Part 3

Doc addressed them: "Now what do I do or say? Who learns whose way of conversing? Or would it be trite to think that you might be telepathic?"

Could these beings even recognize Doc's friendliness? Well, we were in for a surprise. They had a spokesman. Out of his thorax came a slurred buzzing, struggling to mimic human speech:

"Telepathy? No, Mister. Not so good for us with you people. Funny? Maybe.... Learn conversing? One can always learn more.... But we have been visiting Earth, mostly unnoticed--since--before--there were--men."

Here was English, idiomatic to the point of slang. Yet, to add an eeriness, there were pauses, as if the effort to think in a human manner was more difficult for this trained but outworldly psychology than the speech itself!

So, the simplicity of communication was like in some of the old, imaginative stories. Well, why not, if these little people had been haunting human stamping grounds for ages? Besides, could extra-terrestrial thought, dealing with common physical facts, be so totally different? That University course had exaggerated.

Doc cursed happily: "Dammit, things'll be easy, now!"

"Easy," came the cheerfully buzzed answer. But soon I suspected that a cheerful tone was pure mimicry of a human way, without, necessarily, a real, corresponding emotion. For now our escort gripped us roughly, and drew us along through the great gulf of air, using hand-held jet-tubes for propulsion.

* * * * *

Doc's shouted, "Hey, what goes on?" and my equivalent complaints, were ignored. Our escort broke in two, six of its members, including the leader, continuing to lift Doc, Jan, and me upward through the air inside our ship, the other six, bearing what looked like massive equipment, falling behind.

In the ceiling of our lab compartment there was a circle, still edged with the rough scale of a tool cutting with intense heat, and there was a hinged, circular door of metal. They had cut through the skin of our ship, and had installed an airlock, quite like our own variety in principle, yet so tiny that our human eyes had missed it entirely.

Helplessly we were drawn through it, and onward into the murky night of Ganymede, over which Jupiter and his other scattered moons held sway. Our robot-selves of course did not feel the cold, which approached absolute zero. Nor apparently did our unarmored hosts. Nor did they seem compelled to breath oxygen.

"Charlie! Doc!" I heard Jan call. "I hope they're not taking us too far! The radio control hoods, keeping us in contact with our micro-robots, here, are of limited range. We could lose the robots!..."

"Not very far," came the answer from the being who had spoken before. "But Kobolah--myself--says it makes no difference to you."

Perhaps that strange little monster meant to reassure us. By now I had him identified as an individual. The irregular filaments around his eyes were longer and paler than those of his henchmen.

A Ganymedean wind wafted us along, our escort perhaps using it to cover distance, righting it only as much as necessary, with their spitting jet-tubes. Our course turned downward into the shadows of knotty rock masses near the old Xian camp.

We went through another airlock, and into a tapered, cylindrical chamber. Figures like the others were there, craggy, yet obliquely charming in form. There was what must have been a propulsive mechanism, perhaps refined by ages of development, until matter was totally converted to energy.

And there was a crystal vat in which complicated grids were suspended in gelatin. Deep in the menisculous, pearly medium were shapes, hardly seen, though suggestive.

Kobolah spoke again: "You three even built small robots with great pains to pay us a visit. So we thought that maybe you should truly come. We shall see...."

I saw that odd, triangular head. I could fathom nothing from the eyes, except perhaps a cold interest. But I felt tricked and trapped. As far as our senses were concerned, we were here, not back in our ship. Forgetting that, we had been off-guard there!

Can a robot have a fearsome headache? Suddenly I had one. Dizziness and a blurring of consciousness was followed by panic. Suddenly I was back in the _Intruder_, frantically unfastening the helmet of my space armor, then casting off the control hood.

I staggered erect. Dr. Shane Lanvin grunted beside me. His usually mild face was contorted. Jan gave a thick cry, her gloved hand on her brow. Doc and she had also torn off their helmets and hoods.

I floundered to Jan, heard her say, "Charlie...."

Then I saw a hole, like a tiny cigarette burn, at the fabric-and-wire elbow joint of my armor's left arm.

"Scharber! Bowhart!" I yelled. It was a thin wheeze. I wished that they knew more about Doc's work so they could help us. My final awareness was of the rush of their footsteps.

Time became timeless. Then I had a sense of struggling upward toward light. The effort was mental. A minute might have passed, or a year. I had a body which seemed to turn lightly on a mattress of coarse sticks. I felt like myself, clothed in real flesh. The light around me might have been diffused sunshine, and I saw colors, the familiar ones, plus what might be the indescribable paleness of ultra-violet, unknown to man as himself, and another nameless hue that perhaps was the sensory effect of electronic vision.

I didn't fully guess all this at once; but its ghost was in the back of my mind, and at the edge of panic.

I had sat up easily. I realized that I was still in the region of The Small. Once experiencing that environment denies any failure to recognize it later. Oh, there was the roughness of the glassy walls of the room, pleasingly decorated with geometric patterns like those of old tiles brought back to Earth from the asteroid belt. But I refer more to the insecure sense of buoyancy, of ease with which one might float in the air or recline upon it, after a tiny push at the floor. It is a feeling quite apart from the weightlessness experienced in space; and though there was certainly very little gravity here, too, the difference remained palpable. And now I even felt a tingling in my skin--the impact of molecules, perhaps, as they tried to lift and carry me away.

My body seemed to conform to such a dimensional plane. It was me with some details blurred or omitted. I was clad in stiff imitations of the slacks and shirt I had worn inside my space armor. My hands, rough in texture, lacked the fine hairs, as if they had been left out in a process of transformation. Was the stiff, wirelike hair on my head still black? I fumbled at my face. The nose, large jaw, and brow, seemed the same, except for a certain shortness and roundness, as in a doll-like simulacra. Corresponding to this was the length of lashes around my eyes--or had electronic sense-organs been added, necessary here for close vision?

Again I looked around the room. One wall was absent. But the square left for ventilation was crossed by interwoven diagonals--bars which must have been incredibly fine wire from another viewpoint.

Beyond this barrier was an egg-shaped chamber, so huge to my present minuteness that it was like a mountain valley, its sides curving up in shade and lushness; though through its vitreous, natural roof, light streamed. Everywhere, bright green foliage peeped over garden walls. Sometimes it was shaggy and filamented, sometimes massy and spheroidal on thin stalks. Along streets rising in angular charm, were geometric masses in pastel tints, some unknown to man, before. There were cubes, pyramids, even spheres--buildings, obviously--yet of such simple oddity that a child might have designed them.

Water did not lie flat as in a lake, but gathered in great glistening dewdrops, burying a house or hill fantastically, but with startling beauty.

But all this moved with the daily life of a teeming civilization--living, manufacturing, buying and selling in the market place. The air was full of craggy shapes, some propelling themselves with arm and leg movement, others using jet rods. High on a slope there was a continuous electrical flicker, a bluish spark. Perhaps the furnace of a metallurgical process.

* * * * *

The springy stuff on which I sat, gross as brushwood, would have been cotton wool to normal-sized human touch. Perhaps it was vegetable fibre of that order. Crouching near me was a girl, clad in coarse blue fabric which in reality would have shamed our finest textiles. The details of her face were simplified in a doll-like blurring of line. But still she was recognizable, even with the lashlike filaments around her eyes.

Somehow I still spoke with my lips. "Jan." My voice seemed a miniature bass bell. I crept to her side.

Her courage and sense of humor were intact.

Her laughter was a tinier bell. "I'm all right, Charlie. At least, yet. Maybe I just don't realize. One thing we've talked about has happened, hasn't it? You look sort of cute, Charlie, like a puppet in a show. Doc, too." Jan laughed again.

Beyond her, dressed like myself, was the reduced image of Dr. Shane Lanvin, though his inner self remained unchanged, his triumphant smile just faintly edged with doubt.

"Hi, Doc!" I greeted. "Congratulations for success in a venture which began with you. Now, for the record, let's hear your version of just what has happened."

He smirked good-naturedly. "All right," he chuckled. "You can't get back to any control hoods, our former human-size selves. I've tried. So our whole identities must have been transferred to these far smaller forms. Somewhere in our adventures the structure of each of our brains must have been exhaustively charted, down to the finest wavering of cell-filament, and the least variation of chemical state. Thus must have been captured every phase of our minds, memories, and personalities. This might have been done by something analagous to our focused radar or X-ray photography, penetrating deep, and making an instant record. From this record, the pattern of our brains must have been rebuilt, with all the complex channels of association and so forth, but in a totally different medium, capable of a far finer and more compact flow of energy than mere nerve impulses. In a brain of protoplast, I think it could happen."

"Loose ends still dangle," I chuckled. "For instance, I remember a machine called George, and a statement by him that consciousness, awareness of self, was even difficult to define. How about transferring that?"

Doc Lanvin shrugged. "Maybe the consciousness--the true self--is inherent in the brain channels, like the memory, and would also be transferred simply by copying them precisely," he said. "Or could the awareness be a kind of spark, capable of being captured and transported by an appropriate apparatus, as an electric spark can be captured in an electroscope? I don't know, Charlie. But I noticed some of the equipment carried by these Xians when they took us; and I thought of that."

Silence seemed to close in as Doc finished; and it grew heavy with monumental implications, almost apart from mentioned things. I breathed, which suggested that my present form was getting energy in the familiar way--by the combustion of food substances. But as I held my breath for a prolonged moment, there was only a brief flutter, as of a heart quickening its beat inside me. I wondered eerily if this was evidence of a casual change-over, as if my android flesh could so quickly convert to some other energy supply, perhaps that of radioactive salts naturally in its substance. Such minerals were fairly common on the Jovian moons, and far commoner among the asteroids.

I was compelled to breath again to speak.

"More could be remarked about, Doc," I said. "We know that the Xians were once of human-size, and of the same order of life. So somewhere in their long and checkered history, their survivors invented this new vital principle, and changed themselves. There may be various reasons why they chose to be tiny. Hiding, for instance. But as you once said, that's just part of the android advantage, and not the real issue. Here is a step in scientific development probably as much to be expected as television. If micro-androids can be made, so can larger ones! There's your pending problem on Earth, Doc, natural man versus his far tougher, more flexible competitor! Ultimate newness. It can be real! And wonderful! But to many it will be a fearful thing."

Doc's doll-like visage fairly shone. "The warning, eh, Charlie?" he chuckled. "The demigod dream coming to a head in eagerness and cold tension. Shock of the utterly novel versus tradition, even instinct! No ills; practical indestructability. Immortality, perhaps. The old, human hope! And yet?... But should or can progress ever be stopped?... Damn, if we can only take this process of conversion home!"

"You two talk of going home, and of lots of big things," Jan complained. "But do we even know where we are? Just where is this room, and those houses and gardens out there, in a great hollow space like a bubble cavity in a glassy clinker? Of course such a cavity, a few inches across, would seem enormous to us."

Dr. Lanvin studied her soberly. "You're sharp, Jan," he said at last. "A bubble cavity, like in an old clinker. Umhm--m--many asteroids have that sort of structure, maybe formed by the sudden relief of a planet's internal pressure, when X was blown up. Steam and air made the bubbles in the molten, glassy lava. But when it cooled and solidified, the air, and the condensed water of the steam, remained sealed inside, unable to escape into space. Explorers have found microscopic green plantlife growing in many of those cavities, for through the glassy lava sunlight can penetrate, as it seems to do here. Thus, a perfect natural environment for living things in miniature was created. And a perfect retreat. By gosh, Jan, I believe you're right!"

Doc had always had almost a child's love for small objects. But my own enthusiasm was less complete. Call us all super-mites, placed beyond most of the physical ills of men; but Jan and I were still prey to nostalgia and panic and claustrophobia, for these are things of the mind. Hard men have gone mad in space, because they felt cut off from everything familiar. But at least they had their normal forms and size, and a known way back home. They weren't caught in a clinker cavity beyond a barrier of magnitudes that appeared more insurmountable than a hundred light-years of distance.

It was a treachery of our primitive thought patterns, I knew. It was against progress, and the explorative impulse. Yet I knew that it would have to be reckoned with.

V

Jan seemed about to answer Doc a little sadly. But then the grating over a circular doorway at one side of the room opened and Kobolah floated into our presence, and alighted before us. Uncertainly, Doc and I arose. No human yet could have read the expressions of Kobolah's queer, angular face, limpid filament-framed eyes, or palped mouth orifice. The ages of history, and alien thought structure behind that visage, were lost in enigma. But now his voice-tympanum buzzed; words came out with an effort, but their arrangement and apparent thought mimicked the human almost comically.

"Bubble cavities," he buzzed. "You are fine guessers. We are in a very small asteroid. But it is not in the asteroid belt. The great explosion long ago hurled it into an orbit around Ganymede. It is one of our many retreats. We wanted to conquer Mars. We attacked terribly. But they destroyed X. The few Martians still surviving tried to hunt our even smaller numbers down. But we found a way; we became little to be concealed. Later, we were at peace, safe. But being small was a habit not needing change. We bore offspring, as we could before. We built things up again, and multiplied, very few dying. We made more refuges in the solar system, then in the systems of the stars. We are strong and hidden. We have a good way. We are peaceful, except when there is danger. But you three have come--differently. All right, we can watch and learn from you, too. Yes, I have listened to all that you have said, but to learn is good, and not unkind. Right? Now I have answered some of your questions."

The buzzing voice ended in the slurred imitation of a laugh, which tautened whatever now served me as nerves. For to laugh is a specially human, Earthborn thing, not to be mocked. But here I was in the awesome dark of complete novelty.

Doc, however, gripped Kobolah's corresponding tactile member. "Does one do this, after all, among your people, Friend?" he asked. "Or express thanks? If so, here it is. As for the rest, about the technology of transformation--"

Doc did not even make it an apparent question. Yet the question was there. Dr. Shane Lanvin had to learn what he could.

Kobolah mocked up a human chuckle. But his monster's gaze was cold. "This is not for my decision," he buzzed. "But it could be as you wish. Yes, I overheard what you want. Some I could show you now. You and your companions--Charlie, Jan. The apparatus you could see."

"Of course!" Doc replied quickly.

I looked at Jan. Her jaw was set grimly, as if to fight the strain in her eyes. I didn't have to ask her what it was. I felt it myself. All the strangeness around us, beating at, grinding at, our minds. Physical laws turned topsy-turvy, till nothing was the same. Could an android go mad--if the mind in it remained human, and reacted even against the unfamiliar substance of the arms and legs that it controlled? Too long already it had been so. We were realizing what we were. There needed to be some relief from the harsh thought.

"Wait!" I insisted. "Our own forms--are they dead?"

"Alive, sleeping, mindless, where they fell in your ship," Kobolah answered. "I believe--safe...."

My arm was around Jan. "There!" I said triumphantly. "That's better already, isn't it? You go with him, Doc. Jan and I need another mood, now. Ko-bo-lah--" I struggled to pronounce the name as he did. "Are we guests or prisoners? Can we go and come as we please?"

Finally he replied after what seemed an emotionless scrutiny: "I am chief of a project to observe you. Proceed as you like until stopped. There are common devices for propulsion there in the corner. The controls are easy. Have fun. Come along, Doc."

Dr. Lanvin took a proffered propulsion rod from our host. "Yeah--" he said a little dazedly. "Have fun. Be seein' yuh."

He still looked puzzled and amused as he followed the monster from the room. The grill of the circular door was left ajar. Down a passage beyond, daylight showed.

The little bell of Jan's laughter rang out, fringing hysteria. I patted her shoulder. "Easy, Honey," I urged.

She began to regain control. "Common expressions from a buzzing demon who might even be a good guy!" she said. "And around here you don't even walk, you glide through the air! Everything's crazy! And all the scientific explanations, while you get more and more homesick for your own self! Darn it, Charlie, I'm a weak fool! But it's still all wonderful, beautiful! It should be enjoyed. That's the way to counteract fear and strain, isn't it, by enjoyment? No more deep theories for now! Let's go out there to the city, see the sights, follow our noses, try to have fun!"

"Right, Jan," I enthused. "Call us visitors in some exotic port. I guess we'll need practice using these jet rods."

* * * * *

In a moment we were out there in that lush, valley-like cavern, which really was a bubble, a few inches across, in the glassy crust of a fragmentary asteroid. The jet rods flamed and gave thrust in our hands as we maneuvered clumsily in the air, learning, hands joined to keep from being separated.

First we shot up to the immense roof through which sunlight streamed. Then we drove ourselves down over the gardens and towers of the city. Soon a curious crowd floated around us. They plucked at us, and their voices buzzed; but none of these Xians seemed to know our language.

"Does it really matter, Charlie?" Jan asked, her eyes beginning to shine, now, some of the strain already disappearing. "Here's an old, old civilization, hidden, grown esthetic, maybe even a little decadent, but extending far. You know it, feel it! Here are beings changed to an android life-basis so long ago that it seems natural--hardy flesh healing if injured, children being born as in the old flesh! Even death almost a myth! Gosh, I hope we can get used to all that, Charlie! Peoples multiplying, spreading to the stars."

"Don't paint it too bright, Jan," I laughed. "Come on. Let's explore farther."

I don't remember how many hours we spent on that long excursion, or all that we did. There was more than one bubble cavern; there must have been thousands connected by artificially drilled passages in double arrangement for traffic moving in two directions. In those passages, currents of air carried one along swiftly. It was a perfect transit method for a micro-world.

In some caverns were other cities. But there were more where tiny agricultural machines, with limbs like a beetle, crawled across miniature fields. Here we ate strange, sweet fruit, that surely contained the carbohydrates of familiar food. But no doubt it also contained radioactive salts from the soil in which it grew. As we had been, it would have poisoned us. As we were, it was a double source of vital energy, chemical and subatomic.

Other caverns were murked with the fumes of electric foundries, self-operating, close to the mine-tunnels that bored deep into the natural, nickel-steel core of the asteroid. In still other caverns there were low buildings full of lathes, drills, presses, among those that we could name--all automatic, too. Then there were caverns where stood lines of square containers, enormous to our eyes, and joined by a network of cables. This must be a power source--banks of nuclear batteries.

And in several adjacent bubble cavities we saw where an enormous metal cylinder was being built, each oblong segment being welded into place by mechanisms of the true robot variety. From any one cavern only a small part of the curving side of the tube could be seen.

"Some kind of jet engine?" I asked almost rhetorically. "For their further expansion toward the stars? Like moving a whole planet to them, eh?"

"Your guess, there, can be mine, Charlie," Jan said.

We felt no physical tiredness in spite of all our activity. "Let's get back to a more idyllic surface bubble, Jan," I suggested, "and go swimming in water if natural law, here, allows it."

"Crazy!" she responded gleefully.

Air, rising in a vertical shaft, bore us aloft for the few feet that, to us, stretched into seeming miles. Against what appeared to be a green hillside, we soon found what we sought, a great, clear ovoid, glinting like a lens in diffused sunshine.

It almost proved true that we could not swim, here; for the relativity of smallness gave water a terrific surface-tension. It was difficult even to get wet! You could lunge at the dewdrop, and it would throw you back like a net of rubber. Even with android strength, we tried several times before we penetrated it. But then things went well.

Jan glided like a little pink nymph, silvery bubbles clinging to her face. We did not breathe. The greater relative viscosity of water did not trouble us. Our eyes did not need to close. Inside the dewdrop swam Xians who had followed us. And extending in crystal vistas were the furry green bulks of water algae.

Maybe there was no moment or place, yet, as beautiful as this. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. But grim questions about our future remained in my mind, though here and now the charm of fantastic difference reached a pinnacle.

"Now I'd like to go up and out on the surface of the asteroid, Jan," I said when we had emerged from the water. "The real test. Game?"

"Why not?" she answered.