The giant world

CLIMBING INTO LARGENESS UNFATHOMABLE

In the fog and darkness at the foot of the incline, Martt stood tense, with upraised knife. The green-white thing was poised for its leap. It was not babbling now; its eye on the stalk glared balefully. A shudder swept Martt, as Frannie had shuddered an hour before when she and Leela passed this way, and she had caught a glimpse of this thing lying somnolent on the platform above.

Martt muttered, "Stay back, Zee." And then the headless thing leaped. Martt caught it on his outflung hand and knife, but did not stop it. He felt his hand sinking within it—a soft, sticky warmth. Its body came on, and struck his chest—a blow as though a soft, yielding pillow had struck him.

There was a moment, there in the darkness, of unutterable horror as Martt felt and saw his body mingled with the body of this gleaming thing clawing at him. He struck wildly, fighting, kicking in a panic of futility. Wet, warm and sticky! He seemed to tear its body apart. But the glowing, lurid outlines, wavering, came back always into shape.

The thing itself was in a panic. Lunging, twisting. Its claws scraped Martt's face, too imponderable to scratch. The slit of its mouth opened to grip his throat; its teeth sank impotently within his flesh. Pressing against him . . . the slime of it was warm, with a stench, noisome. . . .

Horrible! A nausea made Martt reel. And the thing now was crying with terrible, frightened cries. But they were low, suppressed.

Martt staggered. And suddenly the lurid green shape gathered itself and fled. Martt saw a quivering dark wound in its side. It fled whimpering along the rocks of the shore and disappeared.

Martt relaxed. He was unhurt. He stooped to the water and washed the stickiness from him. He felt a wild, hysterical desire to laugh.

"Zee, it—that thing was as frightened as I was!"

"Are you all right, Martt? It's gone! What was it?" She clutched at him anxiously.

"Yes—all right. It couldn't hurt me and I couldn't hurt it. Not much." He laughed again, but suddenly sobered. "Zee, there's a giant up there asleep. Hear him?"

They listened. From up there in the fog the deep, heavy breathing still sounded. Martt whispered, "You wait here, Zee. I'll creep up on him—get the drugs." He turned to her tensely. "Zee, you stay here. Close against the rocks. Whatever happens, you stay here. I'll—if I get the drugs—I'll make myself very large. Kill him—then I'll come back to you. Don't move—whatever happens."

He left her. The wooden incline sloped sharply upward. The fog momentarily seemed clearing. Martt saw above him the outlines of the houses, a broad platform connecting them. And stretched the length of the platform was the huge, recumbent figure of a man. He seemed about forty feet tall. He lay hunched, cramped for space, with one arm upflung to the roof of a house, and one leg dangling nearly to the water.

Martt reached the platform. He crept past the giant's legs. The waist, wrapped in a skin, was rising and falling with the giant's breathing. Martt's own breath was held. His heart was thumping wildly. The giant stirred; Martt stepped nimbly aside to avoid the movement of the great body.

At the giant's waist he paused, reached up, fumbling. There seemed a belt here, with pockets. The drugs should be there. The bulge of the giant's middle was nearly as high as Martt's chest as he stood upright. He reached up, and over, feeling with careful fingers.

With a thrill of triumph, Martt found two cylinders, each as long as his forearm. In the starlight he opened them, drew from each a flat, square tablet of compressed powder. The drugs! But which was for growth and which for shrinkage? One was larger than the other. It suggested growth. It was flat and square—the length of Martt's thumb. Impulsively he would have crushed it in his mouth and swallowed it. But a thought gave him pause. This giant was nearly seven times larger than himself. This expanded dose of the drug then would be too great. Martt bit off a corner of the white tablet. Swallowed it. An acrid taste. . . . He replaced the remainder in the cylinder and put both cylinders in his pocket, tying his jacket close around them. Would they expand with his body? He could only hope so.

Expand? How did he know but that he had taken the wrong drug? Well, he could soon rectify that. . . . A panic swept Martt that the giant might awaken too soon. . . . The drug was taking effect; Martt was sick and dizzy. He reeled to a post at an outer corner of the platform. Clung there. He all but slipped and fell into the water ten feet below.

A moment, then the sickness passed. He was growing! He could feel the post shrinking within his grip. The outlines of the houses were contracting. The knife in his hand, already tiny, slipped and fell into the water with a splash.

The post soon was too small for Martt to hold. He reached over and steadied himself upon the grass roof of the nearest house. It was melting under his hands. The sleeping giant lay at his feet, a giant no longer; a man, like himself—the two of them crowding a tiny, flimsy platform with toy houses beside it, and black water flowing sluggishly close underneath.

A sense of power swept Martt. A triumph. He was not afraid of this man, unarmed like himself. Already the man was undersized. . . . Why, Martt could grip him, choke him! . . . These toy houses—a sweep of Martt's arm would have scattered them.

Martt was bending awkwardly over the roof-tops. A ripping, tearing noise sounded. The platform, the houses, quivered, wavered, collapsed! The whole structure, bending beneath the weight of the two huge bodies, gave way. Martt found himself floundering in warm, muddy water, entangled in a debris of splintered wood and grasslike house-roofs.

And with him, his antagonist, awakened to a startled confusion, floundering, struggling to get upon his feet.

Martt rose to his knees. The shallow lake bottom was sticky with mud. A house-roof hung upon his shoulder. He heaved it off; stood upright, dripping, breathless. The other man was up also. In the starlight, amid the floating wreckage, they faced each other. Martt was the taller; and he was still growing. He saw his enemy shrinking before him. A slim young fellow, with long black hair. A broad, flat face, with a startled surprize on it.

Martt laughed. And shouted, "I've got you now!" He would have leaped. But abruptly he recalled Zee, tiny in size, huddled there by the shore. A lunge of his body—or of this other man's body—a flip of one of these torn housebeams—and Zee would be killed. . . .

Martt turned and waded rapidly away. He wondered if the other man would follow him. Martt wanted to get him farther out into the lake. It was an error; for as Martt turned to look back, he saw his antagonist's hand go to his belt; and then to his mouth. More of the drug! Martt thought that he had in his own pocket all there was of it here. But the giant had more. Already he was growing. As Martt stood undecided, he saw the giant growing like himself. He was smaller than Martt now, but growing more swiftly. He stood for an instant with his arms upflung toward the stars; then he came wading forward.

The mountains were at Martt's right hand. Shrinking, swiftly contracting. The water now came not much over his ankles; a small patch of wreckage marked where the collapsed buildings had stood.

Martt retreated slightly; he turned, moved to the cliff-face with his back against it.

Then, with a swirl of water, his enemy rushed at him. Martt met the rush unyielding. They locked. Swaying, struggling each to throw the other. The lake at their ankles was lashed white. They fought silently, grimly. The fellow was strong; he pushed Martt backward against the Mountain. His hands strove for Martt's throat. But Martt ripped them away. With a body-hold he bent his adversary backward; but always he could feel the man's body swelling within his grasp.

A desperation seized Martt. If he could not win now, at once, he would lose. This fellow was growing too large. Beside them, as they swayed, Martt caught a glimpse of the mountain. It was now a cliff not much higher than his head. At his feet Martt was dimly aware of a small black hole in the cliff into which water was rushing.

One of Martt's legs was wrapped around the legs of his adversary; and suddenly the man tipped. They went down together, Martt on top. It was like falling into a puddle of water. They lunged, rolled over. And then the giant rose, with Martt clinging to him. He was much larger than Martt now; he heaved himself upward, flung Martt against the cliff. Martt's head and shoulders went over its top. Jagged spires of rock; loose rocks lying there. The giant jerked Martt back; he fell on his feet; saw his antagonist towering over him.

But in Martt's hand now was a jagged lump of rock which he had snatched from the cliff. He flung it, and it caught the giant full on the forehead. He staggered, and as his grip on Martt loosened, Martt leaped away.

And the giant came crashing down, his huge body falling before the hole in the mountain; blocking it so that the surging lake backed up with a deepening torrent of the hot, black water.

II

Martt stood panting in the starlight. He had won. The scene around him was still dwindling, but in a moment it stopped. Cliffs to his shoulder. A shrunken, shallow lake. Its tiny flat islands were no bigger than his foot. Along its shore where the cliff ended he could see the open country. Tiny threads of roads. An island with points of colored light—the island of the festival. At his feet, miniature houses on stilts, many of them strewn on the water, trampled by this combat of giants in which he had been victorious.

And the fallen giant there in the water, blocking the river-mouth, the water deepening against his side.

Martt took a cautious step. Zee was down there somewhere. Then he saw her figure, dimly, in the mist which hung over the lake at his ankles. She seemed about the size of his finger. She was standing at the water's edge, waving up to him.

He bent down—carefully. He said softly, "I see you, Zee. You must get larger. I'll give you some of the drug to take."

She shouted, "Yes." It was a very tiny voice, echoing from far away.

Martt's jacket had been partly torn from him. One of his shoulders was bare, bleeding from where he had been thrown against the cliff-top. He stooped and dashed water upon the wound; and saw Zee crouch and shield herself from the deluge of water he splashed.

He thought, "Careful, Martt;" and from his pocket drew one of the cylinders. The tablets of the drug still were the size of his thumb. He took one, laid it carefully at the water's edge, near Zee. It was nearly the size of her body. She walked to it, examined it.

"Break it," he said. "Eat some—about the size of your thumb."

He could hardly have seen a speck of it so small. Zee found a loose rock. She pounded at the white tablet. Ate a fragment. And presently Martt gave her some of the other drug to stop her growth; and she was his own size, standing beside him, gazing at the shrunken scene in wonderment.

III

They stood consulting over what they should do. They had the precious drugs. Should they return with them to Brett, or go on and rescue Frannie and Leela? Martt was confident. With the drugs in his pocket, all sense of fear was passed. It was obvious that the world here was in no danger. This fallen giant at their feet was the last. But Frannie and Leela were captured; were taken up to that other realm. To delay following would be most dangerous of all.

And Zee agreed. Her eyes were sparkling. She stretched out her white arms. She said, "With this power we would be cowards to turn back——"

The giant still had some of the drugs about his person. Martt bent over him.

"Zee! He isn't dead!"

The young giant's face was white; blood was on his forehead where the rock had struck. He opened his eyes; rolled over in the water. The dammed river surged again into its black hole.

"Zee, look! He isn't dead!"

He sat up; smiled in a daze, struggled to rise to his feet but could not.

The rock which Martt had hurled lay like a great boulder in the lake. Martt seized it, but Zee caught his wrist.

"Martt! Don't——"

A sense of shame struck at Martt; he dropped the rock. "Zee, can you talk to him—try if he understands your language."

She spoke, and the young giant answered. He was trying to smile, grateful for the words. Zee stooped and splashed water on his wounded forehead.

"Martt, he says his name is Degg—he has seen Leela and Frannie—a man and woman took them into the river-mouth."

The fellow did not seem greatly hurt. He was frightened, watchful, but docile enough. Martt took the drugs from him. "Ask him the way up to his world—it will help us——"

It was the one thing that would help them! Martt realized it.

Degg, outwardly at least, seemed friendly enough. When Zee promised that they would not hurt him—would take him to his own world, the only way he would ever get there, since he had no drugs—he agreed readily to lead them.

"But we must be careful," said Martt. "Never let him get larger than ourselves. And watch him, always."

At Degg's direction, first they diminished their stature until, compared to the buildings of Reaf, they were about fifty feet tall. Degg said, in Zee's language, "We wade now into the black river. Rokk likes to swim—but wading is easier."

They were ready to start. Soon they would be beyond this world—up into largeness unfathomable. Martt said, "We must leave some message for Brett. Let him know what became of us."

There was no way to leave a written message. Conspicuously on a rock near the shore, Martt left the broad belt of his jacket. As he turned away, Degg was calling softly, "Ae! Eeff! Eeff, come here!" The green-white, headless thing was lurking among the rocks. "Eeff, come here!"

It advanced, whimpering. Compared to Martt's fifty-foot stature it seemed now no bigger than a rat. Martt conquered his aversion and stood waiting while it approached. In the starlight it glowed unreal; its eye on the stalk pointed distrustfully at Martt. It stood at Degg's feet; whimpering—and mumbling words.

Degg said to Zee, "It is afraid of your man. I tell it you will do no harm. It wants to come with us." He stooped over. "Eeff, you come with us?"

It understood, partly the words spoken in Zee's language, and partly the gesture. It said mouthingly, "Yes, Eeff come—with you."

Uncanny! Horrible! Martt shuddered. Degg was saying, "It is a very good friend to me. May we take it?"

"All right," said Martt shortly, when Zee translated. But it worried him. He resolved more than ever to watch Degg carefully, and to watch this headless thing Degg called a friend.

They fed a small morsel of the drug to Eeff, until it had grown to a size normal to them. Then they started. The black mouth of the river, to them in this size, seemed a passageway ten or twelve feet high and twice as broad. The river swirled about their legs; hot, with steam rising. Soon they were in darkness, following the river around a bend. But only for a moment. Martt and Zee were hand in hand. Degg was in advance; Martt could just distinguish Degg's figure with the shining blob of Eeff in the water beside him.

Darkness. But Martt's eyes were growing accustomed to it. And now the rocks of the caverns seemed to be giving light—a dim phosphorescence. The cavern expanded. They waded across a broad, shallow lake where the water was calm. Then again into a tunnel. Miles down its tortuous course with the river swirling and tumbling about them.

Sometimes there was a dry ledge upon which they could walk. Sometimes the river deepened, and they had to swim. Always Degg advanced grimly, steadily, and silently. A foreboding grew upon Martt. Were they going right? Was this the way Frannie and Leela had gone? Once he whispered, "Do you think, Zee, that he's tricking us?"

She shook her head. "You have all the drugs. He would not dare."

They had waded for hours. Then ahead of them they saw Degg pause. The river here plunged straight down into a black abyss. To the left a passageway turned upward. It was some ten feet high and two or three times as wide. It went up at an incline into the green, luminous darkness. They followed Degg. A mile perhaps, steadily climbing. Martt calculated. They had already walked possibly fifteen miles—and they were more than eight times the normal size of Zee's world. That was more than a hundred and twenty miles underground—most of it downward.

Martt realized that he was tired. And hungry. Before leaving Reaf he had thought of food necessary for this trip. Degg had a concentrated food—a dull brown powder. Martt promptly had appropriated it—had tested it to make sure it was not a size-drug. . . .

The passageway abruptly opened into black, empty space. A rocky slope rolling gently upward, strewn with huge black boulders. It extended as far as Martt could see, upward into a luminous darkness. Overhead was a black sky—murky with distance.

Degg stopped. "We begin getting large here."

Zee translated it to Martt.

"Let's eat, then," said Martt. "Zee, aren't you tired and hungry?"

There was water lying in flat pools on the rocks. It was clear, cold and sweet. They sat down, talking and eating. Then Zee slept. And Degg slept also.

Martt sat alert, watching, while the headless thing stretched itself somnolent on a rock near by, its single eye on the stalk wilting downward in drowsiness.

Martt strove to master his revulsion. He called softly, "Eeff! Eeff, come here!"

But it would not come. It moved farther away, whimpering to itself.

IV

"Zee, wake up! We've got to get started. You've slept hours."

The real size-change now began. In single file they walked up the black slope. It shrank beneath them—creeping, crawling, dwindling away under their feet. The boulders shrank into rocks, into pebbles. In an hour they were walking upon a smooth surface.

The black void was no longer empty. Mountains showed ahead—and to the sides. Giant faces of rock, looming into unfathomable distance of the black sky. The mountains were drawing closer; contracting, rushing down with a violent movement.

Martt apprehensively glanced behind. A wall of dwindling rock was coming after them. The drug in these larger doses seemed acting with a multiplied power. The scene was a dizzy swirl of movement. Mountains closing in everywhere. To Martt came a flash of terror. They would be crushed. Their bodies were growing tremendously to fill this constricted space. . . .

Degg had stopped walking. They were gathered in a group. They were now in the center of a circular valley, with a ring of mountains closing in. A ten-mile valley . . . a mile . . . a hundred feet. . . .

But the mountains shrank to hills; to a low cliff-wall—a ridge. . . . It closed in. . . .

"Now!" shouted Degg. They leaped over the low ledge of encircling rock; scrambled over it and fell on a level ground above. . . .

Beside them Martt saw a small jagged hole in the ground. . . . The size of his waist . . . his fist . . . his finger. . . . It dwindled, closed and was gone; while again, above them and all about, were black, empty spaces, filled soon with shrinking canyons out of which hastily they climbed. . . .

A fantasmagoria of climbing, struggling upward to avoid being crushed by their own growth. . . .

There was a canyon too narrow, with sides too high. . . . They had to stop their growth, and climb its jagged, precipitous side. The climb took hours. There was another meal, while Martt slept and Zee remained on guard.

Then another valley. Broad, with a steeply inclined floor. They grew out of it; into another; and another. . . .

Martt became conscious of a change in the air. Cooler, with a dankness. And now at last, overhead the void was no longer black. A suggestion of purple. And suddenly as they leaped from a chasm which shrank and closed under them, Martt saw a sky. Somber purple, with stars.

A new conception of it all swept Martt. His Earth—the stars of its Universe. The Inner Surface of the Atom, Zee's realm—millions of times larger. And now—compared to Reaf . . . was he now a million times the size of Reaf? . . . Or a million million? Largeness, unfathomable. A convex world out here. The surface of a globe, whirling in Space. And overhead, still other stars, so gigantic—so remote!

V

Martt gazed curiously around. They were at last in Degg's world—the region of the Arcs. A tumbled land of crags upon which lay a gray-black snow. Martt's heart sank before its utter desolation—a tumbled waste, upheaved as though by some cataclysm of nature. Desolation! And as though to veil it, a fall of blackish snow—a somber, tragic shroud.

It was night. And, Martt surmised, a winter season. Yet the air was not cold; merely dank. And the snow seemed not cold, congealed perhaps by the dank, heavy air; but to Martt's touch, not cold, no more than chill.

With her bare limbs and filmy veiling, Zee was shivering. Martt discarded his jacket, but she did not want it.

He said, "But you must be cold, Zee."

"I'm not." She shook herself. "I'm—frightened. This—night up here—it's like a tomb, Martt."

Tomblike, indeed. A dank, chill silence brooded over the night. And then, almost unheralded, it was not night, but day. A small, cold-red sun leaped up from the distant black horizon. A day of dull, flat light. It stained the snow with blood. . . .

Blood everywhere. . . .

Degg said somberly to Zee, "Always blood. It is an omen. . . . My land, doomed——" There was a quiver in Zee's voice as she repeated his words to Martt.

They had come now not to mistrust Degg. He seemed a well-meaning youth. Simple-minded. He had told them something of his world—of Rokk, and the woman Mobah. Degg, in his heart, hated and feared Rokk.

"Why?" demanded Zee.

He turned his dark, solemn eyes upon her. "You are too gentle, little girl Zee, to understand. We have many—horrible things here in Arc. I would not talk of them with you."

It had been Rokk's plan, Degg said, to take Leela and Frannie to the place where he lived. Degg was to join Rokk there. . . . It was not so very far. . . . Degg called it Rokk's mound. They were headed that way now. Soon it would be night again—Martt could do what he thought was best toward rescuing the two girl prisoners. And Martt promised he would protect Degg.

Vaguely in Martt's mind had been the idea that he could use the drugs again now—make himself still larger—catch Rokk unawares. But the large drug would take no further effect. The maximum size had been reached. Degg did not know why; save that these drugs were for smallness—the large one merely an antidote to the other.

Martt was left without tangible plan. But his first desire was to get near Rokk's mound—whatever sort of place that might be. And he would decide then what could be done.

The blood-red sun came swiftly up in a low arc, and plunged as swiftly down again. To Martt, it had been some half an hour of daylight. Now came the brooding night—and in another half-hour the sun would again make its low sweep.

Martt urged Degg forward. Eeff was leading—lurid, green-white against the black of the ground. Then it stopped. Its eye quivered; it screamed—a long, shuddering, half-human cry of fright.

Degg stood frozen—a statue in the gloom. And then Martt—and Zee also, for she uttered a low, suppressed cry—saw what had frightened Eeff.

It was about a hundred feet away—a dull, glowing red as though the blood of sunlight were upon it. A thing which might have been a long, blood-red vine. Not animal, but vegetable. It lay on the ground—a great, thick stem, with upflung leafy branches waving like tentacles. At intervals, upon long stalks, were round spots of green light. Gleaming, baleful eyes.

The thing was lying its length upon the ground. Not quiescent, but everywhere in quivering, undulating, snakelike movement. Its eyes seemed all turned this one way. Eyes suggesting an intelligence—a reasoning behind them. A thing, not animal but vegetable! Its brain, lacking even the least vestige of human or animal restraint, cast in a mold unutterably horrible.

Eeff was crouching at Degg's feet, babbling with terror. Degg muttered, "It is unrooted! Free! It—I told Rokk they would break free some time—before he was ready!"

"Unrooted!" Zee echoed.

Unrooted! It was slithering, out there in the darkness. . . . It shrank to a blood-red blur. . . . It vanished. . . .

They went on again. Degg would not talk, save to reiterate fearsomely, "I knew they would cast off their roots! Roaming, everywhere. And Rokk thought he dared to grow them——"

A rise of ground lay ahead. Beyond its crest only the purple sky was visible, with stars sweeping in rapid, low arcs. Martt, Degg and Zee were walking together, with Eeff close before them.

Eeff began whimpering again; then screamed. And ahead, from over the crest of the hill, as though in answer came an echoing scream! Yet not an echo! A scream, human! It drove the blood to Martt's heart; stopped his breathing. The scream of a voice familiar—a girl's voice—Frannie!

For all the horror surging over him, Martt leaped forward. And stopped, stricken on the hill-crest.

Beneath him in the gloom lay a shallow, bowl-like depression. The starlight illumined it wanly. Frannie was down there, struggling in the grip of a blood-red, vegetable thing! A segment of it was wrapped around her, dragging her forward. The light of it drenched her with blood; its myriad green eyes glared throughout its waving length.

And ahead of it was a line of others of its kind, leading the way, slithering up and over the opposite slope!