Beyond the Vanishing Point Page 6

  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!