We had at first got small enough to escape from the Togarite
encampment; had run, cautiously making our size larger so that the
running would take us an appreciable distance from the camp. Once away
from immediate pursuit, we started our upward journey in earnest.
We had soon found ourselves lost. It was all a strange, desolate,
unknown region to me. But Dianne had traveled it before; as we grew
larger, the main configurations of the dwindling region became familiar
to her. She found a route different from that which the Togarite
expedition had proposed using.
Discussing it with Dianne, I found myself puzzled at her confidence in
finding her way out and still avoiding the Togarite parties who were
ahead of us. Strange physical conditions, those of this size-change
traveling! Yet a moment's thought made the matter clear.
Traveling inward--becoming small--the slightest deviation from the
true direction would lead the traveler into vast new realms. Countless
universes spreading at his feet. There was space here, limitless. In
the size we were when upon Mita there was around us in just that single
atom countless light-years of astronomical distance. Coming back, we
left the atom. It shrank to a microscopical point. We grew larger than
the atoms; larger than the molecules.
Space within this fragment of rock which father was guarding was
constantly shrinking. Yet even in the abyss of the Togarite camp it was
a vast space. I cannot calculate it. But envisaging the distance from
one side of the rock fragment to the other, let us call it a thousand
miles.
We grew still larger. Soon, to us, there would be only five hundred
miles of distance in here. Then one hundred. Then one mile. Then only a
few feet, until at last we would emerge and see that all the space had
shrunk to the size of our hand.
Thus, coming out, all roads led in very nearly the same direction.
There was no solidity to the rock when viewed from the smaller
viewpoint; there is, indeed, no solidity to anything. A growing body,
avoiding being crushed, would at last emerge, no matter in what
direction it went.
Do I make it clear? I hope so.
At last we stopped, between the drug doses, to rest. We were at the
bottom of a vast circular caldron. Tumbled crags strewn in heaps. The
opposite rim, some ten miles away, was dimly visible in the gloom.
There were shadows in here now; it seemed that overhead a vague sheen
of light was apparent. We were near the top. Soon we would be out. I
touched Dianne's hand.
"You think we're larger--ahead of all the Togarites now?"
"Yes, I think so."
I did, also. It was imperative that we get out of the rock first, get
up there and warn father what was coming. If we did that, the expanding
Togaro hordes wouldn't have a chance.
"We'll have to rig up a black and white flag as a signal to father. You
remember, Dianne? I told you I'd arranged that with him. But how the
deuce can we?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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