Astounding Stories, March, 1931 Part 16

Then we heard Polter's voice. "I will let you out, Babs. You come out, sit on my hand and talk with me. That will be nice? We haf a little time."

He unfastened the cage and put it on the cus.h.i.+on beside him. He was still propped up on one elbow.

"I let you out, now. Be careful, Babs."

My heart was almost smothering me. "Alan! We've got to get still closer! Try something! Get large, shall we?"

Alan whispered tensely, "I don't know! Oh, I don't know what to do!

This thing--"

This thing so strange.

"We can get closer," Glora whispered. "But never larger--not here.

They would discover us too soon."

We crept forward. We reached the edge of the cus.h.i.+on. Its top surface was a trifle lower than our heads--a billowing, wrinkled ma.s.s of fabric. But I saw that the folds of it were rough enough to afford a foothold. I thought that I could climb it. We stood erect. There was a deep shadow along here, but it was brighter on the cus.h.i.+on top. We could see over its edge; an undulating spread of surface with the giant length of Polter stretched there. The cage was nearer to us.

Polter's great fingers fumbled with it; a door in the lattice bars flipped open.

"Careful, my Babs!" His voice was a throaty, rumbling roar from above us. "Careful! I do not want you to be hurt."

From the little doorway came the figure of Babs! The starlight glowed on her long blue dress; her black hair was tumbling over her shoulders; her face was pale, but she was unhurt.

Babs! I think that I had never loved her so much as at that moment.

Nor ever seen her so beautiful as in that miniature, standing at the door of her golden cage, bravely facing the monstrous misshapen figure of her captor.

We heard her small voice.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stand quiet. Now I put my hand for you."

His monstrous hand bristled with a thatch of heavy black hair. He brought it carefully sliding along the cus.h.i.+on. Babs was barely the length of one of its finger joints. She climbed upon its palm.

"That iss right, Babs. Now I bring you--hold tight to my finger. Here, I crook the little one. Fling your arms around it."

With a swoop his hand took her aloft and away. Then we saw her, twenty feet or so in the air, still on his hand as he held it near his face.

"Now we haf a little talk, Babs. When we get to the island, I put you back in your cage."

I had a sudden flash of realization. Something I could do. I did not plan it. I know now my judgment was bad. I recall it struck me that Alan would want to do it also. And, perhaps, even Glora. That would not work. My chances, however desperate, were better alone. And Glora and Alan--in our present size-could doubtless disembark safely. Glora knew the lay-out of the island. She could follow Polter.

Alan and Glora were standing beside me, peering over that billowing cus.h.i.+on spread toward the distant giant palm with Babs standing upon it. I gripped Alan's shoulder.

"See here, Alan," I whispered vehemently, "whatever happens, we must follow Polter. Glora knows the way. Some chance will come. What we want is an opportunity to get large without discovery. Then rush Polter!"

Alan's white face turned to me. "Yes, that's what we're planning. But George, here on this boat--"

"Of course. Can't do it here. Tell Glora, be sure and follow Polter.

Whatever happens, you think of nothing else: you won't, will you?"

"George, what--"

"We've got to make some opportunity." I was trembling inside, fearful that Alan would be suspicious of me. Yet I had to make sure that he and Glora would stay as close to Polter as possible.

"Yes," Alan agreed. "Listen to them."

Polter was talking to Babs. But I did not hear the words. I moved a trifle away. Rash decision! I hardly decided anything. There was only the vision of Babs before me; my love for her. And my desperate need of doing something; getting to her; seeing her, being with her; having her near my own size again as though the blessed normality of that would rationalize and lessen her danger. If only I had been less ras.h.!.+

If only back there in that tunnel I had stopped to see what it was my foot kicked against!

I slid away. Alan and Glora did not notice it; they were whispering together and gazing over the cus.h.i.+on at Babs. In the floor shadow I moved some ten feet. On the undulating top of the cus.h.i.+on the little golden cage stood with its lattice door open! It was only a few feet from my face.

I fumbled at my belt for the diminis.h.i.+ng vial. I found one pellet left. Well, that would be enough. I was hurried. Alan might discover me. Polter might move; put Babs back in the cage and close its door.

We might be near the island already, and the confusion, the activity of disembarking would defeat me. A thousand things might happen.

I touched the pellet to my tongue. In a few seconds the drug action had come and pa.s.sed. The cus.h.i.+on top loomed well over my head. The side was a ridged, indescribably unnatural vista of cliff-wall. The fabric was coa.r.s.e with hairy strands, dented into little ravines and crevices. I climbed. I came panting to the pillow surface. The golden cage was six or eight feet away and was now two feet high.

Again I touched the drug to my tongue; held it an instant. The cage drew away; grew to a normal six-foot height; then larger, until in a moment it stopped. I stood peering at it, trying to gauge its size in relation to me. I wanted so intensely now to be normal to Babs. The cage seemed about ten feet high. A little less, possibly. I barely tasted the pellet, and replaced it carefully in the vial. I could only hope its efficacy would be preserved.

I had to chance that I would not be seen now crossing this billowy expanse. I ran. The rope strands of the fabric now had s.p.a.ces between their curving surfaces. The cage was a s.h.i.+ning golden house, set on this wide rolling area. Far in the distance there was a blur--Polter's reclining body.

I reached the cage. It was a room about ten feet square and equally as high. Walled solid, top and bottom, and on three sides. The front was a lattice of bars, with a narrow six-foot-high doorway, standing open now.

I dashed in. The interior was not wholly bare. There was a metal-wrought couch fastened to the wall, with a railing around it and handles. It suggested a s.h.i.+p's bunk. There was a railing at convenient height all around the wall.

I sought a hiding place. I saw just one--under the couch. It was secluded enough. There was a grille-like lattice extending down from the seat to the floor. I squeezed under one end, and lay wedged behind the grille.

How much time pa.s.sed I do not know. My thoughts were racing. Babs would be coming.

I heard the distant approaching rumble of Polter's voice. Through the grille I could see across the floor of the ten-foot cage to the front lattice bars. Outside, there appeared a huge, pink-white, mottled blob--Polter's hand, a ridged and pitted surface with great bristling black stalks of hair.

The figure of Babs came through the cage doorway. Blessed normality!

The same slim little Babs who always stood, since we were both matured, with her head about level with my shoulders.

The latticed door swung shut with a reverberating metallic clank. Babs stood tense, clinging to the wall railing. I heard the blurred rumble of Polter's voice.

"Hold tightly, my little Babs!"

The room lurched; went upward and sidewise with a wild dizzying swoop.

Babs clung; and I was wedged p.r.o.ne under the couch. Then the movement stopped; there was a jolting, rocking, and outside I heard the clank of metal. Polter was fastening the chains of the cage to his chest.

A white reflected glow now came through the bars. It was starlight reflected from Polter's s.h.i.+rt bosom. An abyss of distance was outside.