Chapter IV

Five million light-years from Earth! Who of finite human mind can conceive such unfathomable distance! Yet, as I crouched on the floor of the vehicle gazing down at the radiance emerging from the black void which was our first sight of the Inner Surface, the distance had seemed no more than gigantic. We were, in size, many million times our Earthly stature. The tiny Earth, from our larger viewpoint, was a little orange spinning above us in the void--a mere one-twentieth light-year away.

Martt, for all his youth, had proved competent. He had made the trip once before with Brett; he handled the vehicle carefully, and with skill. He said now, as we three crouched by the floor window, "We'll soon be down to the atmosphere, Frank. I'm checking our fall--we want no errors----"

We were reversed in Time--holding very nearly at a single instant, so that on the Inner Surface the time now was the same as it had been when we left the Earth.

We argued the point; Martt said, "I think when we land--we should choose the point in Time about four years beyond Brett's landing. So that it will be four years to us--and also to him. Don't you?"

We decided upon that, so that we would reach the Inner Surface and find Brett had been there four years. It seemed to strike a greater normality. Find Brett! Would we find him? I wondered, as I knew Martt and Frannie were wondering. But in our plans we always took it for granted.

The radiance beneath us grew brighter. And at last we entered the upper strata of atmosphere, falling gently downward. It was a fair, beautiful land, as Brett and Martt had said. A sylvan landscape, with an air of quiet peace upon it. A broad vista of land and water; patches of human habitation--houses, villages; a city.

Martt was at the telescope. "Pretty good, Frank! I've hit it--I see the city--off there, isn't it? And the crescent lake."

He changed our direction slightly. As we dropped, the broad crescent lake lay beneath us. Trees bordered its banks; and to the right was the city of low-roofed, crescent-shaped buildings banked with flowers. And beyond the city a rolling country of gently undulating hills, with a jagged mountain range up near the horizon.

From this height it was a visibly concave surface. And it was gray and colorless, for we were passing abnormally through its Time. Then Martt threw off the Time-switch; we took the normal Time-rate of the realm. And in size we were also normal.

At a height of perhaps a thousand feet Martt held us poised above the city. "They'll see us now," he said. "If--if Brett is down there he'll recognize us. I'll land in the grove where we landed before. We'll give Brett time to get there to meet us."

With the Time-switch off, color and movement had sprung into the scene. The forests were a somber growth of dull, orange-colored vegetation. The water was a shimmering purple; and above us was a purple sky, with faint clouds, and dim stars up there--stars which seemed very small and very close.

The white houses gleamed and glowed in the starlight. Yet it seemed not night; nor day either. A queerly shimmering twilight. Shadowless, as though everything were vaguely phosphorescent.

In the broad city streets there was movement. Vehicles; people. And the people now were gathered in groups, staring up at us.

We landed in the little clearing at the edge of the lake near the city. And now at the last, Frannie gave voice to the fear which was within us all. "Oh Frank, do you think Brett will be here?"

There were human figures in the near-by thickets. I saw them through the windows, but we were too busy with the landing to look closely. The vehicle came to rest. Martt and I flung open the door. The vegetation was thick near by; we stepped from the vehicle onto a soft, mossy sward, and stood in a timid group, with tumultuously beating hearts.

"Martt! Frannie! Frank!" It was his voice! Brett was here! And we saw him step from a thicket. His familiar voice; his familiar figure, but so fantastically garbed that it brought to me a wild desire to laugh, for I was half hysterical with the relief of seeing him.

Frannie cried, "Brett! My brother! You're all right, Brett, aren't you? I'm glad you're all right."

Under stress, how inarticulate are we humans! I said awkwardly, "How are you, Brett? We thought we'd come and see you."

He took Frannie in his arms. And wrung Martt's hand, and mine, while his strange companions stood in the background among the trees, watching us.

"Of course I'm all right," he declared. "And terrifically happy." A shadow crossed his face; his glance went to the vehicle's doorway. "Father didn't come with you?"

Then Martt showed a wisdom far beyond his years. This was no time to bring sorrow to Brett. Martt said smoothly, "Father is better than he has ever been, Brett. We'll tell you--later."

"Good! That's fine!" Brett's face was radiant. "You're just in time, you three. I'm to be married tonight."

But even then as I wrung his hand again, and congratulated him, I had a premonition that it was not to be.

_CHAPTER 2_

STOLEN INTO SMALLNESS

"Life is pleasant here," said Brett. "Pleasant, and indolent. It does not make for progress, but it is happiness--and I'm beginning to wonder if that is not best, after all."

We were sitting in an arcaded passage on the roof of the home where Brett lived. Crescent archways opened to the roof, where stood banks of vivid flowers, with a vista of the city beyond. The building seemed of baked earth, rough like adobe, and of dull orange color. It was a two-storied, crescent-shaped structure, set upon a wide street-corner near the edge of the city. The home of Leela's father. I had never forgotten Leela--the girl Brett and Martt had rescued from the giant on their first visit here. Brett had fallen in love with her. It was she whom tonight he was to marry. And this was her father's home--Greedo, the old musician.

"I have lived here with them six months," Brett said.

Martt exclaimed, "Six months! Why Brett, you have been gone four years!"

We had miscalculated the Time-change of the vehicle. Our purpose had been to strike this realm of the Inner Surface at a point in Time which to Brett would be four years. But now we found it six months only.

Brett smiled. "I'm glad you didn't postpone your arrival. You've no idea how pleased I am to have you--tonight of all nights."

We had not yet seen Leela, or her father. Brett said that Leela would be up presently to greet us. The city was excited over our coming. A crowd was gathered in the street before the house; Brett had made them a brief speech; Frannie, Martt and I had stood at the parapet and waved to them.

Then Brett had spoken of a younger sister of Leela's. Her name was Zelea--they called her Zee.

Martt sat up at this. "Where was she when we were here before?"

"Away," said Brett. "She was too young to meet a man then. Only now has she come to be sixteen. You'll like her, Martt. I want you to like her."

"I will," said Martt enthusiastically, "if she's anything like Leela."

"You were telling us about the life here," I suggested. "We always called this land the Inner Surface----"

"Yes," he agreed. "It is concave, like the inner shell of some great, hollow globe. Within the space it encloses----" He gestured to where, through the arcade, a segment of purple, star-filled sky was visible. "All that which we of Earth called the Celestial Universe is enclosed by this concave shell. You would think that this must be a gigantic region----" He smiled again. "It is not. Compared to our present enormous size, I imagine the circumference of this Inner Surface is not unduly great. I don't know. These people have not explored very far. They are not wanderers--they are too indolent, too contented, to wander."

He paused to drink from a shallow receptacle which stood before us, and offered Martt and me what appeared to be arrant cylinders to smoke.

"I have learned a little of the language. Proper names are impossible to translate. But the meaning of their word for this land, I call in English. Romantica. The romantic land. It is, I fancy, about five hundred miles square. Beyond it lie forests and mountains. No one here has ever penetrated them. There are wild beasts, birds, insect life--and fish and reptiles in the water. But they are not dangerous--not aggressive. It is not because of them that these people avoid exploration. It is--just indolence."

"I don't wonder," I said. "This is very peaceful here--I have no desire to do anything in particular." From the city streets a drone of activity floated up to us; but it was almost somnolent.

"It's always like this," said Brett. "Almost no change of seasons--the light always the same. There is no disease here--or very little. Food--grains, and what we would call vegetables, grow abundantly in this rich soil. The trees give milk--even the bark and pulp of them are edible. Life is easy. There is nothing to struggle against.

"Through generations, it has made the people kindly. There is little crime. No struggle for land, or food or clothing. Crimes involving sex----" He gestured. "Wherever humans exist there will be crimes of that origin. But our women here are very sensible, and when a woman does what is right--well, you know, don't you, that most deeds of violence into which men plunge over women have a woman's wrong actions at the bottom of them? There is little of that here, for the women take care that there shall not be.

"So they call their country Romantica. They are not a scientific people. They do not struggle for advancement. Art has taken the place of science. Painting. Sculpture. Music. They have developed music very far. It has a soul here. It speaks--it sings--it seems a living entity. It is--what music ought to be, but seldom is--the pure voice of love, of romance. . . . I was telling you about our country. Most of its population live in villages, and in individual dwellings strewn about the hills. There are but two large cities. This one--the largest--they call Crescent. Or at least their word for it suggests the shape of the lake. The other city is about fifty miles from here"--he gestured again--"off there where you see the line of mountains. They call it Reaf. It's a quaint city. Built largely over the water--rivers there--hot, subterranean rivers which rush underground--under the mountains. They go--who knows where? No one has ever been down them. The mountains are honeycombed with caves, tunnels, passages leading within, and up. Always up. But into them no one has ever penetrated. Legends tell fabulous tales of a great world up there. The giants, we think----"

When Brett and Martt had first come here, giants had appeared. Dwindling giants--strange, savage beings of half-human aspect. They had appeared--no one knew from where. Growing smaller until they were normal size to this realm. Not many had been seen. Some had kept on dwindling; they had grown so small, when attacked, that they had become invisible. At the thought, I moved my foot involuntarily with a shudder of uneasiness. Here on the floor beside me now, men like beasts might be lurking, so small I could not see them. Yet in a moment they might grow to a stature greater than my own. . . .

Men like beasts! . . . And I remembered that, with size gigantic, they had destroyed the third city of Romantica.

Upon Brett's face lay a cloud of apprehension. "We have never heard from them since. It is thought--I think myself--that they came from the subterranean rivers, or through the underground passages of the mountains. I conceive this concave surface upon which we're living to be the inner surface of a shell. It may not be very thick--there at Reaf. Above it--beyond it--up or down are mere comparative terms--beyond it must lie some vastly greater outside world. This whole realm is doubtless within an atom of that greater world. It would be a convex surface up there--with a sky and stars beyond. . . .

"We have never seen the giants since that time when Martt and I rescued Leela. Everyone here seems to have forgotten them----" Brett's voice was heavy with apprehension. "These people are so trustful! They forget so quickly! No one worries. Our rulers here--a venerable man and woman long past the age when death is expected--are so gentle, kindly, that they can not imagine harm coming to their people. They have forgotten the Hill City which the giants destroyed. Trampled upon it! Six or eight giants--they must have been several hundred feet tall--stamping, kicking the building! I've been there--I've seen the ruins--strewn for miles--and with buildings, colonnades and terraces mashed into the ground! There were no more than half a thousand people surviving that destruction of the Hill City--and thousands died. But everyone says now, 'The giants are gone. We are safe.'"

Brett's voice had risen to a swift vehemence. "It's been like living on a volcano to me, all these months. There are no weapons here. My own few flash-cylinders--of what use would a tiny flash of lightning be against beings so gigantic? We've got to do something. For if those giants come again----"

A step sounded in the oval doorway near at hand. Leela stood smilingly, deprecatingly before us.