Of Stegner's Folly Page 3

nobody paid any attention to me, so the importantpapers nestled in the bottom of my trunk. I didn't want them confiscateduntil the time came when I could publish them with proof. My boss wouldback me up when that proof came. I was sure of that.

  I got my chance the day the giantess came crashing out of the smoke anddust of the circle of horror across which the beasts were constantlylunging. She was near naked, and half mad with pain from the giantinsects plaguing her. No one fired on her as she stood with upliftedarms, waiting for the soldiers to kill her as she expected. Beautiful asa goddess out of an ancient myth she came forward toward the soldiers,her face lighting with hope, her hair streaming golden in the sun. Shespoke to us then, and the silence that came over the field of carnagewas complete.

  "Look at me! Look at me and believe! There are others like me, back inthe jungle; mad giants who plan to conquer your world. They are ready todo it. I have escaped to warn you. They are mad, these giants my masterhas created. They are monsters...."

  I recognized her now. My senses leaped and my blood pounded in my veins.Here was my opportunity to convince the world. This was Tilda, Stegner'smaid! I snapped several pictures of her as she went on talking.

  "These men, who were once your own leaders are plotting to destroy youand take the world for themselves. You do not know what they arepreparing for you, but I come to tell you. Make ready, for they are ontheir way to destroy you. They bring huge guns, monster tanks that theyhave built, machines never before seen on earth."

  What more she might have told we were never to know, for she fell then,at the end of her strength. Whatever she had dared, whatever she hadgone through to break out of that monstrous circle and come to us, hadbeen too much even for her giant's strength. She fell, like a towercrashing down, and lay there, a great lax pile of pink and red flesh,torn by thorns, the claws of animals, the stingers of terrible giantinsects.

  Then the monsters came again, and we could not go to her. She lay thereas darkness came, and in the morning only her skeleton remained,stripped of flesh in the night by the myriad devouring giant ants andbeetles.

  * * * * *

  My story went in, with photos of Tilda. My editor printed the wholestory, printed my formulae, printed every word of the history of Stegnerand his creations, and the secret menace he had unwittingly loosed onthe world from his second hidden Eden in the jungle. I was called home.

  They came to me then, those moral ones Stegner had said existed. Menhigh in government and army circles who had the peace and welfare of theworld at heart. Selfless ones whose records were above reproach. Andthey proved to be high in the powers of the world, able to command.

  * * * * *

  I went back to South America, to my reporting. I wanted to be on handwhen the attack of which Tilda had warned became reality.

  I was some twelve miles from the deadly circle when the giant tanksappeared. They were larger than any moving thing ever seen on Earthbefore. Tracklayers, caterpillars--and swinging above them slendertowers which bore ominous gleaming nozzles. On they came.

  Then they struck at us. From the nozzles a cold brilliance leaped out,unnamable, that swept forward like a slow lightning, a kind of cracklingsheet of cold fire that spread from tower to tower, in an arc that beganto bend toward our lines.

  The fire came in mile-wide swaths. There was no outcry, no terror--justthe sweating lines of men in foxholes, the crews about the guns, heavingammo into their maws; the rumbling trucks and the careening jeeps. Thefire swept over all like liquid, radiance, like a pouring out ofmoonlight, soft but brilliant, mild yet deadly. Then it was gone. Andwhen it had gone, nothing but silence remained. Dead men stretched outwhere they had lain waiting, fallen where they labored; jeeps careenedon to crash into stumps or bigger trucks--and stop forever. Only silenceand death and nothingness was left.

  When the silence swept across the whole front I dropped my glasses andlit out for my own car, and headed for the coast. I wanted to file thisstory in person, and I knew, too, that army would not be there in themorning. I meant to stay alive. I knew that the hope for mankind lay inwhat honest men were doing with Stegner's formulae. I had to know. So Ifled.

  Next day they were dropping atom bombs on every moving thing inStegner's ghastly Eden. High flying bombers flew in swarms--and many ofthem were being shot down by the weird fire. I saw those atom bombsfalling, on television, and the white radiance reaching up toward them.I saw it catch them in its embrace, saw them explode harmlessly in theair, midway in their plunge. Whatever the fire was, it was a defenseagainst the atom bomb, for it exploded them before they could reachtheir targets.

  It didn't catch them all, and it didn't intercept all the high-flyingbombers loosing their guided rocket missiles. It got enough though, toshow us we were on the losing end. What we needed was a miracle. And themiracle did occur....

  At first, even with my fingers on every tag end of information that cameout of the terrible area, it was an unnoticeable change. Then I got it.The men doing our fighting changed in caliber and ability. I neverlearned, due to the official habit of hushing everything up, just whosetechnology accomplished the miracle, but it must have been started fromthe first, with those army officers who had listened to me with suchlack of interest when I spoke before their inquisition at the Texas armyair field.

  All I learned was that there was a new kind of man busy at the front, aman of keener intellect, swifter of action, infinitely more able thanthe former ordinary soldier.

  It was Jake who first confirmed my suspicions. He brought in photographsof men lifting trucks out of mudholes, men tearing steel cables apartwith their bare hands, men jumping over twenty-foot barriers with fullpack. "Whatta I do with that kind of pic? The people are so fed up withthe impossible news they are getting that they don't believe anythingany more! But you and I know a news camera doesn't lie ... it doesn'thave time!"

  They had put the Prof's formulae to work against the giants. This timeit was the right formulae. They had growth without increase in size, agrowth of ability, of strength, of mentality, without any increase inponderous structure. These new soldiers were the policemen of the UnitedNations made into supermen!

  I began to believe in the human race again. "Great!" I said. "This iswhat I've been waiting for!"

  Jake tossed me his pictures and went away. I turned to the typewriterand began batting out my story: "Mankind solves the problem of giantism!The new weapon against the giants is--the new man!"

  Those little giants waded into that circle through all the deadly fireand the giant scorpions and vast beasts like Jack-the-Giant-Killer'smultitudinous sons--and it wasn't a month later that I typed the laststory of my life and gave up reporting for good. It was the tale of thedeath of the last giant--and Jake's picture of him, armed in the endwith only his fists, huge as a tree, mad with hunger and thirst andterrible fear of the little men who were just as mighty, a lot quicker,and every bit as smart as any giant. They routed him out with tear gasand shot him down with plain old GI rifle fire.

  Yes, I gave up newspaper work. Why? They offered me a job making amovie out of the "War of the Giants". The job gave me quick money,which is what I needed. The wife and I are starting a new colonyon Malino Island. It's in the Carolinas. We're going to try thisgrowth-without-size business out properly.

  Yes, that's my son. Eight months. He doesn't ordinarily go arounddragging a piano--it just got in his way.