Front matter (continued 2)

"In my office," the dying Frane gasped faintly. "There were three cylinders."

Loto and several of the chemists ran in. It seemed an eternity of waiting, with Nixon's mind picturing his enlarging adversary out there in the other valley. But it was only a moment before Loto and the chemists came back. The drug-cylinders were gone! Tork had made away with them all!

Nixon turned and ran for the pass. That damnable delay! He cursed himself for having waited to try and get the drug! Tork by now might already be too big to handle....

The broad valley beyond the pass lay shining in the moonlight. The lines of trees and the little orange river were off to the left. For a moment Nixon stood peering. Was Tork here? Evidently the Orites who lived here had seen him. Their tiny cries sounded. Nixon could see terrified groups of them running.

Then the figure of Tork suddenly rose up from a rock-cluster on the other side of the little river. He had been crouching behind a line of trees. Now with a cry of triumph he straightened, bounded over the river. He was about Nixon's size. He shouted,

"Not a giant any more, are you? Well, this is the end of you, Earthman!"

Tork was holding a dripping chunk of rock which he had seized from the river bank. He flung it, but Nixon ducked. The rock went thudding out across the valley. Then as Nixon held his ground, crouching, Tork's body struck him. The impact knocked Nixon backward, so that he fell with Tork on top of him. It startled him; he had not realized that Tork's body would be so solid, far heavier now than Nixon's.

Then they were rolling, locked together, jabbing, pummeling. In a rough and tumble, Nixon had always been very handy. He was exceedingly agile, and now the heavier Tork could not hold him. In a moment Nixon was up. He found himself at the edge of the babbling little stream. He seized a tree. It was thick, half as big as himself. Desperately he wrenched it up. The knob of heavy roots made it like a maul, a bludgeon. Tork was scrambling up. Nixon hit him with a swing of the tree root. He staggered, went down, this time with Nixon on top of him.

He wrenched up a tree and swung it.

But now Nixon realized that Tork was a full head taller. As they struggled, with Tork heaving up, trying to ward off Nixon's blows, Nixon could feel his antagonist's body expanding. It was gruesome. It shot a fear through Nixon. If he didn't kill Tork now in a moment or two, he never would! And Tork knew it. He was fighting on the defensive, just waiting until Nixon would be only a stripling in his grip.

Then they were rolling again on the ground. They were close beside the stream, with the brittle underbrush crackling under their plunging bodies. Several times Nixon had gotten a grip on Tork's throat, but always the strength of Tork's big hands had broken it. Now Nixon was desperately trying to roll Tork into the water. Evidently the Orite didn't realize it. He lunged, and as Nixon twisted and heaved, Tork went backward with his head and shoulders splashing. The stream was a foot or two deep here, babbling over stones. Tork's head went down; the water splashed over his face. And then again Nixon gripped him by the throat. In Nixon was the grim thought that this was the way one gripped 'gators under water. His hands pressed down; his body was sprawled, braced and taut to hold the lunging Tork.

The orange water was lashed into turgid green foam. Tork was coughing, choking. It was easier to hold his head down now. His hands tore at Nixon's wrists but could not break the hold. Then Nixon could feel the plucking hands and the lunges of Tork's huge body growing weaker. Through an interval Nixon clung, and then he released his grip and staggered panting to his feet. In the babbling stream the big body of Tork lay motionless; a horrible, goggling, staring face blue with the orange water lapping over it....

An Orana year went by, a succession of brief days and nights while Nixon worked and planned to help the Orites build their little world into something safer, more comfortable than it had been before. Frane had died. The Orite doctors and surgeons could not save him. The growth-drug was gone. Tork had hidden the tiny cylinders somewhere, but they had never been found, and no more of the drug could be made. Certainly not now; Frane and Tork were the only ones who knew the full details of the process. Nixon felt that was just as well. A thing diabolic. Like atomic fission, in evil hands it could wreck its world.

Now, with the year passed, it had been agreed that they were to take the giant back to Earth. Loto and Nona set out with Nixon along with a group of the Orite scientists and leaders and a few hundred of the Gorts, most of whom had been on the trip before.

It was the same little spaceship. Now the giant need not lie bound, he could crouch carefully on one elbow, or shift a little if he was wary of his movements. The trip seemed far quicker than before, with Loto and Nona to talk to and all his tiny friends here in the humming interior around him. Then through the bow-port the mellow, crescent Earth swung into view, a great cloud-mottled disc.

Then one Earth-night they were sliding down through the stratosphere, skimming an ocean and over the land ... Florida. Nixon's heart pounded as he gazed down at it. The Florida moon was brilliant in the sky as the gleaming little cylinder slid silently into a patch of wire-grass and rested on the ground. Only a marsh-hen was disturbed, rising with its discordant cry and winging away.

The cylinder opened and Nixon rose up and out of it. The top closed again, and from a lower tiny doorway of the glistening ten-foot shape, a few of the little Orite figures came out, gazed upward. His friends.

"Goodbye, my giant," Nona called. They were all waving.

What was there to say?

"Goodbye," Nixon spoke softly. "I sure wish you well."

They turned, went back inside. The port closed. The sleek, tiny ship slid upward and away into the moonlight. It was a shining little streak for a moment; then a glistening dot, small as a firefly. Then it was gone.

For a moment Nixon stood with a strange sense of loss upon him. But here was Earth. Home. A light was burning in the cabin across the sandspit. The bayou glistened in the moonlight.

Silently Nixon turned and walked up the oyster-shell beach toward his home.