Chapter VII

A day had passed since the giant had been released, and night had come again. The Earth-giant now had become a hero to the awed Orite people. Or at least, whatever terror of him they had was submerged in their cheering when the monstrous panther was dead.

Nixon had found himself a cave-like recess off at the base of the green cliff a few hundred yards from Frane's laboratory. Soon he would fix it up to be comfortable. He brought himself food and water now. This morning he had explored the nearby valley which opened into this one through a mile-wide defile. Thousands of the Orites lived in the other valley; their mound-dwellings dotted the slopes at the base of the enclosing cliffs. A stream of orange water babbled along one side of the valley floor, and there were strips of vegetation near the water. Strangely shaped bluish trees about the height of Nixon bore fruits and pods of several kinds which were edible.

It was a day of exultation to Nixon, this freedom to roam around and do things for himself after his long imprisonment. Towering master of this miniature world. There was another valley where a hundred or so tiny factories glowed and hummed. Everything stopped when the Earth-giant appeared, with the workers thronging the little doors and windows, peering up in awed silence at him.... An exultation to it. And then suddenly Nixon had felt the sense of responsibility. There was so much that he would have to learn, and plan, and then put into action.

Last night, when the panther was dead and the panting, bleeding giant had stood with crowds of tiny figures cheering him, suddenly Nixon had found himself making a speech. It was halting, certainly, anything but fluent. Nixon was always a fellow sparse of words. He tried to tell them that just because he was so gigantic, no one need fear him. That now he would live among them for a time, and try to help them in every way he could. His naive, youthful grin accompanied his words. Then the Orite leaders had arranged to meet with him presently; and whatever now he needed for his comfort, he need only ask for it....

"The people all want you for our leader," Nona was saying enthusiastically. "Everyone talks of it. The Gorts look to you for commands."

It was mid-evening now as Nixon sat in the mouth of his cave, with Nona and Loto on his upraised knee. A leader. Fair enough, Nixon thought. No one can argue with a man seventy feet tall! But Frane's growth-drug soon would change everything. The Orites would be as big as Nixon. A whole new civilization to be built in the giant size.

"I'll do my best," Nixon said earnestly. He added suddenly, "Where is Tork?"

In the tumultuous events of the past night and day--the joy of his release--there had been no time to worry about Tork.

"Where _is_ Tork?" Nixon demanded.

Loto and Nona did not know. "Maybe the panther chewed him some," Nixon said. "I wouldn't mourn none."

Nona shook her head. "He was with my father, there where you had been lying."

"Besides, I saw him an hour after that," Loto said.

Nixon's eyes flashed. "You can be sure of one thing," he said grimly. "As soon as I get my bearings around here, we'll get to the bottom of Tork's monkey-shines."

Tork's followers, however many of them there might have been, now certainly seemed to have evaporated. Nixon knew that was natural enough. Whoever had listened to him, now would probably never admit it.

And Tork now had vanished. Perhaps he feared that he would be blamed for having so strongly urged the vivisection of the giant. "He's not at his job in the laboratory, working with your father?" Nixon suggested.

"No, father has not seen him," Nona said. "Father sent to his home, but Tork has not been there."

Frane had promised that his experiment with the growth-drug this evening would be the last, his triumph, the final success. It could come any moment now. And all the little Orite colony knew it, was waiting with excited expectancy for the waving shaft of violet light which Frane had said would show from the top of the laboratory building when the growth-drug was completed.

Down the length of the glass-like cliff-base, Nixon could see the little laboratory building about a hundred feet away. It was humming with activity.

"Well," Nixon said, "nothing to do but wait and see. I sure hope he gets it."

* * * * *

Tensely they waited; the giant hunched at the mouth of his cave with the two tiny figures perched on his bent knee. The hours passed. The moon rose. Then Nixon sucked in his breath, and Nona and Loto gave their little cries. From the top of the laboratory the little light-beam was waving. Success! Frane had accomplished it.

"He did it!" Nixon exulted.

"Yes, he did it," Nona echoed. "My father, I'm so proud of him."

"Let's go over there," Nixon said. "I'll carry you."

He raised them to his shoulder and they clung to the collar of his shirt. They were halfway there when a tiny scream sounded. Then another.

"That came from the laboratory!" Loto exclaimed.

Nixon started running. "Not so fast!" Nona gasped. "The wind up here--"

He went slower, stopped at the waist-high laboratory building. As he stooped to put Loto and Nona on the ground, a tiny figure came scurrying from a side door. Nixon had no chance to seize it. In an instant it had disappeared into the shadows.

"Run inside!" Nixon said. "See what happened."

There was a turmoil in the little building; tiny running footsteps and the horrified voices of the Orite chemists who had been working there. Then in a moment a group of them came out. They were carrying Frane. The sobbing Nona was with them; Loto came, solemn and grim. Silently the giant Nixon stepped back, then knelt, gazing down in awe at the miniature tragedy here at his feet.

Loto explained what had happened. Frane had taken the completed drug into his office. Tork evidently had been lurking, waiting for this moment. He had killed one of Frane's men who got in his way, darted in and stabbed the unsuspecting Frane....

"Then that was Tork I saw running out," Nixon said. He checked his impulse to jump up and rush away to seize the damned murderer. How could you find a tiny, scurrying, six-inch figure in this expanse of moonlit crags?

Frane was not dead, but he obviously was dying. They had laid him on the ground. He saw Nixon's face so high above him, and he called faintly.

"Come closer, giant. Tork was triumphant--he told me what he had planned. I was so stupid--I would never believe ill of him--"

Tork had planned to organize an expedition to go to Earth. With the growth-drug, they would go in their normal small size. Then on Earth, they would use the drugs and get large. There was no real limit to growth through Frane's drug. Frane had meant it to be governed by environmental needs but the more one took the larger he would grow. Giants on Earth! They could make themselves what on Earth would be men a hundred feet tall.

"Tork always said your Earth is so much better a world than Orana could ever be," Frane was saying. "With fighter-Gorts a hundred feet tall on Earth, he felt surely that your world could be conquered."

And many of the Orites here, and the Gorts they controlled, had felt the lure of it. The Orite Government would oppose it. They would have no desire to embark upon the murderous conquest of a neighboring world. Then Tork and his followers would have seized the Government. And more of the Orites would have rallied around him, of course. It is instinct to follow a successful leader.

But with the Earth-giant dominating Orana now, Tork's fellow plotters had melted away.

"Well," Nixon murmured grimly, "what does he think he can do now?"

The answer came almost with Nixon's grim question. "Look!" Loto gasped. "Off there!"

Then Nixon saw it. In the notch between the towering rocks where the pass led into the broad adjoining valley, a figure had appeared, not a tiny six-inch figure but an upright man-shape that seemed about as high as Nixon's waist. It was Tork, and he was half as big as the Earth-giant now! Long since, Tork's clothes had burst with tiny shreds that had dropped away so that his bluish flesh glistened in the moonlight.

For an instant Nixon stood transfixed. And as he stared he saw that Tork was almost visibly growing! Already he seemed a little taller. The moonlight showed his face; he was leering with triumph. Another giant to challenge Nixon's mastery of the Orite world! Soon he would be as big as Nixon ... then larger....

* * * * *

With the shock of realization, Nixon tensed, bounded forward. Instantly Tork disappeared, ducking back into the pass. Almost at once Nixon stopped his pursuits. This could be a fatal error, chasing the growing Tork who might elude him long enough to become so large that he could kill Nixon easily!

"Get me some of the drug!" Nixon called. "Run in there, Loto--get it quick! He'll be larger than I am in a few minutes, by the look of him!"

"In my office," the dying Frane gasped faintly. "There were three cylinders."

Loto and several of the chemists ran in. It seemed an eternity of waiting, with Nixon's mind picturing his enlarging adversary out there in the other valley. But it was only a moment before Loto and the chemists came back. The drug-cylinders were gone! Tork had made away with them all!

Nixon turned and ran for the pass. That damnable delay! He cursed himself for having waited to try and get the drug! Tork by now might already be too big to handle....

The broad valley beyond the pass lay shining in the moonlight. The lines of trees and the little orange river were off to the left. For a moment Nixon stood peering. Was Tork here? Evidently the Orites who lived here had seen him. Their tiny cries sounded. Nixon could see terrified groups of them running.

Then the figure of Tork suddenly rose up from a rock-cluster on the other side of the little river. He had been crouching behind a line of trees. Now with a cry of triumph he straightened, bounded over the river. He was about Nixon's size. He shouted,

"Not a giant any more, are you? Well, this is the end of you, Earthman!"

Tork was holding a dripping chunk of rock which he had seized from the river bank. He flung it, but Nixon ducked. The rock went thudding out across the valley. Then as Nixon held his ground, crouching, Tork's body struck him. The impact knocked Nixon backward, so that he fell with Tork on top of him. It startled him; he had not realized that Tork's body would be so solid, far heavier now than Nixon's.

Then they were rolling, locked together, jabbing, pummeling. In a rough and tumble, Nixon had always been very handy. He was exceedingly agile, and now the heavier Tork could not hold him. In a moment Nixon was up. He found himself at the edge of the babbling little stream. He seized a tree. It was thick, half as big as himself. Desperately he wrenched it up. The knob of heavy roots made it like a maul, a bludgeon. Tork was scrambling up. Nixon hit him with a swing of the tree root. He staggered, went down, this time with Nixon on top of him.

But now Nixon realized that Tork was a full head taller. As they struggled, with Tork heaving up, trying to ward off Nixon's blows, Nixon could feel his antagonist's body expanding. It was gruesome. It shot a fear through Nixon. If he didn't kill Tork now in a moment or two, he never would! And Tork knew it. He was fighting on the defensive, just waiting until Nixon would be only a stripling in his grip.

Then they were rolling again on the ground. They were close beside the stream, with the brittle underbrush crackling under their plunging bodies. Several times Nixon had gotten a grip on Tork's throat, but always the strength of Tork's big hands had broken it. Now Nixon was desperately trying to roll Tork into the water. Evidently the Orite didn't realize it. He lunged, and as Nixon twisted and heaved, Tork went backward with his head and shoulders splashing. The stream was a foot or two deep here, babbling over stones. Tork's head went down; the water splashed over his face. And then again Nixon gripped him by the throat. In Nixon was the grim thought that this was the way one gripped 'gators under water. His hands pressed down; his body was sprawled, braced and taut to hold the lunging Tork.

The orange water was lashed into turgid green foam. Tork was coughing, choking. It was easier to hold his head down now. His hands tore at Nixon's wrists but could not break the hold. Then Nixon could feel the plucking hands and the lunges of Tork's huge body growing weaker. Through an interval Nixon clung, and then he released his grip and staggered panting to his feet. In the babbling stream the big body of Tork lay motionless; a horrible, goggling, staring face blue with the orange water lapping over it....

* * * * *

An Orana year went by, a succession of brief days and nights while Nixon worked and planned to help the Orites build their little world into something safer, more comfortable than it had been before. Frane had died. The Orite doctors and surgeons could not save him. The growth-drug was gone. Tork had hidden the tiny cylinders somewhere, but they had never been found, and no more of the drug could be made. Certainly not now; Frane and Tork were the only ones who knew the full details of the process. Nixon felt that was just as well. A thing diabolic. Like atomic fission, in evil hands it could wreck its world.

Now, with the year passed, it had been agreed that they were to take the giant back to Earth. Loto and Nona set out with Nixon along with a group of the Orite scientists and leaders and a few hundred of the Gorts, most of whom had been on the trip before.

It was the same little spaceship. Now the giant need not lie bound, he could crouch carefully on one elbow, or shift a little if he was wary of his movements. The trip seemed far quicker than before, with Loto and Nona to talk to and all his tiny friends here in the humming interior around him. Then through the bow-port the mellow, crescent Earth swung into view, a great cloud-mottled disc.

Then one Earth-night they were sliding down through the stratosphere, skimming an ocean and over the land ... Florida. Nixon's heart pounded as he gazed down at it. The Florida moon was brilliant in the sky as the gleaming little cylinder slid silently into a patch of wire-grass and rested on the ground. Only a marsh-hen was disturbed, rising with its discordant cry and winging away.

The cylinder opened and Nixon rose up and out of it. The top closed again, and from a lower tiny doorway of the glistening ten-foot shape, a few of the little Orite figures came out, gazed upward. His friends.

"Goodbye, my giant," Nona called. They were all waving.

What was there to say?

"Goodbye," Nixon spoke softly. "I sure wish you well."

They turned, went back inside. The port closed. The sleek, tiny ship slid upward and away into the moonlight. It was a shining little streak for a moment; then a glistening dot, small as a firefly. Then it was gone.

For a moment Nixon stood with a strange sense of loss upon him. But here was Earth. Home. A light was burning in the cabin across the sandspit. The bayou glistened in the moonlight.

Silently Nixon turned and walked up the oyster-shell beach toward his home.