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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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