Chapter II

It was like the roaring of a waterfall. You could lie near it on the grassy sward and maybe there would be a little last fading sunlight of the day to warm you. And your belly could be empty with a gnawing pain, but that was all right because there was the smell of food cooking and soon you would have it full. A warrior returned from the hunt, had his women to cook for him....

The phantasmagoria of Nixon's returning consciousness as he listened to the roaring of the falling water seemed made up of queer things out of his Indian heritage. But another part of his brain told him that was absurd--told him that he was lying on something hard, with the feel of sweat bathing his skin, and pain that slowly was becoming apparent stabbing at him from scores of tiny wounds on his hands, his face, his neck.

Then suddenly Nixon knew that he had opened his eyes. He lay staring, puzzled, with a blurred scene resolving into outlines that he could distinguish, but not understand. He was lying on his back, gazing upward at what seemed a vaulted, shining metal ceiling close over his head. It was sharply curved, two or three feet above him, as though now he were lying in a shining, glowing vault. With returning strength he tried to sit up, but could not. And then he realized that he was shackled. He could see what looked like finely woven, white metallic ropes. They wrapped his arms and legs together.

The waterfall was partly the roaring of weakness in his head; but that seemed subsiding now and there was only a faintly throbbing hum somewhere near him. A hum like a dynamo, or at least some sort of mechanism. Turning his head, he saw that on one side of him the concave metal wall had a row of small bullseye windows. They were spaced about a foot apart, each the size of his fist. And in each of them there was the vision of a black abyss of sky, with white blazing stars.

Again he tried to sit up. He could bend a little at the waist, and he was able to get one elbow under him and his head up so that it was nearly to the ribbed ceiling. At once, from the other side of him, away from the bullseye windows, there was a faint, hurried scurrying of little footsteps.

A voice said, "Careful, giant!"

And another voice said, "Will he hear us, Tork?" It was a softer voice. Less harsh. English! But queerly slurred, carefully spoken. And the voices were tiny, strangely thin, of a pitch totally different from anything Nixon ever had heard.

"Tork, will he hear us? He is recovered now. Will he hear us? Oh, Tork, what will he try to do?" The English words drifted off into a language totally strange, unintelligible.

* * * * *

Nixon saw the two little figures. One was taller, wider than the other; the big one six inches, the other at least an inch less. They were standing on the white metal of the floor, down by his thigh. And now he realized that he was stretched out in the small interior of a metal cylinder, lying on a floor that crossed the middle of it, so that he was stretched the length of its top half. It was about a ten-foot length, and six feet wide. It left a space beside him. Little metal railings a few inches high ran along the floor, dividing it into tiny enclosures. A mechanism room; another where supplies seemed to be stored; another which had what seemed furniture in it. All in miniature. All peopled with tiny figures that had stopped their tasks, and were staring at him now in awe and fear.

"Speak, giant! Can you hear us?"

"I hear you," Nixon said. His voice rumbled, reverberating in the close confines of the curved metal walls. The sound startled the little figures down there at the floor. They peered up, tense, apprehensive. Two or three scurried away; and now Nixon saw that there were several holes along the floor where tiny ladder stairs led downward to some space beneath. Several of the frightened little figures started down the ladders and then stopped, peering up again.

"We can kill you," the figure called Tork said. He was still standing fairly close beside the great curve of Nixon's prone body, with the smaller figure beside him. Both of them were wary. Nixon could see it. They stood ready to dart away, not knowing what this trapped, bound monster might be able to do. "You do not wish that we should kill you?"

"No," Nixon said. "I sure don't." He said it wryly. He tried to smile. Kill him? These little creatures? Incredible, him lying here in this vaulted, tomb-like interior, with tiny things that could talk; things who had scientific weapons and intelligence to handle them.

"You did try to kill me," Nixon added abruptly. "I remember it now. You--what shall I call you--Tork?"

"Tork, yes," the taller figure said. "And this with me here is Nona. We did not want to kill you--"

"Oh, you didn't?" Nixon's temper always sprang readily. He could feel his hands suddenly tingle. It was absurd that this tiny creature should speak so calmly of killing him. Why if he had his hands loose, he could seize the damned little thing, squeeze it until it screamed....

Unconsciously Nixon was straining at the metal ropes, with the muscles under his bronzed skin taut as he held his breath, pulling and straining. The metal posts bent inward a little with the pull; but the ropes held.... It was a moment of horrible tenseness for his captors. He could see it as he slowly strained, exerting all his strength until the sweat poured out on his forehead and he was panting. A tense horrible moment, while Tork and Nona stood with their tiny bluish faces turned upward, with glowing little eyes staring. Then Tork's face wrinkled into a grotesque smile as he saw Nixon's body relax. The crucial test had come and passed. They could hold this giant.

Tork said quietly, "There is a blood-tube in your throat. I could climb up there and plunge what you call a sword into it."

Nixon had heard of the jugular vein, of course. A sword, as Tork would wield it, would be only a needle. But, even so, it could have been stabbed into his jugular while he was unconscious and he might have bled to death. Or it could be stabbed into his eyes, blinding him....

"All right," Nixon said. "It's hard to realize--I reckon I'm beginning to understand now--"

"That we have an intelligence like your own," Tork finished. "What are you called? You have a name? Is it not so that all Earth people are named?"

"Nixon," he said. "Allen Nixon. Look here--what the devil is all this? Who are you? You've got me here in some sort of thing--"

"Our Spaceship," Tork said. "We came to Earth to get you."

"Get me? Came to Earth?"

But of course! These little creatures, so grotesquely in a sort of human mould, couldn't belong on Earth. Nixon stared out again through the tiny bullseyes beside him at the starry abyss of the heavens. A spaceship, and he and his captors were no longer on Earth now, but hurtling out somewhere among the stars. Allen Nixon, Floridian backwoodsman, was far from a scientist. But he had read a great deal. Atomic bombs. Rockets to the Moon. That sort of thing was no longer a fantasy. Fantasy or not, he had to accept it now.

"You came to Earth--to get me?" he repeated.

"Well, not exactly you," Tork said. "We came for one of you Earth giants. We landed--a place where there would not be many of you. And then you came...."

* * * * *

Strange facts, which now Nixon's tiny captors were telling him. They had come from a small world, in that belt of asteroids which lies beyond Mars. A world which in their language was called something that sounded like Orana. And they called themselves Orites--a little civilization of them huddled on a bleak, rocky world.

This Tork--his counterpart, in our human civilization, would be a man. And the smaller figure here with him, a woman. Two sexes. But among the Orites, they were in the minority, for most of the young born to them, were neuter. And these they called Gorts. Like a slave class, who grew to maturity trained for work, for servitude. Creatures of a much lower intelligence, each trained from the beginning to some simple, standardized task.

Nixon, as he listened, could identify the Gorts, here among the groups of tiny figures within the miniature railed enclosures on the spaceship floor. A hundred or more of them had come up from underneath now, reassured that the giant was helpless. There was one area down beyond Nixon's feet where a group of some thirty of them were bending over a long trough that was high as their knees. They seemed to be eating. They were about Tork's six-inch size, these Gorts. But broader, more squarely solid-looking. Their heads were round, shining like polished leaden balls, with grey-blue faces, square-cut in a grotesque human mould. Their garments, some grey, others of a brownish-black, seemed stiff and jointed like a coat of mail.

"Well, you've got me," Nixon said. "You're taking me now to your world?"

"Yes, that is it," Tork agreed.

"Why? What for? And you talk English--how is that?"

It was only what to them could be called a few years ago, that the Orites had been able to build a spaceship. An expedition had come to Earth. It was a spaceship built for their own size--a cylindrical ship perhaps the size of Nixon's arm. A group of them, including this Tork, had come, landed and stayed for a time. So small, coming during Earth's night, remaining hidden, then moving to other places again during night, it had been easy for them to avoid discovery by the Earth giants.

"We found that your world, it is very beautiful," Tork was saying. "Much better than our own--that you shall see. And perhaps our mind is different from yours. You do not learn strange language by listening, and remembering?"

"Well, yes, but not exactly that." Nixon said. "Children do, I suppose. So you're taking me back to your world? You say you didn't want to kill me. Why should you? What do you want of me?"

He saw Tork turn and gaze at the smaller woman-creature beside him, as though Tork wasn't sure how he should answer that question. They were standing now so that as Nixon had relaxed, prone, with his face turned sidewise, they were only a foot or so away. He could see them more clearly than before. Their garments were of some flexible, metallic fabric--a sort of square-cut tunic and trousers on Tork; and on Nona more of a drape, belted tight at the waist.

Tork's head was round and shining, like a Gort; hers had a little growth of white and gleaming hair on it. And Nixon could see other differences now. The female was curved, broad at the hips, but every tiny line of the male figure was stiffly angular. It gave Tork, and the Gorts even more so, a mechanical look--the planes of the face were all tiny rectangles, as though hewn on metal....

"We need you," Tork said at last. "Our scientists need one of the Earth-giants."

"Need me? What for?" Nixon demanded.

"That you shall see," Tork said. He added evasively, "There is so much about your world that you can tell us."

"There will be no harm come to you," Nona said suddenly. "My father, he is leader of the Orites in all things of science. It was he who built our first spaceship."

"I am assistant to him," Tork put in.

"And then they built this giant ship, to bring a giant to our world," Nona added, "and my father, he is working now on something else--something that will be so good for all us Orites--"

"That we can explain later, not now," Tork said hastily.

Whatever it was, Nixon couldn't make them say any more about it. The trip now stretched on while around him, down on the floor, the miniature interior was busy with the routine of the voyage. Beneath him, he understood now, were the mechanism rooms, the air renewers, pressure equalizers, temperature controls, and the gravity engines--whatever they were. Perhaps, if he had been an Earth scientist, Tork would have tried to find the English words to explain them. But Tork did not, and Allen Nixon wasn't curious. To him it was enough that this strange thing was a fact.

His mind was busy with thoughts of how to escape from these weird little captors. Certainly he had no desire to be taken to this strange world. Tork's queer glance at Nona had seemed somehow to have a gruesome implication. If only he could get Tork within his fingers--

* * * * *

After a time Nixon slept. He was hungry and thirsty when he awoke. Down on the floor the Gorts were busy with their routine tasks. They were getting used to the monstrous prisoner now. None seemed to notice that he had opened his eyes. Then he saw Tork, in the little enclosure beyond Nixon's feet, where the cylindrical interior narrowed. It seemed to be the bow of the spaceship. A bullseye port was there, with a vista of the stars. There was a foot-high bank like an instrument panel, with rows of tiny dials hardly bigger than his smallest fingernail. They glowed with faint streams of lights. He saw Tork there, among the tiny controls.

"Tork!" he called.

Presently Tork came running along the floor and stood by Nixon's face.

"You awaken?" Tork said. "You giants sleep a very long time. We know that, of course. And you have slept even longer."

Nixon could well believe it. He was rested now. Far more clear-headed and alert, he realized, than he had been before, and the many tiny wounds on him didn't hurt so much now.

"I'm hungry and thirsty," he said. "I suppose you know that giants eat, don't you?"

Tork's weird slit of mouth widened and his bluish face knotted into a grotesque smile. "We had planned for that before we caught you," he said. "Water--your earth-water we have in tanks here. We have studied your food. In Orana our chemists studied it, and we have concentrated it for you. And perhaps some of our own things you will like."

Feeding this bound giant was quite a problem. The Gorts struggled now with a great ladder, resting it against Nixon's shoulder, carrying pails of water up to his chest, pouring them into his mouth, each not much more than a thimbleful. Then a long line of them came, each with a chunk of food, a mouthful for Nixon. But it was gratifying, if queer-tasting, and at last he had had enough.

The days slowly passed, while the tiny ship plunged on through the abyss of space. Days? There was here nothing but the same humming, glowing interior, and outside through the tiny bullseyes, the vast unchanging panorama of the stars. Nixon slept when he could; and when he was thirsty or hungry, he called for Tork to order the Gorts to their task. A hundred of them, whose only work was to feed him.

Nixon realized now that these little people slept very often. Watching them, it seemed that every two or three hours they needed sleep. A lifespan, probably much shorter than ours. Ten years from birth to old age, perhaps. This trip to Orana, as Tork once explained, to them was a very long, tedious voyage. To Nixon it would be while he slept perhaps twenty or twenty-five times.

"If you would let one of my hands loose," Nixon told Tork once, "you wouldn't have to carry the food and water up to me. Have the Gorts put it beside me, down there on the floor and that's enough."

He did his best to persuade Tork. After all, what could he do to escape, even if they turned him loose? A lunge, even an incautious movement, could wreck this little ship. Kill them all, but it would kill him too.

"You don't reckon I'm that foolish," Nixon said.

"No, I do not," Tork agreed.

"Then turn me loose. It's silly to keep me shackled like this. Causes you a lot of trouble."

But Tork only grinned his grotesque grin and shook his head.

"Why not?" Nixon argued. "What can I do?"

"You could reach and seize me," Tork said grimly. "You could hold me with your fingers. And to save my life, would I not order the Gorts to turn us back to Earth? That you could do. Have you not thought of it?"

Nixon had indeed. Something like that was what he had been planning. These tiny captors weren't so dumb.

But as the time passed and they told him that now the orbit of Mars was crossed and presently their world of Orana would lie ahead of them, Nixon had in some measure won the confidence of Nona. Sometimes when he called to her she would come and climb the long ladder at his shoulders and sit on his chest and talk to him. At first she was timid, but then as her confidence grew she got over it. Under her questions Nixon passed the long hours telling her about Earth.

"But you saw a good deal of it yourself, Nona. You made two trips there."

"Yes," she agreed. "But it is a world so gigantic, it did not look anything of the way you tell it to me."

"And I guess your world will look pretty different to me," he said, "from the way it does to you."

But she was queerly reticent about her world. He decided that Tork had warned her not to talk about it.

At another time it occurred to Nixon to ask how they had gotten his huge body into their ship. She described how it had been dragged in with cables. A dozen little electronic engines, and the pulling of about five hundred Gorts who were here on board. But to get him out they had planned it differently. Even though shackled, he could perhaps hitch himself along, just a little at a time, out through the bow of the ship which was built so that the whole of it would spread apart.

"Of course I can," Nixon agreed. "I certainly don't want to make it hard, Nona. If you people got so you could trust me--"

"I think my father will trust you," she said suddenly. "Yes, that I think."

Then there came the time when Nona gestured toward the front port of the ship, down past Nixon's feet. "There is Orana," she said.

He saw it then, a great silvery crescent which had swung into view. During the hours it enlarged, until presently it was filling all that area of the sky. And a little later, Nona came climbing up the ladder to his chest.

"When you have slept the next time," she said, "we shall be there."

She seemed frightened. He could interpret more readily the expressions on her tiny, bluish face now.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

She said, "Tork has seen with the telescope that a storm may be there when we land."

"A storm on your world? Oh, I see. Well, we have storms. Wind and rain. And I told you about a snowstorm--"

But she burst out: "A storm on Orana--Oh, giant, if only you could help us! That is what my father thinks--that you will be able to help us live on our world!"

A storm on Orana ... somehow it made him shudder, hearing the terror in her tiny voice.