Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
MICRO-MAN
BY WEAVER WRIGHT
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Fantasy Book Vol. 1number 1 (1947). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: _The little man dared to venture into the realm of theGods--but the Gods were cruel!_]
The early morning streetcar, swaying and rattling along its tracks, didas much to divert my attention from the book I was reading as thecontents of the book itself. I did not like Plato. Comfortable thoughthe seat was, I was as uncomfortable as any collegiate could be whosemind would rather dwell upon tomorrow's football game than the immediatetask in hand--the morning session with Professor Russell and the book onmy lap.
My gaze wandered from the book and drifted out the distorted window,then fell to the car-sill as I thought over Plato's conclusions.Something moving on the ledge attracted my attention: it was a scurryingblack ant. If I had thought about it, I might have wondered how it camethere. But the next moment a more curious object on the sill caught myeye. I bent over.
I couldn't make out what it was at first. A bug, perhaps. Maybe it wastoo small for a bug. Just a little dancing dust, no doubt.
Then I discerned--and gasped. On the sill, there----it was a man! A manon the streetcar's window sill----a _little_ man! He was so tiny I wouldnever have seen him if it hadn't been for his white attire, which madehim visible against the brown grain of the shellacked wood. I watched,amazed as his microscopic figure moved over perhaps half an inch.
He wore a blouse and shorts, it seemed, and sandals. Something mighthave been hanging at his side, but it was too small for me to make outplainly. His head, I thought was silver-coloured, and I think theheadgear had some sort of knobs on it. All this, of course, I didn'tcatch at the time, because my heart was hammering away excitedly andmaking my fingers shake as I fumbled for a matchbox in my pocket, Ipushed it open and let the matches scatter out. Then, as gently as myexcitement would allow, I pushed the tiny man from the ledge into thebox; for I had suddenly realized the greatness of this amazingdiscovery.
The car was barely half-filled and no attention had been directed myway. I slid quickly out of the empty seat and hurriedly alighted at thenext stop.
In a daze, I stood where I had alighted waiting for the next No. 10 thatwould return me home, the matchbox held tightly in my hand. They'd putthat box in a museum one day!
I collect stamps--I've heard about getting rare ones with invertedcenters, or some minor deviation that made them immensely valuable. I'dimagined getting one by mistake sometime that would make me rich. Butthis! They'd billed "King Kong" as "The Eighth Wonder of the World," butthat was only imaginary--a film ... a terrifying thought crossed mymind. I pushed open the box hastily: maybe _I_ had been dreaming. Butthere it was--the unbelievable; the Little Man!
A car was before me, just leaving. Its polished surface had notreflected through the haze, and the new design made so little noise thatI hadn't seen it. I jumped for it, my mind in such a turmoil that theconductor had to ask three times for my fare. Ordinarily, I would havebeen embarrassed, but a young man with his mind on millions doesn'tworry about little things like that. At least, not this young man.
How I acted on the streetcar, or traversed the five blocks from the endof the line, I couldn't say. If I may imagine myself, though, I musthave strode along the street like a determined machine. I reached thehouse and let myself into the basement room. Inside, I pulled the shadestogether and closed the door, the matchbox still in my hand. No one wasat home this time of day, which pleased me particularly, for I wanted tofigure out how I was going to present this wonder to the world.
I flung myself down on the bed and opened the matchbox. The little manlay very still on the bottom.
"Little Man!" I cried, and turned him out on the quilt. Maybe he hadsuffocated in the box. Irrational thought! Small though it might be tome, the little box was as big as all outdoors to him. It was the bumpingabout he'd endured; I hadn't been very thoughtful of him.
He was reviving now, and raised himself on one arm. I pushed myself offthe bed, and stepped quickly to my table to procure something with whichI could control him. Not that he could get away, but he was so tiny Ithought I might lose sight of him.
Pen, pencil, paper, stamps, scissors, clips--none of them were what Iwanted. I had nothing definite in mind, but then remembered my stampoutfit and rushed to secure it. Evidently college work had cramped mystyle along the collecting line, for the tweezers and magnifier appearedwith a mild coating of dust. But they were what I needed, and I blew onthem and returned to the bed.
The little man had made his way half an inch or so from his formerprison; was crawling over what I suppose were, to him, great unevenblocks of red and green and black moss.
He crossed from a red into a black patch as I watched his movementsthrough the glass, and I could see him more plainly against the darkerbackground. He stopped and picked at the substance of his strangesurroundings, then straightened to examine a tuft of the cloth. Themagnifier enlarged him to a seeming half inch or so, and I could seebetter, now, this strange tiny creature.
It _was_ a metal cap he wore, and it did have protruding knobs--two ofthem--slanting at 45 degree angles from his temples like horns. Iwondered at their use, but it was impossible for me to imagine. Perhapsthey covered some actual growth; he might have had real horns for all Iknew. Nothing would have been too strange to expect.
His clothing showed up as a simple, white, one piece garment, like ashirt and gym shorts. The shorts ended at the knee, and from there downhe was bare except for a covering on his feet which appeared more likegloves than shoes. Whatever he wore to protect his feet, it allowed freemovement of his toes.
It struck me that this little man's native habitat must have been verywarm. His attire suggested this. For a moment I considered plugging inmy small heater; my room certainly had no tropical or sub-tropicaltemperature at that time of the morning--and how was I to know whetherhe shivered when he felt chill. Maybe he blew his horns. Anyway, Ifigured a living Eighth Wonder would be more valuable than a dead one;and I didn't think he could be stuffed. But somehow I forgot it in myinterest in examining this unusual personage.
The little man had dropped the cloth now, and was staring in mydirection. Of course, "my direction" was very general to him; but heseemed to be conscious of me. He certainly impressed _me_ as beingawfully different, but what his reactions were, I didn't know.
But someone else knew.
* * * * *
In a world deep down in Smallness, in an electron of a dead cell of apiece of wood, five scientists were grouped before a complicatedinstrument with a horn like the early radios. Two sat and three stood,but their attention upon the apparatus was unanimous. From smallhollowed cups worn on their fingers like rings, came a smoke fromburning incense. These cups they held to their noses frequently, andtheir eyes shone as they inhaled. The scientists of infra-smallness weresmoking!
With the exception of a recent prolonged silence, which was causing themgreat anxiety, sounds had been issuing from the instrument for days.There had been breaks before, but this silence had been long-enduring.
Now the voice was speaking again; a voice that was a telepathiccommunication made audible. The scientists brightened.
"There is much that I cannot understand," it said. The words werehesitant, filled with awe. "I seem to have been in many worlds. At thecompletion of my experiment, I stood on a land which was brown and blackand very rough of surface. With startling suddenness, I was propelledacross this harsh count
ry, and, terrifyingly, I was falling. I must havedropped seventy-five feet, but the strange buoyant atmosphere of thisstrange world saved me from harm.
"My new surroundings were grey and gloomy, and the earth trembled as agiant cloud passed over the sky. I do not know what it meant, but withthe suddenness characteristic of this place, it became very dark, and aninexplicable violence shook me into insensibility.
"I am conscious, now, of some giant form before me, but it is socolossal that my eyes cannot focus it. And it changes. Now I seemconfronted by great orange mountains with curving ledges cut into theirsides. Atop them are great, greyish slabs of protecting opaque rock--acovering like that above our Temples of Aerat--'on which the rain maynever fall.' I wish that you might communicate with me, good men of myworld. How go the Gods?
"But now! These mountains are lifting, vanishing from my sight. A great_thing_ which I cannot comprehend hovers before me. It has