Read Ebook: A matter of size by Mines Samuel

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Ebook has 146 lines and 13717 words, and 3 pages

He hurried the protesting Curtis along, the little man's feet fairly flying to keep up. At the darkened physics building, Dexter used his key and let them in. They went up to the laboratory.

"You know my work on the atom," Dexter said. "I have never boasted of my part in atomic fission which resulted in the atom bomb. I was pledged to secrecy but there is no harm in telling you what you have doubtless guessed, that I was one of the physicists whose work on uranium made the bomb possible."

Curtis nodded. There was no jealousy in him, only the true scientists' appreciation of a good job well done. He was Dexter's staunchest booster.

"What I have done," Professor Dexter said, snapping on the lights in his laboratory, "is to shift my research away from destructive metallurgy and turn the light of new atom discoveries upon protoplasmic tissue. If the atoms of metal can be shifted, altered or broken apart, why not living tissue?"

"Because your subject would die, obviously," Curtis replied.

"They did, at first," Dexter admitted. "The reason was that the cyclotron--" he waved at a hulking monster which looked like two giant Swiss cheeses lying flat, one above the other "--was much too powerful to use on living things. The problem was to use less power, apply it more slowly, yet retain the ability to move the electrons about the nucleus."

Excitement began to pop in Professor Curtis' voluable face.

"You did it?" he stammered.

"I did it. Needing only reduced power, I scaled down the cyclotron and incorporated the electron stream in this cathode tube. What I have here is essentially a pocket-sized cyclotron which I am satisfied will have no lethal effect upon living tissue."

"But what will it do?"

Professor Dexter shrugged bony shoulders.

"Then you can actually make us smaller or larger?"

"I am convinced of it. I never intended, nor expected, to put the machine to such frivolous uses. I had dedicated it to pure science. But what is science, after all, but a tool which man should use for a better life? And our lives are now affected, Professor. We must use science to solve our own problems."

"Admirably put."

Professor Dexter laid his hand on a huge shining cathode tube, whose terminal ends were clamped in the shining copper embrace of a massive induction coil.

"To be fair, we will need two of these. We will both undergo the experiment simultaneously--you to grow, I to shrink. Will you take the risk, Professor?"

Curtis clasped his hand.

"Gladly."

"Then I shall build another apparatus and as soon as it is finished we will complete the experiment."

"I will help you, Professor," Curtis exclaimed.

Working feverishly, they completed the job in a week. Two identical machines stood near each other on the lab floor, shining cathode tubes poised like a pair of futuristic ray guns.

In all this time they had no word from Professor Clarissa Wilkins.

"Probably baking cookies for Jake Donahue," Dexter said bitterly.

"If he eats enough of them he'll get fat and lose his figure," Curtis said. "But it would take too long."

They finished early one afternoon and by common consent made their plans to go through with the experiment the next morning. Though neither man would admit it they were just a little scared. They went home and made their wills. Each left everything they possessed to Clarissa.

Early the next morning, before the campus was astir with class-bound students, they met at the laboratory. The grass sparkled with dew and all the freshness and sweetness of a spring morning tugged at their hearts. Professor Dexter had circles of sleeplessness under his eyes and Professor Curtis' chubby face was drawn and haggard.

They entered the laboratory. Professor Dexter set the automatic timers on both machines. They shook hands gravely, then, unable to find words, took their places silently under the gleaming eyes of the cathode tubes. Together they raised their hands and depressed the switches.

Deep in the basement a generator sprang to life and faintly they sensed the deep rumble of its movement. The Coolidge tubes awoke as the stream of electrons impinged upon the platinum target plates. And then the shock of induced rays struck them, sank into them, seemed to flow and spread to every tissue and cell.

Something was happening to Professor Hiram Dexter. He felt, first of all, a sudden surge of nausea that rocked him on his long legs. His stomach twisted and a paralyzing weakness turned his muscles to water and made the lab swim unsteadily before his eyes.

At the same moment he felt a definite shrinking effect. His limbs became suddenly heavy. He felt in the grip of a vastly increased gravity, like a man going swiftly upward in a fast elevator. He was unable to move because of the strange weight of his arms and legs.

Then, to his horror, he saw the Coolidge tube sliding swiftly up out of his line of vision. The edge of the lab table came up, passed his eyeline and began to recede toward the ceiling. He was shrinking, but too fast and too far!

Even in that moment of undisguised terror, his scientist's mind noted that his clothes shrank with him. The ray worked on them as well as his living tissue.

Steadying his reeling vision, he searched wildly for Professor Curtis. Far across the huge expanse of rough, pitted lumber which the lab floor had suddenly become, were two shoes the size of the Queen Elizabeth. From them two colossal legs, each like the Washington Monument, soared into the sky. He could see only just past the knees. The rest of the torso loomed into the distance. The ceiling was unthinkable distances beyond.

There came the click of the automatic timer. The power went off and the Coolidge tube subsided into lifelessness. The potent stream of electrons ceased.

Slowly the nausea lifted. He could breathe again. He stared around him, terrified at the huge, strange cavern he was in. Judging from the apparent girth of chair legs and similar objects near him, he was about three inches tall! The fleeting thought crossed his mind. If a mouse should come across him now! What a terrifying carnivore it would be!

But this was not the worst. He could not move. At first the dreadful thought came that the rays had somehow paralyzed him. But there was no numbness in his muscles. They were simply too heavy to lift themselves. He stood as immobile as though he had been nailed to the floor.

Across the room Professor Curtis was having his troubles. The ceiling had shot down to him as it had to Alice-In-Wonderland when she had drunk the little bottle labeled, "Drink Me."

He had hastily stooped to keep from bashing his head and he had to keep on stooping more and more until he was bent more than halfway over before the click of the automatic timer released him.

"This is a little too much of a good thing," he muttered and was startled at the sound of his own voice. It was light and fluttery with a sound like soap bubbles bursting in midair.

"Professor!" he called. "Professor Dexter! Where are you?"

The tiniest of squeaks came up to him. Still feeling light-headed and dizzy, Curtis searched the area carefully. With horror he spotted at last, the diminutive, toy-like figure of his friend.

He took a careful step forward. His limbs seemed to float, with little effort, which was fortunate, for he felt as weak as though he had just emerged from a long illness.

Then he realized there was only one way to get close. He lay down flat on the floor, doubling up at knees and waist and got his face close to the tiny figure of Dexter.

"Get me out of here!" the mannikin squeaked painfully. "Start the machine and reverse it!"

Professor Curtis clambered to his feet.

If Clarissa could see us now, he thought. I am twenty feet tall and Professor Dexter is three inches tall. What a pair!

Weakly he lumbered back to his machine and reached for the control. Then, crowning horror of horrors! The lever sank right into his hand!

It hurt like the devil too, and he pulled back his arm with a yelp of pain. Carefully he tried again. And again the solid metal seemed to push right through the flesh.

Dazed, frightened, he cautiously tried to touch other objects. There was always the same result. Everything penetrated his tissues like a needle going through cloth. Yet he did not bleed.

Terrified, he went down on his stomach to report this new catastrophe to Professor Dexter. The shrunken scientist groaned.

"That was the one thing I forgot," he squeaked. "I forgot that no matter how I altered the size of the atoms in our bodies, the mass would remain the same. Thus I am now so heavy that I cannot move. You are so light that you have no strength and your atoms are so dispersed that solid objects penetrate your tissues and you cannot move the switch. We are trapped, Professor Curtis, trapped like miserable rats in a cage!"

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