"Yes—no—now it is gone." The rock seemed empty. Somewhere down in there the little mechanism lay dwindling. Forever it would grow smaller. Dwindling into an infinity of smallness; but always to be with things of its size—and things yet smaller. . . .
As I turned from the glass, I be-came aware that Martt and Frannie were not in the room. Dr. Gryce and Brett, absorbed in the test, quite evidently had not noticed them leave. There had been two other models on the table—there was now but one.
Then from the garden outside the house a cry reached us. A shout—a cry of fear—terror. Martt's voice.
"Father! Brett! Help us! Help! Quick!"
We rushed from the room. Crowning wonder, yet horrible! A surge of fear swept me. In the garden quite near the house stood the other model. Small no longer. It had grown—was growing—until already it was as large as the house itself. Around it the flowers, shrubs, even a tree had been pushed and trampled by its expanding bulk. It stood gleaming white in the sunlight, motionless save for that steady, increasingly rapid growth. Its windows and doors loomed large dark rectangles; its balcony was broad as a corridor; its cone tower was already reared higher than the nearest trees.
"Father! Help!"
At the doorway of the vehicle, standing just outside it, were the terror-stricken Martt and Frannie. They were holding the end of a long metallic pole which projected into the doorway. Struggling with its weight, striving to throw the switch inside.
We reached them. The expanding bulk of the gleaming side of the vehicle had pushed them back into a thicket of shrubbery. Near them a tree, uprooted as though it were a straw sticking upright in sand, was pushed aside and fell with a crash. Martt and Frannie were livid with terror; breathless, almost exhausted with their futile efforts.
Martt panted, "We can't—lift the pole! It's—too heavy—too large inside."
Within the huge doorway, by the sunlight streaming through the windows, I could see the interior half of the pole, bloated by growth, huge, heavy.
Brett shoved Frannie away. "Frank! Here—take hold with us."
Dr. Gryce was with us. Together we four men got the interior end of the pole upon the table inside. A tremendous switch lever was there. But the pole slipped, rolled down. I expected it to break at the doorway point where it was so small outside, but it did not. The expanding doorway had pushed us farther back. Another tree on the other side fell. Above us the vehicle's tower loomed like a cathedral spire. Tremendous now, the vehicle had grown until it was almost touching the house. A fence had been trampled, had vanished beneath its giant bulk.
And the growth was increasingly rapid. If we could not check it. . . If it got wholly beyond control—this monster, growing. . . forever growing, to a size infinitely large—larger than our earth itself. . . .
I must have been standing stupidly confused. I heard Dr. Gryce imploring, "Take hold of it, Frank! We must lift it. We must—our last chance"
But Brett pushed us away. "I'm going inside. I can move the switch—let go of me, Father! That switch
(Continued on page 570)
