Authors: Theodore Sturgeon
“Bronze …” he said aloud.
Big, bluff, faithful Bronze, with his quick temper and his hammer-thinking. Garth got a flash of memory—Bronze’s face when Garth had pulled him up short, pointed out some end result of Bronze’s impulsiveness. He used to get a puzzled, slightly hurt expression on his broad face, but he always began nodding his head in agreement before he had figured out if Garth was right or not.
Garth’s eyes felt hot. Then, with a profound effort of will, he shut his mind to his regrets and concentrated on his surroundings.
Moving carefully, he worked his way over to the spare tank that Viki had dropped. He worried it in between the two tanks he already carried. He’d live a little longer with it. “Though what for,” he muttered, “I wouldn’t know.” He gave a last, despairing glance to the site of the Gateway and began to move toward the distant helicopter.
A hundred feet away he found a leaf—a tremendous thing, eleven feet long and nearly five feet broad at its widest. He picked it up gratefully. It was very light and spongy. He pulled the stem over his shoulder and walked through the rocks, dragging it. The leaf was almost exactly the color of the soil, and ideal camouflage. All he need do would be to drop it flat and pull it over himself.
He was two-thirds of the way to the plane when a thudding from the earth warned him. He looked back and saw the three women coming rapidly. They seemed to be sauntering, but their stride was twenty to twenty-five feet, and they covered ground at a frightening pace. He dropped and covered himself. The steps came nearer and nearer, until he wondered how the earth itself stood up under that monstrous tread. Then they were past. He got up. They walked with their heads up, talking their booming syllables. They were obviously searching no longer.
He began to run. He had no choice except to stay with these creatures. What he would do, where he would go if they took off, he simply did not know.
They climbed into the cabin, one by one. He could see the landing gear—tremendous wheels as tall as a two-story house—spread as they took the weight of the giants.
There was a belly-thumping cough and the incredible rotor-blades began to turn.
Garth flung down his leaf and ran straight toward the ship, trusting to luck that he wouldn’t be seen. When he was under the slow-whirling tips of the rotor he still had what seemed an impossible distance to run. He found some more energy somewhere and applied it to his pumping legs.
A tire lost the swelling at the base that indicated weight-bearing. It lifted free. Garth swerved slightly and made for the other. It leapt upward as he approached. He ran despairingly under it. Only the nose-wheel was left. Without slackening speed he rushed it. Fortunately it was smaller than the others—the rim of the wheel was only about as high as his collarbone when the tire rested on the ground. But it was off the ground when he got there. He grunted with effort and made a desperate leap.
His outthrust arm went through the lightening hole just as the wheel jerked upward. He crooked his elbow grimly as his momentum swung his flailing legs under the tire. Then he got his other arm through the hole. It was just big enough for his head and the upper part of his shoulders. The air-tanks kept him from wriggling further.
Then, to his horror, he saw the strut above him fold on a hinge.
The wheel was retractable!
He had to turn his whole body to look upward through his helmet-glass, and somehow he managed it. He had no way of gauging how deep the wheel recess was. Was it deep enough to accept the wheel—and him too?
He looked down.
It would have to be deep enough … the craft was a hundred feet up and rising rapidly!
He doubled up and got one toe on the edge of the lightening hole. He could just grasp the fork of the wheel. He swarmed up it, caught the other arm of the fork and lay belly down on the top part of the
tire-tread. Then the wheel was inside, and the great bayflaps swung closed. The inside of the recess touched his back, squeezed, and stopped.
He couldn’t move, but he wasn’t crushed.
It was night.
Garth crouched by a building the size of a mountain. It was built of wooden planks that looked like sections of a four-lane highway.
He tried to forget the flight, though he knew it would haunt him for years—the cramped position, the slight kink in his airhose and the large kink in his neck which had caused him such misery, and finally the horror of the landing, when the wheel he clung to had contacted and rolled. Stiff as he was, he’d had to hit the ground ahead of it and leap out of the way.
He moved along the wall, looking for a way in. He would try the doorways as a last resort, for not only were they at the top of steps with seven-foot risers but they were flooded with light.
He stumbled and fell heavily into a dark hollow scooped out at the ground line. It was about four feet deep. He got to his knees, caught a movement in the dim light, and froze. Before him was a black opening through which he could see the bright-yellow stripes of artificial light seeping between enormous floorboards. And in the dim light he was aware of something which crouched beside him in the dark. It was horny and smooth, and at one end two graceful, sensitive whips trembled and twirled.
It was a cockroach, very nearly as long as his leg.
He wet his lips. “After you, friend,” he said politely.
As if it had heard him, the creature flirted its antennae and scuttled into the hole. Garth drew a deep breath and followed.
It was black and brilliant, black and brilliant under that floor. Twice he fell into holes, and one of them was wet. Filthy and determined, he explored further and further, until he lost all sense of direction. He didn’t know where the entrance hole was and he no longer cared very much. He knew what he was looking for and at last he found it.
Near one wall was a considerable hump on the rough earth floor he walked on. A wide, oval patch of light above showed the presence of a tremendous knot-hole. He climbed toward it.
The wood was soft under his fingers, like balsa. He began tearing out chunks of it, widening the knot-hole. The earth here was about three feet under the hole, so he had to squat and work upward. It was extremely tiring, but he kept at it until he had a hole large enough to put his head through.
Because of the small size of his helmet glass, he had to put his head almost all the way up before he could see anything. And because of the brilliance above, he had to stay there a moment to accustom his eyes to the glare—What he saw made him, for the first time in his life, fully understand the phrase “And when I looked, I thought I was going to faint!”
He dropped back down the hole and lay gasping, with reaction. One of the giantesses was sitting on the floor, propped up by one arm stretched out behind her. And he had busily dug his hole and thrust out his head exactly between her wide-spread thumb and forefinger!
He sat up and looked about him very carefully indeed. He followed the mammoth outline of the girl’s shadow, where it crossed the lines of light between the floorboards. And then he lay back patiently to wait until she moved.
He must have dozed, and in the meantime become immune to the thunderous shuffling and subsonic bellowings of the creatures above, for when he opened his eyes again the shadow was gone. He knelt and cautiously put his head up through the hole.
The floor stretched away from him like a pampa. There were eight or nine of the huge women in the room, as far as he could see. Several were in a stage of dress which, under different circumstances, he might have found intriguing.
He pressed up harder. The tanks caught on the edge of the hole. He gritted his teeth and pushed with his legs under the floor and his arms above. He felt the wood yield under his hands. Then the tanks ripped their way through and he was at last in the room.
He backed cautiously up to the baseboard, darting glances in every direction. Making sure that none of the women was looking in his direction, he darted for the only patch of shadow he could
see—a loose-hung fishnet that covered a window, serving as sort of a drape. He slid behind it and peered through the mesh. It seemed to be indifferent concealment; yet, from their point of view, he knew he would be hard to locate.
He paused to switch tanks—his air was getting foul—and then took stock.
The women were gathered around a table near the center of the room, rumbling and gesticulating in their strange, slow-motion fashion. None were looking his way. He looked down to the right. A small table stood in the corner and there was another fishnet behind it. Garth moved toward it, passing one leg which was like a redwood tree and, reaching up, twined his hands in the wide mesh of the drape. It sagged alarmingly as his weight came on it. He waited until it was still and then climbed up a few feet. Putting both feet into the mesh he jumped hard to test it. It sagged again, but held.
To the underside of the table seemed the longest thirty feet he had ever determined to travel, but he started up. The fishnet seemed to stretch a foot for every eighteen inches he climbed. He looked down and saw it touch the floor, then begin piling up.
He suddenly remembered the incredible density of the tiny Ffanx invaders, and a great light dawned in his brain.
Excitedly he climbed higher, higher, and at last reached the table top. He swung onto it, teetered for a hair-raising moment on the edge, recovered his balance, and stood on the wooden surface. Sure enough, his footprints showed on the table top as he walked away from the edge.
There was a piece of electrical equipment on the table, which he ignored. He went to the far edge, crouched by the side of the machine, and gazed across to the center table around which the giants were gathered.
His blood froze.
Under a glaring floodlight, in the center of the enormous table, lay a sealed glass cage. Lying in it, devoid of his helmet, lay Bronze’s body. The leader, the one who looked so very much like Glory Gehman, was handling the delicate controls of a remote-apparatus which passed a series of rods through the pressure sleeves into the
cage. At the end of the rods were clamps, clumps of white material as rough as coconut fibre, tweezers, a swab, and a gleaming scalpel as long as a two-handed sword.
If they’re being that particular about atmosphere, he thought, Bronze must be alive!
The flood of joy this thought brought him died a quick death, for it was followed by … and they’re about to vivisect him.
He yielded to a short moment of panic and despair. He rushed back toward the drape as if to slide down it and attack the women by force. He stopped, then got hold of himself.
He looked around him. Suddenly, he straightened and smiled. Then he went into furious action.
“Isn’t he pretty!”
The women gathered about the tiny figure. “We shouldn’t cut him up until the rest of the girls have a chance to look at him. He’s just a doll!” said one.
“You’ve forgotten that all the Ffanx are just dolls,” said the leader coolly. “Do you propose to lead thirty-two hundred women, one by one, past this little devil? You’d have a wave of hysteria I’d as soon not have to handle. Let’s keep to ourselves what we have here. We’ll learn what we can and file it away.”
“Oh, you’re so duty-bound,” said the blonde petulantly. “Well, go ahead if you must.”
They crowded closer. The leader propped her elbows on the table to steady her hands, and carefully manipulated the clamps. One descended over each thigh of the tiny figure and trapped it firmly to the floor of the cage. Two more captured the biceps, and another pair settled over the wrists. Then the scalpel swung up and positioned itself. The leader suddenly stopped.
“Did you leave that thing on?”
In unison they swung toward the corner. One of the women walked over and looked. “No, but the tubes are warm.”
“It’s a warm night,” said another. “Go ahead. Cut.”
They gathered about the table again. The blade turned, descended slowly.
“STOP!” roared a voice—a deep, masculine voice.
“A man!” squeaked one of the women. Another quickly drew her tunic together and belted it. A third squeaked “Where? Where? I haven’t seen a man in so long I could just—”
“Glory Gehman!” said the voice. “Hally Gehman—short for ‘Hallelujah’—remember?”
“Gesell!” gasped the leader.
“The fool,” growled the blonde. “I knew a man wouldn’t be able to leave us alone. This is his idea of a joke—but he set up the Gateway to play it. No wonder these little devils got through.” She raised her voice. “Where are you?”
The blonde snapped her fingers. “It’s a broadcast of some sort,” she said. “He hasn’t answered you once, Glory!” She turned to the corner. “What’s my name, Dr. Gesell?”
There was a pause. Somewhere there was a squeaky sound, like the distant chattering of a field creature. “Everybody calls you Butch, towhead,” said the voice. “Come over here, tapeworms.”
“The recorder!”
“They raced across the room, clustered around the small table.
“I thought you said it was turned off? Look—the tape’s moving!” Glory reached out a hand to turn it off.
“Don’t turn it off,” said the voice. “Now, listen to me. You’ve got to believe me. I’m Gesell. No matter what you see, no matter what you think, you’ve got to understand that. Now, hear me out. You’ll get your opportunity to test my identity after I’m finished.”
“No one but Gesell ever called me Hally,” said Glory.
“Shh!” hissed the blonde.
“I’m right here in this room, and you’ll see me in a moment. But before you do, Glory, I want to spout some math at you.”
“Remember the vibratory interaction theory of matter? It hypothesized that universes interlock. Universe A presents itself for
x
duration, one cycle, then ceases to exist. Universe B replaces it; C replaces B; D replaces C, each for one micro-milli-sub-
n-
second of time. At the end of the chain, Universe A presents itself again. The two appearances of Universe A are consecutive in terms of an observer in Universe A. Same with B and C and all the others. Each seems to its observers to be continuous, whereas they are actually recurrent. All that’s elementary.