Dynasty of the Small

by John Russell Fearn

  The girl paused, then after a moment or two resumed: “I don’t see any signs of them at the moment. I told you I could adjust my vision to either plane, didn’t I? I can see here, too, though it’s dark to you.”

  “But what’s the answer to all this?” Will demanded desperately. “We can’t stand here theorizing when we’re both in danger. Where do we go? I can’t go back to my shop because if I did that—”

  “I know a place where we’ll be reasonably safe. At any rate, you will, and I can look after myself. In my own plane the location is a pretty quiet spot. Follow me.”

  Will did so, for an hour and more. They left the city behind and he found himself making his way across frozen ditches and iron-hard meadows, which had not yet thawed from the general relaxation of cold. At last he beheld a small wooden building looming up in the rising moonlight, set back on an elevated stretch of road.

  “How about that?” the girl called out.

  “Looks all right,” Will agreed. “But to whom does it belong? We may be caught—”

  “I’ve made sure of everything. It belongs to the Alvis Construction Company, but they went out of business a long time ago. It will probably be quite a while before anybody else takes over.”

  “Nice work!” Will breathed. “But look, two of us can’t be in that place at the same time. You’d freeze me to death.”

  “And if you put on too much heat you’d hurt me,” the girl pointed out. “I can’t stand large quantities of heat waves any more than you can stand scalding water. So I’ve worked out a compromise. I’ve taken a fur coat from a shop window for you to wear, and also a heater and some oil in a can. You can put on the fur coat and use the heater at half power. In that way I think we’ll just about make it.”

  “Then you’re a lot more sanguine than I am,” Will sighed, starting to follow again. “The way I see it, it seems we’ll only sit tight until we’re eventually caught.”

  “No we won’t. I’ve got some ideas about that, too. I’ll explain them later— Here we are!”

  Obviously the girl had been here before for Will noticed that the door padlock was crumbled ash and that she walked straight in. He waited; then her voice came out of the intense gloom.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! I forgot that you can’t see in the dark.... Come in, and see if you can stand my presence. The oil lamp’s on the table.”

  Will fumbled around, hands and face pricking with cold. He found the lamp at last and the box of matches beside it. To his surprise the girl gave a cry of pain as the light came up.

  “My own fault,” she said, after a moment or two. “I ought to have shut my eyes for a while. I can only take light in easy doses....”

  Will chafed his hands and looked about him. Big splashes of frost were on the bare wood walls and against the rough furniture where the girl was standing in a far corner. He moved to the door and shut it, then drew the battered old blind over the window. Apparently this place had once been a surveyor’s hut. In various directions were rules, theodolites, and tape measures. In the corner opposite the girl was the oil stove she had brought, a can of paraffin oil, one or two pots and pans, a kettle, and tins of food.

  “Nice going!” Will commented, flapping his arms vigorously.

  “I had to carry them in blankets to save cracking them with cold. The blankets were in shreds when I got here. How will that fur coat do? I think I covered it up enough to save it.”

  Will picked up the fur coat from the chair back and dragged it on thankfully. Then he turned the heat up half way and began to get a meal together. It was as he was in the midst of this that a thought struck him.

  “Just how do you eat?” he asked, pondering.

  “At present I’m limited to the food of my own plane. I’ll get some later on. You eat yours whilst I set about telling you a few things.”

  Will nodded and when he got around to pouring himself some tea the girl said: “You got pretty close to working out the reverse system of your father’s invention, didn’t you? I went to your shop and found that the police had taken away your apparatus—but they’d left your notes behind. From them I could tell that—”

  “I had it solved,” Will interrupted, his face grim. “Solved, I tell you! Then the police had to blow in and gum up the works! It’s the very devil!”

  “There may be a way round that. This shed is directly under a group of high-tension wires. Probably, though, you didn’t notice them in the dark. Suppose you had the necessary components and could clip cables to the high-tension wires, do you think there’s be a chance of getting me back to normal?”

  “A chance!” Will echoed. “I know I could! But—there’s a snag. The components I need are all at my shop and I just daren’t return to get any—”

  “No; but I can, and I will. I’ll wrap them all up well so they won’t get damaged. You see, Will, you’ve got to get me out of this before my erstwhile friends in this plane catch up on me.”

  “Okay. That being so I’ll write down a list of what I need and you’ll have to memorize it....”

  * * * *

  Existence for Will was a pretty nerve-racking business from that night onwards. Daylight revealed to him that the surveyor’s hut was a good way from the beaten track, as unlikely a spot as any for the police to find him.

  Vera returned at intervals, always with the cold air and frost, which presaged her arrival. Each time she returned with some new collection of vital components wrapped in a fast rotting blanket, which looked as though it had been dipped in liquid air. Always she worked at night, and in different parts of the city certain radio dealers were becoming a nuisance in their demands that the police trace an unknown thief who was mysteriously robbing them.

  Some of the materials Vera brought from Will’s own shop, necessary parts which only he could provide—and the more stuff she brought the harder Will worked, entirely from memory, the time he had spent poring over the original apparatus was now standing him in good stead.

  “You realize, of course,” he said, when they were together on the third night, “that when I switch this thing on two things can happen? If the police are busy with detectors—as they invariably are to trace illegal radio transmissions—they’ll discover the origin of this instrument, and incidentally me. In your own plane your former friends are liable to get hurt yet again, but that is something I cannot avoid.”

  “Yes, I’ve foreseen all that,” the girl responded, “but as far as I’m concerned nothing matters. My former friends have seen fit to turn against me, so they must take the consequences. It’s you I’m worrying about, Will. If the police should locate you before this job is finished, we’ll both be lost. I can never keep clear of my former friends long enough to rescue you for the second time. Besides, the police will see to it that there is no second time.”

  “Yes, you’re right enough there....” Will considered for a moment and then shrugged. “Well, we’ll have to risk everything on one throw of the dice. No tests, no anything, in case we give things away. You game?”

  “You bet I am!”

  Will turned back to his work and thereafter toiled without a break for nearly three hours. At the end of it he was stiff, decidedly weary, but triumphant.

  “Shan’t be long now,” he said quickly, collecting together a length of double cable. “I’m going to see what I can do to ‘pirate’ the high-tension wires.”

  Once outside in the night he headed for the nearest pylon and then began the difficult climb up the braced steel bars to the summit. Once here he had to go to work with infinite care, protected by heavy, rubber-leather gloves. First he reached out and clipped on one wire; then the other. When at last he got back to his apparatus he found everything was working perfectly.

  “Something occurs to me,” came the girl’s voice, after a moment. “Isn’t there a chance of the power station noting the extra load you’re taking?”

  “Every chance, I’m afraid, but it may take them quite a long time to trace it, and the first place
they’ll look will probably be in the city—not here. I’m not using up such a terrific lot of juice, anyway....” Will hesitated, his hand on the switch control. “Listen, Vera, in spite of what I said earlier I’ve got to make one small test in order to be sure. Without it I cannot be sure that you’ll come through the experiment without harm.”

  “Up to you. What do want me to do?”

  “You’d better go outside, if you will—to a distance of about half-a-mile. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  “All right—but the actual job will have to follow afterwards, no matter what, because we’ll have given ourselves completely away.”

  “I know. Just get going.”

  Will waited impatiently after the girl had gone, his eye on his wristwatch. Immediately the five minutes were up he switched on the apparatus. His eyes brightened as he made a quick check-over. The power meters and other complicated devices would show him exactly what was happening, and as far as he could determine everything was in order. Smiling to himself he switched off and presently Vera returned.

  “It works!” Will told her excitedly. “Definitely it works! It’s force of some kind, same as that which blasted you into that other plane—only it works in a different way now. As far as I can tell your bodily molecular structure, which was so upset by the original experiment, should now be restored to normal. I’m afraid it will hurt you, but I’ll stake everything I’ve got it will turn you into a visible human being in this plane.”

  “Good! That’s all we want to know—and I don’t mind what risks we take because there’s no turning back now. Let’s get the job done.”

  At that, Will threw the switch, directing the field towards the frosty area in the corner of the hut—then he turned with a puzzled frown as the smell of burning rubber floated to him and the whining of the dynamo suddenly ceased—

  “The main cable!” he gasped in horror. “You must have trodden on it, or something and it’s rotted away!” He made a sudden dive. “Yes, it’s broken in two—Mind out! You may get hurt!”

  Unwittingly he flung out his hand in a warning gesture and for a second contacted something yielding—but that something was as searing as the top of a white-hot stove. Anguish ripped at his finger-ends and brought tears into his eyes.

  “Will, you touched me! Your hand—” Vera’s distraught voice came suddenly.

  “Skip it!” Will panted. “It’s—it’s frostbite, or something. Go outside again while I fix this.”

  It was far more than frostbite, as Will soon found out. On his right hand, the first and second fingers were white to the knuckles, dead, seared with that inconceivable coldness. It hampered every move he made, made him fumble helplessly in his efforts to catch together the severed pieces of cable.

  He worked as rapidly as he could, gritting his teeth against pain, but he was bitterly aware that he had lost fifteen precious minutes before he at last had the break repaired and the wire clumsily patched up with cylinders of rubber and insulating tape.

  He got to his feet, gave the job a final once-over, and then moved towards the door to tell the girl to return. At the same moment, however, he heard her entry and fell back quickly. A second or two later her startled voice reached him.

  “Will, they’re coming! They’re coming!”

  “What! The police, you mean? But how have they—”

  “No, no, the other beings! My enemies! I can see them. You must have killed off more of them and they know that where you are I will be also— Get that thing going before they find me, for God’s sake! They’ll turn heat-rays on me—they have done!” she finished, with a sudden shriek.

  Will slammed the switch and the dynamo climbed steadily up into maximum revs—but above it he could hear something else. The sound of a car engine from somewhere quite near, and it was becoming louder.

  “Will, hurry!” the girl cried desperately. “The heat—!”

  Her voice-broke off and Will heard a thud. The bentwood chair went flying before an impact and frost cascaded along the floor. It was her fallen body: he knew that. He turned the projector downwards so that its power would still envelop her. Dead or alive, he had got to see just once what this mysterious girl looked like.... Will’s gaze rose suddenly from the floor to three grim faces in the open doorway of the hut—the faces of police officers. There was no mistaking them. At the moment they were holding back from the unbearable waves of cold beating around them.

  “We’ve got you covered, Gregory,” one of them said. “Switch off that cold-wave machine or take what’s coming to you! You’ve got exactly ten seconds from—now.”

  “Ten seconds are all I need,” Will retorted, glancing over his instruments. “Wait and see for yourselves, then you can do whatever you want. You won’t believe it, but there’s a woman lying there on the floor—where that frost is. An invisible woman. She caused that cold spell which struck us. I had nothing to do with it. I’m bringing her back to visibility so she can answer to whatever charge there is—”

  “Stop lying, Gregory! Our detectors show—”

  “There!” Will shouted abruptly. “Look! You can’t gainsay the evidence of your own eyes!”

  Will was trembling so much from the reaction of pain and excitement he could hardly stand but his urgent words had .an effect on the police. The icy cold was commencing to relax. The three men in the doorway stood stupefied, staring blankly at something beginning to take outline on the floor amidst the energy field. A solitary hand all by itself became visible first; then the receding tide of invisibility revealed a bare and slender arm. Still further the invisibility dissolved and a head, neck, and shoulders came into sight. Within perhaps fifty seconds the whole graceful body had come into view, face downwards and nude, since the other-world clothes had gone too.

  “The Ice Maiden cometh,” Will whispered, then sprang forward and shut off the machine. Tugging off his fur coat he flung it over the girl, then he raised her gently and stared into her face. Somehow, it was vaguely as he had imagined it. Oval in shape, framed in black hair. The mouth was firm and sensitive, the brows arching and intelligent. He wondered what color her eyes might be.

  Anxiously he felt her pulse, then smiled in relief. It was beating strongly enough.

  “All right,” the leading officer said, struggling out of his bewilderment. “Get this woman round and let’s hear what she has to say for herself.”

  Will found himself elbowed out of the way and Vera was laid back on the floor whilst professional restoration was applied. At length the girl’s eyes opened slowly—large brown ones—and she stared mystifiedly around her. Then at last she looked across to where Will was standing.

  “Will....” He could hardly hear her voice. “Will, you made it! I just remember them getting me when I collapsed! You—you brought me back!”

  “Uh-huh,” Will acknowledged quietly, studying her.

  “Yes, he brought you back,” the police officer-in-charge growled. “And you’re lucky that we happened to see it all take place, otherwise we’d never have believed it. But you’ve certainly got a lot of explaining to do. Soon as you’re all right we’ll get moving.”

  Will gave a grim smile. “We can explain things okay—and open up a new field of scientific endeavor, maybe. As for me, the price will be two amputated fingers, I’m afraid.” He held up the dead-white members and sighed. “Anyway, we’ll get the scientists to trace Vera Morton’s experience in full, then perhaps we’ll get off with a year or two.”

  “Or else—life,” Vera murmured, and buttoned the fur coat tightly about her.

  THE VICIOUS CIRCLE

  This is the story of a man accursed, of one human being in multi-millions who did not get a fair chance. In a word, I am a sort of scapegoat of Nature. I resent it—bitterly, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  My name is Richard Mills. I am dark, five foot eight, and my age is— Well that’s part of the story; but for the sake of convenience let’s say that I was thirty-two when the horror start
ed. It’s odd, you know, how you don’t always appreciate the onset of something enormously significant.

  I should have guessed that there was something wrong when, from the age of fifteen I often found myself mysteri­ously a few hours ahead of the right time without knowing how I had done it. I should also have attached suspicion to repeating actions I had done before. But then all of us have felt that we have done such-and-such a thing before—and so like you I didn’t think any more about it—

  Until the impossible happened!

  I had just left the office at 6:15 p.m. (I was then clerk to a big firm of lawyers) and in the usual way I took the elevator to the street level and went out­side. The October evening was darkening to twi­light and the lights of London were on either side of me as usual, climbing into drear muggy sky.

  I remember singing to myself as I swung along. Another day over, Betty to meet, and a cheery even­ing ahead of both of us.... But I did not keep that appointment because, you see, I walked into something that was at once beyond all sane imagining.

  One moment I was streaking for the bus stop—then the next I was in the midst of a completely formless gray abyss. It had neither up nor down, light nor dark, form nor outline. I was running on something solid and yet I couldn’t see it, and it was just when I was trying to imagine the reason for this sudden fog that I found myself still run­ning down a broad highway I had never seen in my life before!

  I slowed to a standstill and I looked about me. The street had altered inexplicably. It was not gray and dirty but highly glazed, as though the road surface was made of polished black glass. The traffic, too, was strangely designed and almost silent. There were no gasoline fumes: I noticed this particularly. In general the buildings were much the same, only shiny on the façades and somewhat taller.