August 1931

by Unknown

  But Youth looks only ahead. The majority of the rescued technies were young, and with eagerness and anticipation, they followed Mich'l and Nida Ares down into the valley to build their first homes.

  The Midget From the Island

  A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

  By H. G. Winter

  [Sidenote: Garth Howard, prey to half the animals of the forest, fights valiantly to regain his lost five feet of size.]

  In the chill of an early morning, a rowboat drifted aimlessly down the Detroit River. It seemed to have broken loose from its mooring and been swept away; its outboard motor was silent and it swung in slow circles as the currents caught at it. But the boat carried a passenger. A man's nude body stretched face downward in it.

  It was a startling figure that lay there. The body was fully matured and had a splendid development of rounded muscles--and yet it was not more than three feet in length. A perfectly formed and proportioned manikin! The two officers in the harbor police launch which presently slid alongside to investigate were giants in comparison.

  They had not expected to find such weird cargo in a drifting rowboat. They stared at the naked, unconscious midget in utter amazement, as if seeing a thing that could not be real. And when one of them reached down to lift the tiny body aboard, his eyes went wider with added surprise. His lift was inadequate. The dwarf's weight was that of a normal-sized man!

  This was mystery on mystery. But they got the uncannily heavy figure aboard at last and ascertained that, though the skin showed many wounds and was blue from long exposure, the heart was still beating. And realizing that the life might flicker out beneath their eyes unless they took action immediately, they proceeded to work over him.

  After some minutes, the dwarf gave signs of returning consciousness. His lids fluttered and opened, disclosing eyes that filled suddenly with terror as they stared into the faces, huge in comparison, that leaned over his. One of the officers said reassuringly:

  "You're all right, buddy: you're on a harbor police launch. But who in the devil are you? D'you speak English? Where'd you come from?"

  * * * * *

  The midget struggled to speak; struggled desperately to tell something of great importance. They bent closer. Gasping, high-pitched words came to their ears, and the story that those words told held them spellbound. When the shrill voice ceased and the dwarf sank back into the coat they had thrown around him, the two policemen gazed at each other. One whistled softly, and his companion said soberly:

  "We'd better phone up and have the local police tend to this right away, Bill."

  Thus, two hours later, several miles up the river, another launch containing three officers came to its destination, a solitary, thickly-wooded island that brooded under a cloak of silence where the river leaves broad Lake St. Clair. The launch crept up to a mooring post a few feet from a small, rough beach, and was tied there. Quickly, the men waded ashore and tiptoed up a winding trail that was barred from the sun by dank foliage. They soon came to a clearing where a large cabin had been built. There, one of them whispered, "Guns out!"

  Then the three men crossed the clearing and cautiously entered the cabin.

  For a moment there was silence. Then came a terrified shout, followed by the bunched thunder of a succession of pistol shots. The reverberations slowly died away, and some time later the policemen reappeared and stood outside the door.

  One of them, dazed, kept repeating over and over, "I wouldn't have believed it! I wouldn't have believed it!" and another nodded in wordless agreement. The third, white-faced, stared for a long time unseeingly at the cloud-flecked bowl of the sky....

  But it would be best, perhaps, to tell the story as it happened.

  * * * * *

  The incredible events that shaped it began two nights before, when the larger of the two rooms in the island cabin was bathed in the bald glare of a strong floodlight that threw into sharp prominence the intent features of two men in the room, and the complicated details of the strange equipment around them.

  Garth Howard, the younger of the two, was holding a tiny, squawling, spitting thing, not more than three inches long, which might have seemed, at a quick glance, to have been a normal enough kitten. Closer inspection, however, would have revealed that it had a thick, smooth coat, a lithe, fully developed body and narrowed, venomous eyes--things which no week-old kitten ever possessed. It was a mature cat, but in the size of a kitten.

  Howard's level gray eyes were held fascinated by it. When he spoke, his words were hushed and almost reverent.

  "Perfect, Hagendorff!" he said. "Not a flaw!"

  "The reduction has not improved her temper," Hagendorff articulated precisely. His deep voice matched the rest of him. Garth Howard's clean-muscled body stood a good six feet off the floor, yet the other topped him by inches. And his face compared well with his bulky body, for his head was massive, with overhanging brows and a shaggy mop of blond hair. Athlete and weight-lifter, the two looked, but in reality they were scientist and assistant, working together for a common end.

  * * * * *

  The room in which they stood was obviously a laboratory. Bulky gas engines and a generator squatted at one end; tables held racks of tools and loops of insulated wiring and jars of various chemicals. One long table stretched the whole length of the room, placed flush against the left wall, whose rough planking was broken by a lone window. There were racks of test tubes on this table, and tools, carelessly scattered by men intent on their work.

  Still another table was devoted to several cages, containing the usual martyrs of experimental science: guinea pigs and rabbits, rats and white mice. Beside these was a large box, screen topped, in which, in separate partitions, were a variety of insects: beetles and flies and spiders and tarantulas.

  But the thing that dominated the laboratory was the machine on the long table against the wall. Its chamber, the most striking feature, was a cube of roughly six feet, built of dull material resembling bakelite. Wires trailed through it from the glittering plate, which was the chamber's floor, and a curved spray-shaped projector overhead, to an intricately constructed apparatus studded with vacuum tubes. A small switchboard stood beside the chamber, and from it thick cables led to the generator in the rear of the room.

  "Let us return her to normal," Hagendorff rumbled after a moment or two devoted to prodding and examining the diminutive cat. "Then for the final experiment."

  One whole wall of the cubical chamber was a hinged door, with a tier of several peep-holes. Garth Howard swung the door open, placed the tiny, struggling cat inside and quickly closed it again. "Right," he said briefly, and pressed his eyes to the bottom peep-hole.

  * * * * *

  A switch was pulled over, and the dynamo's drone pulsed through the room. Hagendorff's fingers rested on a large lever that jutted from the switchboard. Slowly, he pulled it to one side.

  The imprisoned cat, small as a rat, had been nervously whipping its tail from side to side and meowing plaintively; but, as the lever swung over, there came a change. The vacuum tubes behind the switchboard glowed green; a bright white ray poured from the spray in the chamber, making the metal plate below a shimmering, almost molten thing. The animal's legs suddenly braced on it; its narrowed eyes widened, glazing weirdly, while the tail became a stiff, bristling ramrod. And, as a balloon swells from a strong breath, the cat's body increased in size. It grew not in spurts, but with a smooth, flowing rhythm: grew as easily as a flower unfolding beneath the sun.

  In only a few seconds its original size was attained. Howard raised his hand; the lever shot back and the white beam faded into nothingness. A full sized and very angry cat tore around the inside of the chamber.

  "Normal?" Hagendorff questioned. The other nodded and prepared to open the door.

  "Wait! She always was a little undersized; I give her a few inches more as a reward."

  "Not too much," warned Garth. "She's got a nasty temper; we don't want a wildcat prowling round here!"

 
The white beam flashed, the tubes glowed and almost instantly flickered off again. When the chamber's door was opened, an indignant and slightly oversized cat bounded through, leaped from the table with a squawled oath of hatred and streaked into the front room of the cabin.

  * * * * *

  Garth turned and faced Hagendorff, a smile on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. He ran his fingers through his black hair.

  "Well," he said, "now it's time for the final experiment. Who shall it be?"

  Hagendorff did not answer at once, and the American went on:

  "I think it'd better be me. There's a slight risk, of course, and I, as the inventor, could never ask an assistant to do anything I wouldn't. Is it all right with you?"

  Hagendorff nodded quickly in answer. Garth stood reflecting for a moment.

  "Guinea pigs, rabbits and insects have survived reduction to one-twentieth normal size," he said slowly. "It should be safe for the human body to descend just as far. But stop me at about two feet this first time. I'm not taking any chances; I want to be alive and kicking when I announce the success of my experiments to the scientific world."

  His assistant said nothing.

  "Well, here goes," Garth added. "I'd better take off my clothes if I don't want to be buried in them. They're not affected by the process. Must be because of the lack of organic connection between their fibers and the human body."

  A few minutes later, nude, he jumped onto the laboratory table. He presented a perfect specimen of well-developed manhood as he stood before the door of the chamber. His smooth skin, under which the rounded muscles rolled easily, gleamed white beneath the glare of the floodlight. His gray eyes glanced at the stolid assistant, who already had one hand on the switchboard's lever. Garth saw that the hand was trembling slightly, and smiled as he realized Hagendorff was as excited as he. He said:

  "I'll leave the door ajar, so you can more easily watch every phase of the reduction. If it's painful--well, I guess I can stand anything a cat can!"

  Then, stooping slightly, Garth stepped in and drew the door almost shut.

  * * * * *

  He relaxed as much as possible from the tremendous excitement that filled him, and nodded at Hagendorff.

  "I'm ready," he said. "Go ahead!"

  The ray came to his body as the crash of thunder comes to the ear. His nerves leaped as it struck and enveloped him. He felt as if he were entombed in ice, and yet his veins were aflame. Fiery shafts fanged him all through and resolved, presently, into a measured, tingling beat.

  His thoughts raced. He knew that those minute particles of matter, the atoms of his body, were being compacted; he sensed that his legs were rigid, his body stiff, his eyes clamped ahead in a glazed stare. He was only half-conscious of the objects outside, but the dim sight of them was fantastic and nauseous.

  There was Hagendorff's face peering in at him--growing! Swelling as the cat's body had swollen; and yet receding and rising until Garth, momentarily forgetting that he was the one whose size was changing, thought that the man's titanic body would fill the room. But the room was growing, too: the stools were becoming leviathans of wood, the walls were like cliffs, the compact switchboard was a large surface of black, and the chamber in which he stood grew into a high-roofed vault, its sides shooting up and retreating as if shoved by invisible hands.

  And still he sank, and still the terrible light devoured him.

  Suddenly a delirious sensation engulfed him; his senses went reeling away, and he staggered. Then with a wrench he came to. As he regained control of his mind he knew the lever had been switched off and the process completed.

  He found that he was gasping. He passed a hand over his sweat-studded face and looked around.

  * * * * *

  Outside was the room of a giant. And in a moment a giant became visible. His vast bulk filled the chamber's doorway; his mammoth face peered in. Garth's eardrums quivered from a deep bass rumble, sounding like thunder on a distant horizon.

  "Are you all right, Howard?"

  A finger half the length of his own arm reached forward and prodded him. For a second Garth could do nothing but stare at it. It brought home to him starkly the puny size of his body, only two feet in height. He felt suddenly afraid. But that was foolish, he thought; and he laughed, his voice ludicrously high and shrill.

  "I'm all right," he cried. "But I can hardly understand you. If I were much smaller, I probably couldn't--your voice'd seem so deep. Gangway, Hagendorff, I'm coming out!"

  His eyes were just below the level of the giant's shoulders. He stepped from the black chamber and stared amazedly at the room, at the chairs, the objects in it--at the laboratory table on which he was standing, along which he might have sprinted thirty yards. A surge of exultant animal spirits flowed through him. His dream had become a reality; the machine had passed its last test! His body was sound and whole; he felt perfectly natural; he had not changed, save in size; and in size he was like Gulliver, confronted with a Brobdingnagian room!

  He hurdled a five-inch-high box of tools, ran down the creaking table and stood laughing in front of a rack of test tubes half as high as he was. Three strides took Hagendorff opposite him; and from above the thunderous voice rumbled:

  "What were your sensations?"

  "Probably as close as man'll ever get to the feelings of a spark of electricity!" the midget replied. "But bearable, though I was freezing and burning at the same time. My body was rigid, paralyzed--just like the animals we used. I couldn't move."

  "You're sure you couldn't move? You were helpless?"

  * * * * *

  The booming voice throbbed with sudden interest. Garth looked up curiously. "No," he repeated. "I couldn't move. But lift me down, Hagendorff. I want to take a walk on the floor."

  A hand wrapped around his body, tensed and strained upwards. The two-foot-high man was not quite pulled off the table. Then Hagendorff grunted and relaxed his grasp.

  "I had forgotten," he rumbled. "Your weight remains the same. You are one-third my size, yet you weigh almost as much as I do. Weight, which is the sum of the mass of all the atoms in you, is not, naturally, affected by compacting those atoms."

  It was only by a great effort that he was able to deposit the manikin on the floor.

  For a while Garth strolled around, savoring to their full the fantastic sensations his diminished stature gave him, at once amused and somehow frightened by the overwhelming size of the laboratory. To his eyes, the tables were like bridges; Hagendorff's broad figure loomed monstrously over him, and the guinea pigs and rabbits in their cages seemed as big as fair-sized dogs. With a grin, he looked up at the giant who was his assistant.

  "Think I'll make the return trip, and give you a chance," he said. "I've had my share, and the process has been proven. It's weird, being down in this new world all alone. I'd hate to think what would happen if a rat came along!"

  Silently, Hagendorff stooped and grasped him again. But Garth, when he stood once more inside the chamber, regarded his huge, rough-moulded face curiously.

  "Say," he said, puzzled, "your hands are trembling like the devil! What's wrong? You're more nervous than I am!"

  Hagendorff did not answer. He advanced to the switchboard. His narrowed, deep-set eyes shot a quick glance at the small, nude man inside the chamber, and for a second one hand hovered over the lever on the panel.

  * * * * *

  In that tense second a flash of intuition, of deadly fear, came to Garth Howard, and he leaped wildly forward. But his rear foot did not leave the floor of the chamber, and his shout of alarm was choked midway. Again the fierce ray paralyzed every muscle in him, and he was locked motionless where he was.

  Helplessly, his glazed eyes stared at Hagendorff, while every moment his rigid little body melted downwards. He was becoming rapidly smaller, not larger!

  Through the agony of the stabbing electrical waves, in vain Garth tried to wrench his legs free. The few inches that separated him from the door were an impassabl
e barrier. Sheer panic clutched him. He was trapped. But why? Why had Hagendorff tricked him?

  As if reading the question, the giant outside came close to the chamber's door and regarded his captive with eyes that were lit by a peculiar flame. He grunted, then reached backward and returned the switchboard lever almost to the neutral point, reducing the speed of the decreasing process.

  "Yes, that is better," the German gloated, in a deep, satisfied tone. "It will be slower, now. Slower--and more interesting to watch!... I fancy your eyes are reproachful, my friend. Why have I done it, you wonder? Ach! This machine, it will startle the world of science; it will make its inventor famous--not? Yes; and did you think I was going to stand by and see all the credit go to you? No! To me it shall go--me alone! And you--" He chuckled and rubbed his hands before going on.

  "You shall be what the newspapers call a martyr to science. You shall sink to a foot, to six inches--to one inch--even less, I think! Eventually the reduction will kill you, of course; and your body shall be proof of how you died--in an experiment--and shall also prove the machine's power and my genius!"

  * * * * *

  He laughed thunderously, a blond and malevolent titan. He did not notice that, with the lessening of the reduction's speed, a slight trace of control over his muscles had returned to the midget inside. His tiny body was slowly diminishing, and complete, hopeless paralysis and death was not far away. But Garth was fighting every second, fighting desperately with the trace of strength he possessed to slide to the door, break the contact and get out from under the ray's remorseless influence. Almost imperceptibly, the effort lacerating him with pain, he slid his feet forward. Hagendorff talked on. He seemed to be blinded by the vision of the fame his treachery would bring him.

  "We shall have an experiment, my Professor; and then you will have an interesting death! The ray will suck you down; you will crumple and crumple till you're not much bigger than my thumbnail! And then I shall--ah!"