide. A litter of giganticrope-strands was around us. We could see the bottom of a crossbenchlooming over head, and the great curving sides of the vessel with thegunwales outlined against the starlight. 

The boat left the dock in a moment; the sail bellied out, enormous overus. Ten feet forward from us the towering figure of a man sat on a benchwith the steering mechanism before him. Further on, the other men weredispersed, with one or two in the distant bow. Polter reclined on acushioned couch amidships. Looking along the dark widely level bottomof the boat there were only the feet and legs of men visible. 

Alan whispered, "Let's get closer. "

We were insects soundlessly scuttling unnoticed in the dimness. It wasnoisy down here--the clank of the steering mechanism; the swish andsurge of the water against the hull; the voices of the men. 

We passed the boots of the seated helmsmen, and found another hidingplace nearer Polter. We could see his giant length plainly. None of theother men were near him. He was reclining on an elbow, stretched at easeon a cushion. And at the moment, he was fumbling with the chains thatfastened the little golden cage to his chest. The cage was double itsformer size to us now. A shaft of pale light came down, reflected fromthe great sail surface overhead. It struck the bars of the cage. Wecould see a small figure in there. 

Then we heard Polter's voice. "I will let you out, Babs. You come out, sit on my hand and talk with me. That will be nice? We haf a littletime. "

He unfastened the cage and put it on the cushion beside him. He wasstill propped up on one elbow. 

"I let you out, now. Be careful, Babs. "

My heart was almost smothering me. "Alan! We've got to get still closer!Try something! Get large, shall we?"

Alan whispered tensely, "I don't know! I don't know what to do. "

"We can get closer, " Glora whispered. "But never larger--not here. Theywould discover us too soon. "

We crept forward. We reached the edge of the cushion. Its top surfacewas a trifle lower than our heads--a billowing, wrinkled mass of fabric. But I saw that the folds of it were rough enough to afford a footing. Ithought that I could climb it. We stood erect. There was a deep shadowalong here, but it was brighter on the cushion top. We could see overits edge; an undulating spread of surface with the giant length ofPolter stretched over it. The cage was near us. Polter's great fingersfumbled with it; a door in the lattice bars flipped open. 

"Careful, my Babs!" His voice was a throaty, rumbling roar above us. "Careful! I do not want you to be hurt. "

From the little doorway came the figure of Babs! The starlight glowed onher blue dress; her black hair was tumbling over her shoulders; her facewas pale but she was unharmed. 

I think that I had never loved her so much as at that moment. Nor everseen her so beautiful as in miniature, standing at the door of hergolden cage, bravely facing the monstrous misshapen figure of hercaptor. 

We heard her small voice. 

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stand quiet. Now I put my hand for you. "

His monstrous hand bristled with a thatch of heavy black hair. He slidit carefully along the cushion. Babs was barely the length of one of itsfinger joints. She climbed upon its palm. 

"That iss right, Babs. Now I bring you--hold tight to my finger. Here, Icrook the little one. Fling your arms around it. "

With a swoop his hand took her aloft and away. Then we saw her, twentyfeet or so in the air, still on his hand as he held it near his face. 

"Now we haf a little talk, Babs. When we get to the island, I put youback in your cage. "

I had a sudden flash of realization. There was something I could do. Iknow now my judgment was bad. I recall it struck me that Alan would wantto do it also. And, perhaps, even Glora. But that wouldn't work. Mychances, however desperate, were better alone. Glora and Alan--in ourpresent size--could doubtless disembark safely. Glora knew the layoutof the island. And she could follow Polter. 

Alan and Glora were standing beside me peering over that billowingcushion spread toward the distant giant palm with Babs standing upon it. I gripped Alan's shoulder. 

"See here, Alan, " I whispered vehemently: "What ever happens, we mustfollow Polter. Glora knows the way. Some opportunity will come to getlarge without being discovered. Then we'll rush Polter!"

Alan's white face turned to me. "Yes, that's what we're planning. ButGeorge, here on this boat--"

"Of course not. Can't do it here. Tell Glora, to be sure to followPolter. Whatever happens, you'll think of nothing else: you won't willyou?"

"George, what--"

"We've got to make some opportunity. " I was trembling inside, fearfulthat Alan would be suspicious of me. Yet I had to make sure that he andGlora would stay as close to Polter as possible. 

"All right, " Alan agreed. "Listen to them. "

Polter was talking to Babs. But I didn't hear the words I moved a trifleaway. Rash decision! I hardly decided anything. There was only thevision of Babs before me and my love for her. My desperate need of doingsomething; getting to her, seeing her, being with her. I wanted her nearmy own size again as though the blessed normality of that wouldrationalize and lessen her danger. If only I had been less rash! If onlyback there in that tunnel I had stopped to see what it was my footkicked against!

I slid away. Alan and Glora did not notice it; they were whisperingtogether and gazing over the cushion at Babs. In the shadow of thecushion I moved some ten feet. On the undulating top of the cushion thelittle golden cage stood with its lattice door open. It was a few feetfrom my face. 

I fumbled at my belt for the diminishing vial. I found one pellet left. Well, that would be enough. I was hurried. Alan might discover me. Polter might put Babs back in the cage and close its door. We might benear the island already, and the confusion, the activity of disembarkingwould defeat me. A thousand things might happen. 

I touched the pellet to my tongue. In a few seconds the drug action hadcome and passed. The cushion top loomed well over my head. The side wasa ridged, indescribably unnatural vista of cliff wall. The fabric wascoarse with hairy strands, dented into little ravines and crevices. Iclimbed and I came panting to the pillow surface. The golden cage wassix or eight feet away and was now two feet high. 

Again I touched the drug to my tongue; held it an instant. The cage drewaway; grew to a normal six-foot height; then larger, until in a momentit stopped. I stood peering at it, trying to gauge its size in relationto me. I wanted so intensely now to appear normal in Babs' eyes. Thecage seemed about ten feet high. A little less, possibly. I barelytasted the pellet, and replaced it carefully in the vial. I could onlyhope its efficacy would be preserved. 

I had to chance that I wouldn't be seen while crossing this billowyexpanse. I ran. The rope strands of the fabric now had spaces betweentheir curving surfaces. The cage was a shining golden house, set on thiswide rolling area. Far in the distance there was a blur--Polter'sreclining body. 

I reached the cage. It was a room about ten feet square and equally ashigh. Walled solid, top and bottom, and on three sides. The front was alattice of bars, with a narrow six-foot doorway, standing open now. 

I dashed in. The interior was not wholly bare. There was a metal-wroughtcouch fastened to the wall, with a railing around it and handles. Itsuggested a ship's bunk. There was a railing at convenient height allaround the wall. 

I sought a hiding place. I saw just one--under the couch. It wassecluded enough. There was a grillelike lattice extending down from theseat to the floor. I squeezed under one end, and lay wedged behind thegrille. 

How much time passed I don't know. My thoughts were racing. Babs wouldbe coming. 

I heard the distant approaching rumble of Polter's voice. Through thegrille I could see across the floor of the ten foot cage to the frontlattice bars. Outside, there appeared a huge, pink-white, mottledblob--Polter's hand, a ridged and pitted surface with great, bristlingblack stalks of hair. 

The figure of Babs came through the cage doorway. Blessed normality! Thesame slim little Babs who always stood, since we were both matured, withher head about level with my shoulders. 

The latticed door swung shut with a reverberating metallic clank. Babsstood tense, clinging to the wall railing. I heard the blurred rumble ofPolter's voice. 

"Hold tightly, my little Babs!"

The room lurched; went upward and sidewise with a wild dizzying swoop. Babs clung to the rail and I was wedged prone under the couch. Then themovement stopped; there was a jolting, rocking, and outside I heard theclank of metal. Polter was fastening the chains of the cage to hischest. 

A white glow now came through the bars. It was starlight reflecting fromPolter's shirt bosom. An abyss of distance was outside. I could seenothing but the white glow. 

Momentarily there was very little movement in the room. Only therhythmic sway of Polter's breathing and an occasional jolt as he shiftedhis position. The floor was tilted at a sharp angle. Babs came towardthe couch, pulling herself along the wall railing. 

I called softly, "Babs!"

She stopped. I called again, "Babs! Don't cry out! It's George!Here--stand still!"

She gave a little cry. "George--where are you? I don't--"

I slid out from my concealment and stood up, holding to the railing. 

Blessed normality of size! She cried again, "George! You! How did youget here?"

She edged along the railing, a step or two down the tilting floor, thenreleased her hold and flung herself into my waiting arms. 

"I think we are landing. Hold on to the railing, George. When the roommoves it goes with a rush. "

Babs laughed softly. It must have seemed to her, after being alone inhere, that now our plight was far less desperate. She had told me howshe was captured. A man accosted her on the Terrace, saying he wanted tospeak to her about Alan. Then a weapon threatened her. Amid all thosepeople she was held up in old-fashioned style, hurried to a taxicar andwhirled away. 

She was saying now, "When Polter moves, it is dizzying. You'll see. "

"I have already, Babs. Heavens, what a swoop!"

The room was more level now. We carefully drew ourselves to the frontlattice. Polter was standing, and we had the white sheen from his shirtfront. A sheer drop was outside the bars, but looking down I could seethe outlines of his body with the huge spread of the boat's cockpitunderneath us. 

A confusion of rumbling voices sounded. Blurred giant shapes wereoutside. The room jolted and swayed as the boat landed and Polterdisembarked. 

Babs stood clinging to me. We, at least, were normal in this metalbarred room, Babs and I. But outside was the abnormality of largeness. Ithink that in relation to us, the men were of over two hundred-footstature, and the hunched Polter a trifle less. It seemed as he walkedthat we were lurching at least a hundred and fifty feet above ground. 

"You had better hide, " Babs urged. "He might stop and speak to someone. If anyone looked in here you would be seen; no chance then, even to getacross the room. "

It was true. But for a few moments I lingered. I could distinguishvegetation on their flat roof-tops, as though flower gardens were laidthere. 

We passed a house with its hundred-foot oval windows all aglow withlight. Music floated out--a distant blare of sounds, and the ribaldlaughter of giant voices. I had seen no women among these giants of theisland. But now a huge face was at one of the ovals. A dissolute, painted woman of Earth, staring out at Polter as he passed. It was likethe enormous close-up image on a large motion picture screen. Sheshouted ribald jest as he went by. 

"George, please go back. Suppose she had seen you?"

We were ascending a hill. A distance ahead a great oblong buildingloomed like a giant's palace, which indeed it was. We headed for it, passed through a vast arching doorway into the greater dimness of anechoing interior. I scurried back across the lurching room and againwedged myself under the couch. Babs stood at the lattice ten feet away. We dared to talk in low tones; the rumbling voices and footsteps outsidewould make our tiny voices inaudible to Polter. 

I was tense with my plans. I had told them to Babs. With the oneremaining partially used pellet of the diminishing drug we could makeourselves small enough to walk out through the bars. Then my black vialof the enlarging drug, as yet unused, would take us up, out to our ownworld. We could not use the drugs now. But the chance might come whenPolter would set the cage on the ground, or somewhere so that we mightclimb down from it, with a chance to hide and get large before we werediscovered. I would fight our way upward; all I needed was a fair startin size. 

But I lay now with doubts assailing me. This was the first moment I hadhad for calm thoughts, though in truth they were far from calm! WereAlan and Glora following us now? I could only hope so. Once out of this, Babs and I would have to rejoin them. But how? Panic swept me. Ishouldn't have left them. Or at least I should have told them what I wastrying to do, and given Alan a chance to plan. 

The panic grew, the premonition of disaster. From my belt I took theopalescent vial with its one partially used pellet. I dumped the pelletout. It was spoiling! The exposure to the air and the moisture of mytongue, had ruined it! I realized the catastrophe, as I held itscrumbling, deliquescing fragments on my palm it melted into vapor andwas gone!

We couldn't make ourselves smaller! Now we'd have to wait until Polteropened the cage. But once outside, the enlarging drug would give us ourchance to fight our way upward. My trembling fingers sought the blackvial in my belt. It wasn't there! My mind flung back: in that tunnel, something had dropped and I had kicked it! Accursed chance! My accursed, heedless stupidity!

I had lost the black vial! We were helpless! Caged! Marooned here in asize microscopic!

CHAPTER VIII

I lay concealed and Babs stood at the lattice of our cage room. I wasaware that Polter had entered some vast apartment of this giant palace. The light outside was brighter; I heard voices--Polter's and anotherman's. I could see the distant monster shape of one. He was at first sofar away that all his outline was visible. A seated man in a huge whiteroom. I thought there were great shelves with enormous bottles. Thespread of table tops passed under our cage as Polter walked by them. They held a litter of apparatus, and there was the smell of chemicals inthe air. This seemed to be a laboratory. 

The man stood up to greet Polter. I had a glimpse of his head andshoulders. He wore a white linen coat, open, soft collar and black tie. He seemed an old man, queerly old, with snow-white hair. 

I had an instant of whirling impressions. Something was familiar abouthis face. It was wrinkled and seamed with lines of age and care. Therewere gentle blue eyes. 

Then all I could see was the vast spread of his white shirt and coat, ablack splotch of his tie outside our bars as Polter faced him. 

Babs gave a low cry. "Why--why--dear God--"

And then I knew! And Polter's words were not needed, though I heardtheir rumble. 

"I am back again, Kent. Are you still rebellious? You haf stilldetermined to compound no more of our drugs? You would rather I killedyou? Then see what I haf here. This little cage, someone--"

It was Dr. Kent whom he addressed. He must have been here all theseyears!

Babs turned her white face toward me. "George, it's father! He's alive!"

"Quiet, Babs! Don't let him know I'm here. Remember!"

The old man recognized her. "Babs!" It was an agonized cry. The blur ofhim was gone as he sank down into his chair. 

Polter continued standing, I could envisage his sardonic grin. 

From over us came Polter's rumble. "She iss glad to see you, Kent. I hafher here, safe. You always knew I would nefer be satisfied until I hadmy little Babs? Well, now I haf her. Can you hear me?"

A sudden desperate calmness fell on Babs. She called evenly. "Yes, Ihear you. Father, don't anger him. Do what he says. Dr. Polter, will youlet me be with my father? After all these years, let me be with him, just for a little while. In his size--normal. "

"Hah! My Babs iss scheming. "

"No, I want to talk to him, after all these years when I thought he wasdead. "

"Scheming? You think, my little Babs, that he has the drugs? I am not somuch a fool. He makes them. He can do that. And that last secretreaction, only he can perform. He iss stubborn. Never would he tell methat one reaction. But he makes no drugs complete, only when I am here. "

"No, Dr. Polter! I want only to be with him. "

The old man's broken voice floated up to us. "You won't harm her, Polter?"

"No. Fear nothing. But you no longer rebel?"

"I'll do what you tell me. " The tones carried hopeless resignation, years of being beaten down, rebelling--but now this last blow vanquishedhim. Then he spoke again, with a sudden strange fire. 

"Even for the life of my daughter, I will not make your drugs, Polter, if you mean to harm our Earth. "

The golden cage room swooped as Polter sat down. "Hah! Now we bargain. What do you care what I do to your world? You never will see it again. Ican lie to you. My plans--"

"I _do_ care. "

"Well, I will tell you, Kent. I am good-natured now. Why should I notbe with my dear little Babs? I tell you, I am done with the Earth world. It iss much nicer here. My friends, they haf a good time always. We likethis little atom realm. I am going out once more. I must hide the littlepiece of golden quartz so no harm will come to it. "

Polter was evidently in a high good humor. His voice fell to an intimatetone of comradeship; but still I could not mistake the irony in it. 

"You listen to me, Kent. There was a time, years ago, when we were goodfriends. You liked your young assistant, the hunchback Polter. Iss itnot so? Then why should we quarrel now? I am gifing up the Earth world. I wanted of it only the little Babs.... You look at me so strange! Youdo not speak. "

"There is nothing to say, " retorted Dr. Kent wearily. 

"Then you listen. I haf much gold above in Quebec. You know that. Sovery simple to take it out of our atom, grow large with it to what wecall up there the size of a hundred feet. I haf a place, a room, secluded from prying eyes under a dome roof. I become very tall, holdinga piece of gold. It is large when I am a hundred feet tall. So I hafcollected much gold. They think I own a mine. I haf a smelter and mygold quartz I make into ingots, refined to the standard purity. Sosimple, and I am a rich man. 

"But gold does not bring happiness, my friend Kent. " He chuckledironically at his use of the platitude. "There iss more in life than theownership of gold. You ask my plans. I haf Babs, now. I am gifing up theEarth world. The mysterious man they know as Frank Rascor will vanish. Iwill hide our little fragment of quartz. No one up there will even tryto find it. Then I come down here, with Babs, and we will haf so nice alittle government and rule this world. No more of the drugs then will beneeded, Kent. When you die, let the secret die with you. "

Again Polter's voice became ingratiating, even more so than before. "Wewill be friends, Kent. Our little Babs will lof me; why should she not?You will tell her--advise her--and we will all three be very happy. "

Dr. Kent said abruptly, "Then leave her with me now. That was herrequest, a moment ago. If you expect to treat her kindly, then whynot--"

"I do! I do! But not now. I cannot spare her now. I am very busy, but Imust take her with me. "

Babs had been silent, clinging to the bars of our cage. She called;"Why? I ask you to put this cage down. "

"Not now, little bird. "

"Let me be with my father. "

It struck a pang through me. Babs was scheming but not the way Polterthought. She wanted the cage put on the floor, herself out, and a chancefor me to escape. I had not yet told her of my miserable stupidity inlosing the vial. 

Polter was repeating, "No, little bird. Presently; not now. I will takeyou with me on my last trip out. I want to talk with you in normal sizewhen I haf time. "

Our room swooped as he stood up. "You think over what I haf said, Kent. You get ready now to make the fresh drugs I will need to bring down allmy men from the outer world. They will all be glad to come, or, ifnot--well, we can easily kill those who refuse. You make the drugs. Ineed plenty. Will you?"

"Yes. "

"That iss good. I come back soon and gif you the catalyst for that lastreaction. Will you be ready?"

"Yes. "

The blur outside our bars swung with a dizzying whirl as Polter turnedand left the room, locking its door after him with a reverberatingclank. 

 * * * * *

Left alone in his laboratory, Dr. Kent began his preparations formaking a fresh supply of the drugs. This room, with two smaller onesadjoining, was at once his workshop and his prison. He stood at hisshelves, selecting the basic chemicals. He could not complete the finalcompounds. The catalyst which was necessary for the final reaction wouldbe brought to him by Polter. 

How long he worked there with his thoughts in a whirl at seeing Babs, hedid not know. His movements were automatic; he had done all this so manytimes before. His mind was confused, and he was trembling from head tofoot--an old, queerly, unnaturally old man now--unnerved. His fingerscould hardly hold the test tubes. 

His thoughts were flying. Babs was here, come down from the world above. It was disaster--the thing he had feared all these years. 

He suddenly heard a voice. 

"Father!"

And again: "Father!" A tiny voice, down by his shoe tops. Two smallfigures were there on the floor beside him. They were both panting, winded by running. They were enlarging. 

It was Alan and Glora, who had followed Polter from the boat, thendiminished again and had come running through the tiny crack under themetal door of the laboratory. 

They grew to a foot in size, down by Dr. Kent's legs. He was toounnerved to stand; he sat in a chair while Alan swiftly told him whathad happened. Babs was in the golden cage. Dr. Kent knew that; but noneof them knew what had happened to me. 

"We must make you small, Father. We have the drugs, here with us. "

"Yes! How much have you? Show me. Oh, my boy, that you are here--andBabs--"

"Don't you worry. We'll get away from him. "

Glora and Alan had almost reached Dr. Kent's size before their excitedfingers could get out the vials. They took some of the diminishing drugto check their growth. Alan handed his father a black vial. 

"Yes, lad--"

"No! Wait, that's the wrong drug. This other--"

Dr. Kent had opened the vial. His trembling hand spilled some of thepellets, but none of them noticed it. 

"Father, this one. " Alan held an opalescent vial. "Take this one. "

Glora said abruptly, "Listen! Is that someone coming?"

They thought they heard approaching footsteps. A moment passed but noone came into the room. 

"Hurry, " urged Glora. "That was nothing. We're waiting too long. "

"My boy--Alan, after all these years--"

As they were about to take the diminishing drug a very queer sound camefrom across the room. A scuttling, scratching, and the drone of wings. 

"God, Father--look!"

Over by the wall, a giant fly was running across the floor. The fly hadeaten some of the sweetish powder. 

The enlarging drug was loose!

A few drops of water lay mingled with the drug on the floor. And fromthe water nameless hideous things were rising!

CHAPTER IX

To Alan the first moments that followed the escape of the drug were themost horrible of his life. The discovery struck old Dr. Kent, Glora andAlan into a numb, blank confusion. They stood transfixed, staring withcold terror at the fly which was scurrying along the floor close to thewall. It was already as large as Alan's hand. It ran into the corner, hit the wall in its confused alarm, and turned back. Its wings weredroning with an audible hum. It reared itself on its hairy legs, liftedand sailed across the room. 

As though drawn by a magnet, Alan turned to watch it. It landed on thewall. Alan was aware of Dr. Kent rushing with trembling steps to a shelfwhere bottles stood. Glora was stricken into immobility, the blooddraining from her face. 

The fly flew again. It passed directly over Alan. Its body, with amembrane sac of eggs, was now as large as his head; its widespreadtransparent wings were beating with a reverberating drone. 

Alan flung a bottle which was on the table beside him. It missed thefly, crashed against the ceiling, came down with splintering glass andspilling liquid. Fumes spread chokingly over the room. 

The fly landed again on the floor. Larger now! Expanding with a horriblyrapid growth. Glora flung something--a little wooden rack with a fewempty test tubes in it. The rack struck the monstrous fly, but did nothurt it. The fly stood with hairy legs braced under its bulging body. Its multiple eyes were staring at the humans. And with its size musthave come a sense of power, for it seemed to Alan that the monstrousinsect was abnormally alert as it stood measuring its adversaries, gathering itself to attack them. 

Only a few seconds had passed. Confused thoughts swept Alan. This flywith its growth would soon fill this room. Burst it; burst upwardthrough a wrecked palace; soar out, and by the power of its size alonedevastate this world. 

He heard himself shouting, "Father, get back! It's too large! I've _got_to kill it!"

Could he wrestle with it and hope to win? Alan edged around the centertable. He was bathed in cold sweat. This thing was horrifying! The flywas already half the length of his own body. In a moment it might betwice that! He was aware of Glora pulling at him, and his father rushingpast him with a bottle of liquid, shouting:

"Alan! Run! You and the girl, get out of here! Into the other room--"

Then Alan saw the things on the floor! His foot crushed one with aslippery squash! Nameless, hideous, noisome things grown monstrous, risen from their lurking invisibility in the drops of water! Sodden, gray-black and green-slimed monsters of the deep; palpitating masses ofpulp! One lay rocking, already as large as a football with streamers ofooze hanging from it, and squirting a black inky fluid. Others were rodsof red jelly-pulp, already as large as lead pencils, quivering, twitching. Disease germs, these ghastly things, enlarging from theinvisibility of a drop of water!

The fly landed with a thud on the center table. The fumes of theshattered bottle of chemicals were choking Alan. He flung himself towardthe monster fly, but Glora held him. 

"No! Escape to the other room!"

Dr. Kent was stamping the things upon the floor; pouring acids uponthem. Some eluded him. The air in the room was unbreathable.... 

Alan and Glora reached the bedroom. The laboratory was a hideous chaos. They were aware of its outer door opening, disclosing the figure ofPolter who, undoubtedly, had been attracted by the noise. He shouted astartled oath. Alan heard it above the beating wings of the monstrousfly. Things lurched at the opened door; Polter banged it upon them andrushed away, shouting the alarm through the palace. 

Dr. Kent was stammering, "Not the enlarging drug, Glora, child, theother! Hurry!"

Alan helped Glora with the opalescent vial. Things were lurching towardthis room, from the laboratory. Alan, with averted face, choked by theincoming fumes, slammed the door upon the gruesome turmoil. 

They took the diminishing drug. The bedroom expanded. The hideous soundsfrom the laboratory, and the whole palace now ringing with a wild alarm, soon faded into blessed remoteness of distance.... 

"I think this is the way, Alan. Off there--a doorway from my bedroom. Polter always kept it locked, but it leads into a corridor. We must getout of here. A crack under the door--is that it, off there?" Dr. Kentpointed into the gloomy blur of distance. "We're horribly small--it's sofar to run--and I've lost my sense of direction. "

The drug had ceased its action. The wooden floor of the room hadexpanded to a spread of cellular surface, ridged with broken, tubeliketunnels; pits and jagged cave-mouths. A knothole yawned like a crater ahundred feet away. 

"We are too small, " Glora protested hurriedly. "The door is where yousay, Dr. Kent, but miles away. "

With the other drug, the room contracted. The floor surface shrank andsmoothed a little. The door was distinguishable--a square panel severalhundred feet in width and towering into the upper haze. The black lineof the crack was visible along its bottom. 

They ran to it. The top of the crack was ten feet above their heads. They ran under, across the wide intervening darkness toward a glow oflight. Then they came from under the door into a corridor--and shrankagainst a cliff wall as with a rush of wind and pounding tread theblurred shapes of a man's huge feet and legs rushed past. The upper airwas filled with rumbling shouts. 

"We must chance it!" exclaimed Dr. Kent. "It's too far in this size. Wemust get larger--and if they see us, we'll fight our way out!"

In the turmoil of the doomed palace no one noticed them. They cast asideall restraint. It was too dangerous to wait. The excessive dose theytook of the drug made the corridor shrink with dizzying speed. Theyrushed along its length. Alan hurled a little man aside who was in theirpath. They were already larger than Polter's people. 

They squeezed out of a shrinking doorway. The dwindling island was aturmoil. Little figures were pouring from the palace. At the edge of thewater. Alan, Glora and Dr. Kent stood for an instant looking behindthem. The palace was rocking. Its roof heaved upward and then smashedand fell aside with the clatter of tumbling masonry. The monstrous fly, its hideous face mashed and oozing, reared itself up and, with brokentorn wings, tried to soar away. But it could not. It slipped back. Thedrone and buzz of its fright sounded over the chaos of noise. Otherthings came lurching and twisting upward, slithering out.... 

The expanding body of the fly was pushing the palace walls outward. In amoment it collapsed and the fly emerged. 

To Alan and his companions the scene was all shrinking into a miniaturechaos of horror at their shoe tops. A diminuendo of screams mingled downthere. Overhead were the stars, shining peacefully remote. Nearby lay arapidly narrowing channel of shining water. A tiny city was across it. Lights were moving. The panic had spread from the island to Orena. Beyond the tiny city, was a range of mountains, a cliff, gleaming in thestarlight, and tunnel-mouths. 

Suddenly against the stars off there, Alan saw the enlarging figure ofPolter, his hunched shape unmistakable. He was facing the other way. Helunged and scrambled into a yawning black hole in the mountains. Polterwas escaping! None of these people except himself had the drugs. He wasescaping with the golden cage, out of this doomed atomic world to theEarth above. 

Glora murmured, "There is our way out. Your way. And that is Poltergoing. I do not think he saw us. So much is growing gigantic here. "

Dr. Kent muttered, "We will wait a moment--wade across--or leap over, and follow him out. Babs is with him--dear God I hope so! This is adoomed realm!"

Alan held Glora close. And suddenly he was laughing--a madness, halfhysterical. "Why, this, all this--why look, Glora, it's funny! Thislittle world all excited, an ant-hill, outraged! Look! There's our giantsailboat!"

Down near their feet the inch-long sailboat stood at its dock. Tinyhuman figures were rushing for it; others, floundering in the water, were trying to climb upon it. Dr. Kent had stepped a foot or two fromthe shore, and tiny, lashing white rollers rocked the boat, almostengulfing it. 

Alan's laugh rang out. "God! It's funny, isn't it? All those littlecreatures so excited!"

"Steady, lad!" Dr. Kent touched him. "Don't let yourself laugh! A momentnow, then we'll wade across. Polter won't have much start on us. Wemustn't get too close to him in size, but try and attack him unawares. We've got to get Babs away from him. "

The narrowing passage rose hardly to their knees. They stepped ashore, well to one side of the toy city. Their growth had almost stopped. Butsuddenly Alan realized that Glora was diminishing! She had taken theother drug. 

"Glora! What are you doing?"

"I must go back, Alan. This is my world, doomed perhaps, but I cannotforsake it now. I must give the enlarging drug to my father. And otherswho can rise and fight these monsters. "

"Glora!"

Dr. Kent said hurriedly, "She's right, Alan. There is a chance they cansave their city. For her to leave them would be dastardly. "

She cried, "You go on up, Alan. You have enough of the drugs. I am goingback!"

"No, " he protested. "You can't! If you do, I'm coming with you!"

She clung to him. He felt her body diminishing within his encirclingarms. His love for her swept him--this girl who had cajoled Polter, ortricked him and stolen several of the vials from him, heavens knows how, and followed him up to the other world. This girl whom Alan had come tolove, was leaving him, perhaps forever. 

As he stood there, with the miniature landscape at his feet in the wanstarlight--the panic-stricken tiny city, the island with its monstersrising to overwhelm this tiny world--it seemed to Alan that if he lether go it was the end for him of all life's promised happiness. 

"Alan, lad, come. " His father was pulling him along. So horrible achoice! Alan thought that I was back on that island. But Babs, aprisoner in the golden cage, was with Polter, plunging upward in size. And his father was beside him, pleading. 

"Alan--come--I can't get out alone, or save Babs. And Polter, with thepower of this drug, can conquer and enslave our Earth as he has enslavedOrena--just one little city of one tiny golden atom! Believe me, lad, your duty lies above. "

Glora's head was now down at Alan's waist. He stooped and kissed herwhite forehead; his fingers, just for an instant, smoothed her glossyhair. 

"Good-bye, Glora. "

She plunged away, and her tread as she dwindled mashed the forest behindthe city. Alan and his father ran for the cliff. They were too large tosqueeze into the little hole. But in a moment they made themselvessmaller. They climbed as they dwindled; checked the drug action andrushed into the tunnel-mouth. 

Alan stopped just for an instant to gaze out over the starlit scene. Itwas almost the same viewpoint from which he had his first sight ofGlora's world only an hour or two before. The distant island beyond thecity showed plainly with the shining water around it. The vegetationthere was growing! And there were dark, horribly formless blobs lurchingoutward and rising with monstrous bulk against the background of thestars!

"Alan! Come, lad!"

With a prayer for Glora trembling on his lips, Alan plunged into the dimphosphorescent gloom of the tunnel. 

CHAPTER X

To Babs and me the ride in the golden cage strapped to Polter's chest ashe made his escape outward into largeness was an experience awesome andfrightening almost beyond description. We heard the alarm in the palaceon the island. Polter rushed to Dr. Kent's laboratory door, looked in, and in a moment banged it shut. Babs and I saw very little. We knew onlythat something terrible had happened; we could see only a blur withformless things in the void beneath our bars; and there were thechoking fumes of chemicals surging at us. 

Polter rushed through the castle corridor. We heard rumbling distantshouts. 

"The drug is loose! The drug is loose! Monsters! Death for everyone!"

The room swayed with horrible dizzying lurches as Polter ran. We clungto the lattice bars, our legs and arms entwined. There were moments whenPolter leaped, or suddenly stooped, and our reeling senses all butfaded. 

"Babs! Don't let go! Don't lose consciousness!"

If she should be limp, here in this lurching room, her body to be flungback and forth across its confines--that would be death in a moment. Ididn't think I could hold her, but I managed to get an arm about herwaist. 

"Babs, are you all right?"

"I'm--all right, George. I can stand it. We're--he is enlarging. "

"Yes. "

I saw water far beneath us, lashed into a turmoil of foam with Polter'swading steps. There was a brief swaying vista of a toy city; starlightoverhead; a lurching swaying miniature of landscape as Polter ran forthe towering cliffs. Then he climbed and scrambled into thetunnel-mouth. Had he turned at that instant doubtless he would have seenthe rising distant figures of Glora, Alan and Dr. Kent. But evidently hedidn't see them. Nor did we. 

Polter spoke only very occasionally to Babs. "Hold tightly!" It was arumbling voice from above us. He made no move to touch the cage, exceptthat a few times the great blur of his hand came up to adjust its angle. 

The lurching and jolting was less violent in the tunnel. Polter's frenzyto escape was subsiding into calmness. He traversed the tunnel with amethodical stride. We were aware of him climbing over the noisomelitter of the dead giant's body which blocked the tunnel's further end. We heard his astonished exclamations. But evidently he did not suspectwhat had happened, thinking only that the stupid messenger hadmiscalculated his growth and had been crushed. 

We emerged into a less dim area. Polter did not stop at the fallengiant. Nothing mattered now to him, quite evidently, save his own exitwith Babs from this atomic realm. His movements seemed calm, yethurried. 

We realized now how different an outward journey was from the tripcoming in. This was all only an inch of golden quartz! The stages upwardwere frequently only a matter of growth in size; the distances in thisvast desert realm of golden rock always were shrinking. Polter manytimes stood almost motionless until the closing, dwindling walls madehim scramble upward into the greater space above. 

It may have been an hour, or less. Babs and I, from our smallerviewpoint, with the landscape so frequently blurred by distance andPolter's movements, seldom recognized where we were. But I realizedgoing out was far easier in every way than coming in. Easier todetermine the route, since usually the diminishing caverns and gulliesmade the upward step obvious.... We knew when Polter scrambled up theincline ramp. 

It seemed impossible for us to plan anything. Would Polter make theentire trip without a stop? It seemed so. We had no drugs, and our cagewas barred beyond possibility of our getting out. But even if we had hadthe drugs, or had our door been open, there was no escape. An abyss ofdistance was always yawning beyond our lattice--the sheer precipice ofPolter's body from his chest to the ground. 

"Babs, we must make him stop. It he sits down to rest you might get himto take you out. I must reach his drugs. "

"Yes. I'll try it, George. "

Polter was momentarily standing motionless as though gazing around him, judging what to do next. His size seemed stationary. Beyond our bars wecould see the distant circular walls as though this were some giantcrater-pit in which Polter was standing. Then I thought I recognizedit--the round, nearly vertical pit into which Alan had plunged his handand arm. Above us then was a gully, blind at one end. And above that, the outer surface, the summit of the fragment of golden quartz. 

"Babs, I know where we are! If he takes you out, keep his attention. I'll try and get one of his black vials. Make him hold you near theground. If I see you there, in position where you can jump, I'll startlehim. Babs it's desperately dangerous but I can't think of anything else. Jump. Get away from him. I'll keep his attention on me. Then I'll joinyou if I can--with the drug. "

Polter was moving. We had no time to say more. 

"I'll try it, George. " For just an instant she clung to me with her softarms about my neck. Our love was sweeping us in this desperate moment, and it seemed that above us was a remote Earth world holding the promiseof all our dreams. Or were we cross-starred, doomed like the realm ofthe atom? Was this swift embrace now marking the end of everything forus?

Babs called, "Dr. Polter?"

We could feel his movements stopping. 

"Yes? You are all right, Babs?"

She laughed--a ripple of silvery laughter--but there was tragic fear inher eyes as she gazed at me. "Yes, Dr. Polter, but breathless. Almostdead, but not quite. What happened? I want to come out and talk to you. "

"Not now, little bird. "

"But I want to. " To me it was a miracle that she could call so lightlyand hold that note of lugubrious laughter in her voice. "I'm hungry. Didn't you think of that? And frightened. Take me out. "

He was sitting down! "You remind me that I am tired, Babs. And hungry, also. I haf a little food. You shall come out for just a short time. "

"Thank you. Take me carefully. "

Our tilted cage was near the ground as he seated himself. But it wasstill too far for me to jump. 

I murmured, "Babs it's not close enough to the ground. "

"Wait, George, I'll fix that. You hide! If he looks in he'll see you. "

I scrambled back to my hiding place. Polter's huge fingers were fumblingat our bars. The little door sprang open. 

"Come, Babs. "

He held the cupped bowl of his hand to the doorway. "Come out. "

"No!" she called. "It is too far down!"

"Come. That iss foolish. "

"No! I'm afraid. Put the cage on the ground. "

"Babs!" His finger and thumb came reaching in to seize her, but sheavoided them. 

"Dr. Polter! Don't! You'll crush me!"

"Then come out on my hand. "

He seemed annoyed. I had scrambled back to the doorway; I knew hecouldn't see me so long as the cage remained strapped to his shirtfront. 

I whispered, "I can make it, Babs!"

Polter was apparently on one elbow now, half turned to one side. Fromour cage, the sloping gleaming white surface of his stiff glossy shirtbosom went down a steep incline. His belt was down there, and theoutward bulging curve of his lap--a spreading surface where I could landlike a scuttling insect, unobserved, if only Babs could hold hisattention. 

I whispered vehemently, "Try it! Go out! Leave me--keep talking to him!"

She called instantly, "All right, then. Bring your hand! Closer!Carefully! It seems so high up here!"

She swung herself into his palm, and flung her arms about the greatpillar of his crooked finger. The bowl of his hand moved slowly away. Iheard her faint voice, and his overhead rumble. 

I chanced it! I didn't know his exact position or which way he waslooking. 

Again I heard Bab's voice. "Careful, Dr. Polter. Don't let me fall!"

"Yes, little bird. "

I let myself down from the tilted doorway, hung by my hand and dropped. I struck the ramp-like yielding surface of his shirt bosom. I slid, tumbling, scrambling, and landed softly in the huge folds of his trouserfabric. I was unhurt. The width of his belt, high as my body, was nearme. I shrank against it. I found I could cling to its upper edge. 

My hold came just in time. He shifted and sat up. I was lifted with aswoop of movement. When it steadied I saw above me the top of his knee. His left leg was crooked, the foot drawn close to him. Babs was perchedup there on the knee summit. His right leg was outstretched. I was atthe right side of his belt. I could dart off along that curving expanseof his leg and leap to the ground. If he would hold this position! Oneof the pouches of his belt was near me. The vial in it was black. Theenlarging drug! I moved toward it. 

But Babs was too high to jump from that summit of his crooked knee! Ithink she saw me at his belt. I heard her voice. 

"I cannot eat up here. It is too high. Oh, please be careful how youmove! I am so dizzy, so frightened! You move with such great jerks!"

He had what seemed a huge surface of bread and meat. He was breaking offcrumbs to put before her. I reached the pouch of his belt. The vial wasas long as my body. I tugged to try and lift it out. 

All the giant contours of Polter's body shifted as he cautiously moved. I clung. I saw that Babs was being held gently between his thumb andforefinger. He lowered her to the ground, and she stood beside the breadand the meat he had placed there. 

And she had the courage to laugh! "Why this--this is an enormoussandwich! You will have to break it. "

He was leaning over her, half turned on his side. The vial came free. Ishoved it; but I could not control its weight. I pushed desperately. Itslid over the round brink of his right hip, and fell behind him. I heardthe tinkling thud of it down on the rocks. 

There was no alarm. I could not chance leaping from his hip. I scurriedalong the convex top of his outstretched leg, and beyond his knee Ijumped. 

I landed safely. I could see the black vial back across the broken rocksurface, with the bulge of Polter's hip above it. I ran back and reachedthe vial, tugged at its huge stopper. The cork began to yield under mypanting, desperate efforts. In a moment I would have a pellet of theenlarging drug; make away with it and startle Polter so that Babs mightdart off and escape. 

The huge stopper of the vial was larger than my head. It came suddenlyout. I flung it away, plunged in my hand, and seized an enormous roundpellet. 

Then abruptly the alarm came, and I had not caused it! Polter ripped outa startled, rumbling curse and sat upright. Under the curve of his legI saw Babs had been momentarily neglected. She was running. 

Across the boulder-strewn plain, two tiny men had appeared. Polter hadseen them. 

They were the enlarging figures of Dr. Kent and Alan!

CHAPTER XI

The astounded Polter was taken wholly by surprise. He had no idea thatanyone was following him. He thought he was alone with tiny Babs in thisrock-strewn metal desert. What he saw as he scrambled to his feet werefour insect-size humans, two of them at a distance, and two within reachof him, and all of them scampering in different directions. The groundwas littered with crags and boulders; it was ridged and pitted, pock-marked, with tiny crater-holes and caves. The four scuttlingfigures almost instantly had disappeared from his sight. 

I did not see where Babs went. I turned from the black vial of Polter'senlarging drug, and with the huge pellet under my arm I ran leaping overthe rough ground and flung myself into a gully. I lay prone, flattenedagainst a rock. In the murky distance of a pseudo-sky overhead, themonstrous head and shoulders of Polter were visible. I could see down tojust below his waist. The empty cage with its door flapping open hungagainst his shirt-front. He had stooped to try and recover Babs. Andinstinctively his hands went to his belt to seize his enlarging drug. 

They were fumbling there now. He hauled out an opalescent vial of thediminishing element. But his black vial was gone. His annoyance turnedinto fear as he searched for it in the other compartments of his belt. Ihad 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 glanced wildlyaround him. 

Through the open end of my gully I saw in the distance, miles away, theenlarging figure of Alan rising up. Then it ducked in back of a distantrising peak. Polter undoubtedly saw it. He was fumbling with hisopalescent vial. In his confused panic he made the mistake of taking thediminishing drug and instantly seemed to regret it. His curse rumbledabove me. His glance went down to the rocks at his feet, and there hesaw his black vial lying with its stopper out. His body already wasbeginning to dwindle. He stooped, seized the vial, and took theenlarging drug. The shock of it mode him stagger; momentarily hedisappeared from my line of vision but I could hear his panting breathand the unsteady pound of his footsteps. 

I still held that huge round ball of the drug. I seized a loose stoneand frantically knocked off a chunk-heaven knows how much. I shoved itinto my mouth, chewed and hastily swallowed it. And with the lurching, swaying, shrinking gully closing in upon me, I ran to get out of itsdistant end. 

I was heading toward where Alan and his father were hiding. I came fromthe gully into the open, just as the walls closed behind me. The wholescene was a dizzying, blurred sway of contracting movement. I saw that Iwas in a circular valley now some five miles in diameter, with itsjagged enclosing walls rising sheerly perpendicular out of sight in thehaze overhead. 

Polter had staggered backward. I saw him a mile or so away. His back atthat instant was turned to me. He was now no more than three or fourtimes my own height. He scrambled against the valley cliff wall asthough 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 thanthey. Alan gasped with surprise. 

"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 takenof the drug!"

They were shrinking down by my boot tops. Alan shouted suddenly, "There's Babs! Thank God, she's all right. "

She was so small that I couldn't see her, or even hear her, though shemust have been calling to them. Alan again screamed up at me with hislittle voice:

"She's here, George! You--go on and get Polter! I can't overtakeyou--haven't enough of the drug!" His tiny voice was fading away. "Goand get him, George! This time--get him--"

I swung with a staggering step around to face the open valley. It had bynow shrunk to nearly half a mile in width. Its smooth walls rose sometwo or three thousand feet to an upper circular horizon with murkydistance overhead. Polter stood across from me. He had tried to climbout but could not. He saw me and came lurching. We were a quarter of amile from each other. I ran forward through a shifting scene ofshrinking rock walls and crawling, contracting ground. Quarter of amile? It seemed hardly more than a score of running strides beforePolter loomed close ahead of me. He was still nearly twice my size. Istooped, seized a loose boulder, and flung it. I missed his face, but, as his hand went up carrying a bare knife, by fortunate chance, thestone struck his wrist. The knife dropped to the rocks. He stooped torecover it, but I was upon him. As I felt his huge arms go about me, half lifting me, my foot struck the knife. But in an instant it wasswept down into smallness beneath us as we expanded above it. 

Both of us now were unarmed in this combat of size. I was an immatureyouth in Polter's first grip upon me. I heard his panting words, grimlytriumphant:

"This--George Randolph, I haf been--waiting for so many years! Thehunchback--takes his revenge--now--"

He lifted me. His great arms were unbelievably powerful, but I couldfeel them dwindling. I was enlarging faster. Just a few moments--if Icould last a few moments.... My feet were off the ground, my chestpressed close against the little cage between us. He had a hand shovingback 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 he had twistedand my back was against the cliff. The rocks were shoving at us, insistently pushing with almost a living movement. Polter staggered withme. His grip on my throat tightened, shutting off my breath. My senseswhirled. His grim sardonic face over me became blurred. I tore futilelyat my throat to break his choking grip. All the world was a roaringchaos to my fading senses. Then in the blur I saw horror sweep hisexpression. His fingers involuntarily loosened. I got a breath ofblessed 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 usagain. Our bodies almost filled the shrinking pit! Polter lurched andcast me off. I half fell, striking my shoulder against the oppositewall, 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 mywaist. Polter had fallen on the upper ground, and was on hands andknees. Instead of standing up, he lurched at me trying to shove me back. But I was out; I clutched at him. We were almost of a size now. Werolled on the ground, locked together; rolled to the brink of the pitand over it, as it shrank to a little round hole unnoticed beneath ourthreshing bodies!

 * * * * *

At the side of the circular valley Alan and Dr. Kent crouched with thesmaller figure of Babs between them. They saw Polter and me as twoswaying gigantic forms locked in a death struggle, towering against thesky. Tremendous expanded bodies! They saw us come to grips; saw thegreat hunched Polter bend me backward, choking me. 

Our bodies lurched. Our huge legs with a single step brought us to thecenter of the valley. It was a shrinking valley to Alan, Babs and Dr. Kent, for they too, were enlarging. But the fighting giant figures weregrowing faster. In only a moment their shoulders were up there in thesky, 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 ofPolter's legs towered straight up from near at hand. Alan was aware ofhimself screaming:

"George, get out! You're too large! Too large for in here!"

As though his microscopic voice could reach me--my head a hundred feetabove him. But he screamed it again. This was all in a few horriblemoments, though it seemed to the three watchers an eternity. Alan washelpless 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 myshoulders wedged against the cliff directly over where they crouched. The overhead sky was darkened as Polter scrambled upward. 

Alan was still screaming futilely. 

Babs huddled with white horrified face, staring. Then I went out afterPolter. My disappearing legs were great dark blurs in the sky. Alan sawthe valley now contracted to a thousand feet of width, with its cliffsequally as high. Then everything was smaller.... The sky overhead wentdark again from cliff to cliff as a segment of rolling bodiesmomentarily spanned the opening. 

Presently Alan realized that the valley had narrowed to a pit. He stoodup. "Hurry! Now we can go after them. Up there!"

The opening above was empty. Polter and I were fighting some distanceaway.... 

Dr. Kent was soon large enough to scramble out of the pit. Alan handedthe little Babs up to him and followed. Alan saw that they were now in along gully, blind at one end with a five hundred foot perpendicularcliff. Against the wall, the Titanic form of Polter stood at bay. And Iwas confronting him. The summit of the cliff was lower than our waists. Triumph swept Alan; he saw that I was the larger! As Polter bored intome 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 betweenupstanding rocks before my foot crashed down. For an instant the sole ofmy foot formed a flat black ceiling as it spanned the rocks. Then itlifted and was gone with a blurred swoop. They saw the white blur of myhand come down and snatch a tremendous boulder, raising it with a greatsweep of movement into the sky. They saw me crash it against Polter; butit only struck his shoulder. He roared with anger. The whole sky wasroaring and rumbling with our shouts and our panting breathing, and theground was clattering, pounding with our giant tread. Huge looseboulders were tumbled in an avalanche everywhere. 

Again it seemed to Alan that our lurching, heedlessly surging bodiesmust be crushed within these contracting walls. Only our locked, intertwined legs were visible; our bodies were lost in the sky. Then itseemed to Alan that I had heaved Polter upward. And followed him. Wedisappeared. There was a distant overhead rumble, and the murky sky, with vague patches of far-distant illumination in it, became empty ofmovement.... 

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 anew upward vista.... 

 * * * * *

I found myself a full head and shoulders taller than Polter. And he wastiring, panting heavily. His face was cut and bleeding from the blows ofmy fist. 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. Myfoot slid on the loose stones of the gully floor. I did not know thatBabs, Alan and their father were huddled under those stones!

My back struck the opposite wall. Polter's upflung knee caught me in thestomach, all but knocking the breath out of me. He was desperate, oblivious to the closing walls. And as he flung his arms with a gripabout my neck, hanging, trying to bear down, I saw in his blazing darkeyes what seemed the light of suicide. I think that then, with a suddenfrenzied madness he realized that he was beaten, and tried to pull us tothe ground and let the walls crush us. 

I summoned all my remaining strength and heaved us forward. I broke hishold. His body was jammed back against a lowering wall. Its top seemedalmost at our knees. I shoved frantically. He fell backward and I jumpedafter him. 

We were on a great rocky plateau. But it was shrinking, crawling intoitself. Spots of light were in the murk overhead: there seemed adistant circular horizon of emptiness around us. 

Polter was lying in a heap. But it was trickery, for as I incautiouslybent over him his hand crashed a rock against my head. I reeled, withall the world turning black, but didn't fall. There was a terribleinstant when my senses were going, but I fought to hold them. Blood froma wound on my forehead was streaming in my eyes. I was staggering. ThenI realized that 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 swingat my chin, but I ducked. 

And suddenly, fighting up there in the open, my mind envisioned howgigantic we were! This was a great upland plateau, rounded with miles ofdistance and shadowy dimly radiant abyss beyond its circular horizon. And I was a thousand feet or more tall! A Titan, looming here in thesky!

My fist quite unexpectedly caught Polter's jaw. His simultaneous swingwent wild, as I leapt backward from it. He staggered, and his armsdropped to his sides. I was crouched forward, guarded, watching himwhile I gasped for breath. There was the briefest of instant when anexpression of vague surprise swept his face. But I had not knocked himout. 

It was death overtaking him. His heart was yielding, overtaxed from thestrain; and I think that there, at the last, he realized it. The blooddrained 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 gaveway and he toppled. He fell from his height in the air where I stoodgazing at him--fell forward on his face, his Titanic length spread allacross 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 andstood panting, gazing at the glowing distance around me. 

I was a Titan, standing there. The body of Polter was shrinking at myfeet. The circular abyss of emptiness came nearer as this rocky eminencecontracted. 

Suddenly my attention went to the sky overhead. Vague distant lightswere there. Then a broad flat blur seemed spread over me. Lighteverywhere was growing. Beyond the nearby brink of the abyss was a whitereflected 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 skymoved! I heard a faraway rumble--a human voice!

The body of Polter lay at my feet. It was hardly the length of myforearm. I stood, a Titan. 

And then, with a shock of realization, I saw how tiny I was! This wasthe broken top of that fragment of golden quartz the size of a walnut! Iwas standing there, under the lens of the giant microscope in Polter'sdome-room laboratory, with half a dozen astounded Quebec policeofficials peering down at me!

CHAPTER XII

I need not detail the aftermath of our emergence from the atom. Dr. Kentand Babs followed me out within a few moments. But Alan was not withthem! He had seen Polter fall. His father and Babs were safe. Thesacrifice he had made in leaving Glora was no longer needed. 

Down there on the rocky plateau, Dr. Kent suddenly realized that Alanwas dwindling. 

"Father, I have to! Don't you understand? Glora's world is menaced. Ican't leave her like this. My duty to you and Babs is ended. I did mybest. You two are safe now. "

"Alan! You can't go!"

He was already down at Dr. Kent's waist, Babs' size. He held up hishand. "Dad, don't try to stop me. Good-bye. " His rugged youthful facewas flushed, his voice choked. "You--you've been a mighty good father tome. Always. "

Babs flung her arms about him. "Alan. Don't!"

"But I must. " He smiled whimsically as he kissed her. "You wouldn't wantto leave George, would you? Never see him again? I'm not asking you todo that, am I?"

"But, Alan--"

"You've been a great little pal, Babs. But I have to go. "

"Alan! You talk as though you were never coming back!"

"Do I? But of course I'm coming back!" He cast her off. "Babs, listen. Father's upset. That's natural. You tell him not to worry. I'll becareful, and do what I can to save that little city. I must find Gloraand--"

Babs was suddenly trembling with eagerness for him. "Yes! Of course youmust, Alan!"

"I'll find her and bring her out here! I'll do it! Don't you worry. " Hewas dwindling fast. Dr. Kent had collapsed to a rock, staring down withhorror-stricken eyes. Alan called up to Babs:

"Listen! Have George watch the chunk of gold quartz. Have it guarded andwatched day and night. Handle it carefully, Babs!"

"Yes! Yes! How long will you be gone, Alan?"

"How do I know? But I'll come back--don't worry. Maybe in only a day ortwo of your time. "

"Right! Good-bye, Alan!"

"Good-bye, " his tiny voice echoed up. 

Babs could see his miniature face smiling up at her. She smiled back andwaved her arm as he vanished into the pebbles at her feet. 

 * * * * *

It has broken Dr. Kent. A month now has passed. He seldom mentions Alanto Babs and me. But when he does, he tries to smile and say that Alansoon will return. He has been very ill this last week, though he isbetter now. He did not tell us that he was working to compound anothersupply of the drugs, but we knew it very well. 

And his emotion, the strain of it, made him break. He was in bed a week. We are living in New York, quite near the Museum of the American Societyfor Scientific Research. In a room of the biological department there, the precious fragment of golden quartz lies guarded. A microscope isover it, and there is never a moment of the day or night without analert, keen-eyed watcher peering down. 

But nothing has appeared. Neither friend or foe--nothing. I cannot sayso to Babs, but often I fear that Dr. Kent will suddenly die, and thesecret of his drugs die with him. I hinted that I would make a trip intothe atom if he would let me, but it excited him so greatly I had tolaugh it off with the assurance that of course Alan would soon returnsafely to us. Dr. Kent is an old man now, unnaturally old, with, itseems, the full weight of eighty years pressing upon him. He cannotstand this emotion. I think he is despairingly summoning strength towork upon his drugs, fearful that at any moment, he will not be equal toit. Yet more fearful to disclose the secret and unloose such a diabolicpower. 

There are nights when with Dr. Kent asleep, Babs and I slip away and goto the Museum. We dismiss the guard for a time, and in that private roomwe sit by the microscope to watch. The fragment of golden quartz lies onits clean white slab with a brilliant light upon it. 

Mysterious little golden rock! What secrets are there, down beyond thevanishing point in the realm of the infinitely small? Our human longingsgo to Alan and Glora. 

But sometimes we are swept by the greater viewpoint. Awed by themysteries of nature, we realize how very small and unimportant we are inthe vast scheme of things. We envisage the infinite reaches ofastronomical space overhead. Realms of largeness unfathomable. And atour feet, everywhere, a myriad entrances into the infinitely small. Withourselves in between--with our fatuous human consciousness that we areof some importance to it all!

Truly there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of inour philosophy!

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was first published in _Astounding Stories_ March 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyrighton this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errorshave been corrected without note.