Chapter IV

Riding over the land, it had been a breathless whistling of wind, a swift surging of the ground beneath Frannie's feet. Here in the lake it was quiet and calm; the warm lapping of the silver-streaked water; the quiet stars overhead. Frannie heard Rokk talking back over his shoulder to Leela, and then Leela drew in her mount and spoke to Frannie.

"He says the giants have all gone back through Reaf to their own world. One was wading out here toward Reaf. He was very large then; he is to stay in Reaf on guard, while we go on. He is there now--it is not far."

"How big are we, Leela? Did he say?" There was no way, here in the lake, by which size could be compared. The exaltation of the ride--its swift, tempestuous movement--the wild, romantic fantasy of it--all this was leaving Frannie. A depression was upon her. She added, "Oh, Leela, Brett did not see us! And Frank--will we ever see them again?"

Leela said, "We are about twice normal size--it will not be far to Reaf, swimming like this." In the starlight, Frannie could see that Leela was smiling; a wistful, heavy-hearted smile. She was trying to be brave. And Frannie smiled back.

"We mustn't get frightened, Leela. Just watch our chance--try to escape. You stay by me all you can. I mean--when we get"--there was a catch in her voice--"when we get--under the mountains beyond Reaf."

Leela nodded. Rokk was calling, and Leela urged her dhrane forward.

Soon the left-hand shore and the mountains ahead were visible. The water grew warmer. Small islands appeared. The dhranes panted with the heat of the water; in the muddy channels between the islands, sometimes they floundered. Steam was in the air; ahead it lay like a bank of fog, with the frowning mountains rising above it.

Presently, through the fog, the houses of Reaf came into view. Small ghostly outlines of houses on stilts. To the right of them was a yawning black mouth where one of the rivers plunged into the mountain. The turgid current was swinging that way; Rokk urged the dhrane across it, to the left.

Soon they were swimming among the houses. These seemed very small. Frannie reached up from the dhrane's back and laid her hand on the roof of one as she passed it. Rokk was heading inshore. The mountain here was a frowning cliff-face, with a very narrow ledge at the water level. The ledge ended in a wooden incline bridge leading upward to a group of buildings near shore. Six or eight small houses with doors and rectangles of windows, clustered there together, perched on stiff wooden legs over the water. The incline bridge connected them with the shore, and they were strung together by a broad wooden platform.

Rokk shouted, and from behind the buildings a giant appeared. He had been sitting in the water. He stood up, with mud and slime dripping from him. A man, like Rokk, but younger. His hair was sleek and black, and fell long to his bared chest, across which a skin was draped. His face was broad and flat, and hairless. He stood with the water to his knees, beside the buildings with his arm arched over their roofs as he leaned against them.

He smiled. He called, "_Ae_, Rokk!" And Rokk answered, "_Ae_, Degg."

They spoke together. Then they spoke in Leela's language. Leela murmured to Frannie, "This man Degg is to remain here until we are safely above."

Rokk issued his commands. Degg sat down again in the water, waist-deep, with his arms holding his hunched-up knees. He yawned and waved his hand as Rokk swam his dhrane away.

Again in single file, they swam. As they passed the buildings Frannie chanced to glance up. On the porch-like platform up there she caught a glimpse of a green-white shape--a thing stretched out somnolent--a thing, headless!

It was only a glimpse. Frannie's swimming dhrane carried her beyond sight of it. . . . She was shuddering.

The water now was unpleasantly hot. The current was strong. It was beginning to ripple the water. Ugly, white ripples . . . sinister.

The dhranes swam with the moving water. But they tossed their heads, uneasy. . . . Rokk was continually shouting, forcing his mount forward.

There were no houses here. The cliff-face was moving swiftly past. And then a black mouth swept into view. A hundred feet high and twice as broad. A mouth, with steam like the fetid breath of a monster. . . .

The water was sweeping that way. Surging in a torrent. White water, leaping over jagged rock-points that split it into foam. . . .

And from the mouth came a sullen roaring. . . .

Frannie's dhrane lifted its head with a sharp bleat of fear. Its body was swung sidewise by the tumbling water, but it recovered and swam desperately.

The roaring rose to a deafening torrent of sound. White water was leaping everywhere. Frannie half closed her eyes; she could see a whirling blob which was Leela ahead of her. Then the black mouth opened to encompass the world as Frannie was swept into it.

An inferno of roaring blackness. . . .

_CHAPTER 5_

CLIMBING INTO LARGENESS UNFATHOMABLE

In the fog and darkness at the foot of the incline, Martt stood tense, with upraised knife. The green-white thing was poised for its leap. It was not babbling now; its eye on the stalk glared balefully. A shudder swept Martt, as Frannie had shuddered an hour before when she and Leela passed this way, and she had caught a glimpse of this thing lying somnolent on the platform above.

Martt muttered, "Stay back, Zee." And then the headless thing leaped. Martt caught it on his outflung hand and knife, but did not stop it. He felt his hand sinking within it--a soft, sticky warmth. Its body came on, and struck his chest--a blow as though a soft, yielding pillow had struck him.

There was a moment, there in the darkness, of unutterable horror as Martt felt and saw his body mingled with the body of this gleaming thing clawing at him. He struck wildly, fighting, kicking in a panic of futility. Wet, warm and sticky! He seemed to tear its body apart. But the glowing, lurid outlines, wavering, came back always into shape.

The thing itself was in a panic. Lunging, twisting. Its claws scraped Martt's face, too imponderable to scratch. The slit of its mouth opened to grip his throat; its teeth sank impotently within his flesh. Pressing against him . . . the slime of it was warm, with a stench, noisome. . . .

Horrible! A nausea made Martt reel. And the thing now was crying with terrible, frightened cries. But they were low, suppressed.

Martt staggered. And suddenly the lurid green shape gathered itself and fled. Martt saw a quivering dark wound in its side. It fled whimpering along the rocks of the shore and disappeared.

Martt relaxed. He was unhurt. He stooped to the water and washed the stickiness from him. He felt a wild, hysterical desire to laugh.

"Zee, it--that thing was as frightened as I was!"

"Are you all right, Martt? It's gone! What was it?" She clutched at him anxiously.

"Yes--all right. It couldn't hurt me and I couldn't hurt it. Not much." He laughed again, but suddenly sobered. "Zee, there's a giant up there asleep. Hear him?"

They listened. From up there in the fog the deep, heavy breathing still sounded. Martt whispered, "You wait here, Zee. I'll creep up on him--get the drugs." He turned to her tensely. "Zee, you stay here. Close against the rocks. Whatever happens, you stay here. I'll--if I get the drugs--I'll make myself very large. Kill him--then I'll come back to you. Don't move--whatever happens."

He left her. The wooden incline sloped sharply upward. The fog momentarily seemed clearing. Martt saw above him the outlines of the houses, a broad platform connecting them. And stretched the length of the platform was the huge, recumbent figure of a man. He seemed about forty feet tall. He lay hunched, cramped for space, with one arm upflung to the roof of a house, and one leg dangling nearly to the water.

Martt reached the platform. He crept past the giant's legs. The waist, wrapped in a skin, was rising and falling with the giant's breathing. Martt's own breath was held. His heart was thumping wildly. The giant stirred; Martt stepped nimbly aside to avoid the movement of the great body.

At the giant's waist he paused, reached up, fumbling. There seemed a belt here, with pockets. The drugs should be there. The bulge of the giant's middle was nearly as high as Martt's chest as he stood upright. He reached up, and over, feeling with careful fingers.

With a thrill of triumph, Martt found two cylinders, each as long as his forearm. In the starlight he opened them, drew from each a flat, square tablet of compressed powder. The drugs! But which was for growth and which for shrinkage? One was larger than the other. It suggested growth. It was flat and square--the length of Martt's thumb. Impulsively he would have crushed it in his mouth and swallowed it. But a thought gave him pause. This giant was nearly seven times larger than himself. This expanded dose of the drug then would be too great. Martt bit off a corner of the white tablet. Swallowed it. An acrid taste. . . . He replaced the remainder in the cylinder and put both cylinders in his pocket, tying his jacket close around them. Would they expand with his body? He could only hope so.

Expand? How did he know but that he had taken the wrong drug? Well, he could soon rectify that. . . . A panic swept Martt that the giant might awaken too soon. . . . The drug was taking effect; Martt was sick and dizzy. He reeled to a post at an outer corner of the platform. Clung there. He all but slipped and fell into the water ten feet below.

A moment, then the sickness passed. He was growing! He could feel the post shrinking within his grip. The outlines of the houses were contracting. The knife in his hand, already tiny, slipped and fell into the water with a splash.

The post soon was too small for Martt to hold. He reached over and steadied himself upon the grass roof of the nearest house. It was melting under his hands. The sleeping giant lay at his feet, a giant no longer; a man, like himself--the two of them crowding a tiny, flimsy platform with toy houses beside it, and black water flowing sluggishly close underneath.

A sense of power swept Martt. A triumph. He was not afraid of this man, unarmed like himself. Already the man was undersized. . . . Why, Martt could grip him, choke him! . . . These toy houses--a sweep of Martt's arm would have scattered them.

Martt was bending awkwardly over the roof-tops. A ripping, tearing noise sounded. The platform, the houses, quivered, wavered, collapsed! The whole structure, bending beneath the weight of the two huge bodies, gave way. Martt found himself floundering in warm, muddy water, entangled in a debris of splintered wood and grasslike house-roofs.

And with him, his antagonist, awakened to a startled confusion, floundering, struggling to get upon his feet.

Martt rose to his knees. The shallow lake bottom was sticky with mud. A house-roof hung upon his shoulder. He heaved it off; stood upright, dripping, breathless. The other man was up also. In the starlight, amid the floating wreckage, they faced each other. Martt was the taller; and he was still growing. He saw his enemy shrinking before him. A slim young fellow, with long black hair. A broad, flat face, with a startled surprize on it.

Martt laughed. And shouted, "I've got you now!" He would have leaped. But abruptly he recalled Zee, tiny in size, huddled there by the shore. A lunge of his body--or of this other man's body--a flip of one of these torn housebeams--and Zee would be killed. . . .

Martt turned and waded rapidly away. He wondered if the other man would follow him. Martt wanted to get him farther out into the lake. It was an error; for as Martt turned to look back, he saw his antagonist's hand go to his belt; and then to his mouth. More of the drug! Martt thought that he had in his own pocket all there was of it here. But the giant had more. Already he was growing. As Martt stood undecided, he saw the giant growing like himself. He was smaller than Martt now, but growing more swiftly. He stood for an instant with his arms upflung toward the stars; then he came wading forward.

The mountains were at Martt's right hand. Shrinking, swiftly contracting. The water now came not much over his ankles; a small patch of wreckage marked where the collapsed buildings had stood.

Martt retreated slightly; he turned, moved to the cliff-face with his back against it.

Then, with a swirl of water, his enemy rushed at him. Martt met the rush unyielding. They locked. Swaying, struggling each to throw the other. The lake at their ankles was lashed white. They fought silently, grimly. The fellow was strong; he pushed Martt backward against the Mountain. His hands strove for Martt's throat. But Martt ripped them away. With a body-hold he bent his adversary backward; but always he could feel the man's body swelling within his grasp.

A desperation seized Martt. If he could not win now, at once, he would lose. This fellow was growing too large. Beside them, as they swayed, Martt caught a glimpse of the mountain. It was now a cliff not much higher than his head. At his feet Martt was dimly aware of a small black hole in the cliff into which water was rushing.

One of Martt's legs was wrapped around the legs of his adversary; and suddenly the man tipped. They went down together, Martt on top. It was like falling into a puddle of water. They lunged, rolled over. And then the giant rose, with Martt clinging to him. He was much larger than Martt now; he heaved himself upward, flung Martt against the cliff. Martt's head and shoulders went over its top. Jagged spires of rock; loose rocks lying there. The giant jerked Martt back; he fell on his feet; saw his antagonist towering over him.

But in Martt's hand now was a jagged lump of rock which he had snatched from the cliff. He flung it, and it caught the giant full on the forehead. He staggered, and as his grip on Martt loosened, Martt leaped away.

And the giant came crashing down, his huge body falling before the hole in the mountain; blocking it so that the surging lake backed up with a deepening torrent of the hot, black water.