Jain shouted, "No! They say no, Drake--" Drake was spurred by the feeling of helplessness that had made him stand by and watch Togaro escape with Dianne. He handed Ahlma a pellet. Alt pleaded, "Let me come with you." Before the council could move to stop them, all three had taken the drug. The room began dwindling. It struck a sudden calmness to Drake. He said: "Alt, we must get out of here! Tell the council we will not get very large. Only enough to disperse this mob. That can do no harm. Togaro knows we are here--if he sees us, what matter? Tell them we'll be small again soon--I'll be ready to go when the flyer is ready." Alt shouted his translation. The balcony doorway was already shrunk to Drake's waist. He pushed Ahlma through and squeezed through himself with Alt after them. At sight of them the crowd gave a roar of mingled surprise and fear. The fighting at the palace steps was instantly checked. The crowd stood and gazed. Surprise; awe; terror. It froze them. There was a total silence. Drake gazed down, and then with a moment of dizziness looked away. The palace was shrinking. He presently reached up and gripped its spire at the peak of the roof. With his other hand drew from his belt pellets of the other drug. Drake had had much experience with the drugs, each an antidote to the other; he knew how to check his growth at any point. He checked it now, and Ahlma and Alt did the same. They stood precariously upon a tiny balcony of a toy house whose spire was not much taller than their heads. A few feet beneath them, hardly more than a comfortable step down, was the miniature garden. Little trees, bathed in the blood-light of the moon, and small human figures. The balcony strained and swayed beneath the weight. Drake said, "We must step down. Alt, call down to them, tell them to give us room." Alt's voice spurred the crowd to action. The spell which had struck them motionless was broken. A woman screamed. The crowd took it up--frenzied screams. In panic, they turned and shoved, fought, screaming to get away. But the adjacent streets were packed with people. The crowd from the garden pressed at them. The balcony was breaking. This toy house; these toy people! Drake said, "Step down, Ahlma." There was room beneath them now: They stepped from the balcony, and stood together beside the little palace, with the garden down at their shoe-tops. The crowd in a frenzy was fighting its way back through the trees. There were open spaces in the garden now. Patches of open, blood-red moonlight. But in all of these, motionless tiny figures were lying where they had been trampled. Contrition swept Drake. It seemed that everything he attempted was doomed to disaster. Ahlma was gripping him. "Drake, look--off there!" They could see behind them over the palace roof; the shining lake; the island at the horizon where the Togarites were hiding. Alt cried out, stricken with horror. And then Drake saw it.