Beyond the Vanishing Point, Page 4

  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!