Micro-Man

 

The early morning streetcar, swaying and rattling along its tracks, did

as much to divert my attention from the book I was reading as the

contents of the book itself. I did not like Plato. Comfortable though

the seat was, I was as uncomfortable as any collegiate could be whose

mind would rather dwell upon tomorrow's football game than the immediate

task in hand--the morning session with Professor Russell and the book on

my 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 scurrying

black ant. If I had thought about it, I might have wondered how it came

there. But the next moment a more curious object on the sill caught my

eye. I bent over.

 

I couldn't make out what it was at first. A bug, perhaps. Maybe it was

too 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 man

on the streetcar's window sill----a little man! He was so tiny I would

never have seen him if it hadn't been for his white attire, which made

him 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 might

have been hanging at his side, but it was too small for me to make out

plainly. His head, I thought was silver-coloured, and I think the

headgear had some sort of knobs on it. All this, of course, I didn't

catch at the time, because my heart was hammering away excitedly and

making my fingers shake as I fumbled for a matchbox in my pocket, I

pushed it open and let the matches scatter out. Then, as gently as my

excitement would allow, I pushed the tiny man from the ledge into the

box; for I had suddenly realized the greatness of this amazing

discovery.

 

The car was barely half-filled and no attention had been directed my

way. I slid quickly out of the empty seat and hurriedly alighted at the

next stop.

 

In a daze, I stood where I had alighted waiting for the next No. 10 that

would return me home, the matchbox held tightly in my hand. They'd put

that box in a museum one day!

 

I collect stamps--I've heard about getting rare ones with inverted

centers, or some minor deviation that made them immensely valuable. I'd

imagined getting one by mistake sometime that would make me rich. But

this! They'd billed "King Kong" as "The Eighth Wonder of the World," but

that was only imaginary--a film ... a terrifying thought crossed my

mind. I pushed open the box hastily: maybe I had been dreaming. But

there it was--the unbelievable; the Little Man!

 

A car was before me, just leaving. Its polished surface had not

reflected through the haze, and the new design made so little noise that

I hadn't seen it. I jumped for it, my mind in such a turmoil that the

conductor had to ask three times for my fare. Ordinarily, I would have

been embarrassed, but a young man with his mind on millions doesn't

worry about little things like that. At least, not this young man.

 

How I acted on the streetcar, or traversed the five blocks from the end

of the line, I couldn't say. If I may imagine myself, though, I must

have strode along the street like a determined machine. I reached the

house and let myself into the basement room. Inside, I pulled the shades

together and closed the door, the matchbox still in my hand. No one was

at home this time of day, which pleased me particularly, for I wanted to

figure 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 man

lay very still on the bottom.

 

"Little Man!" I cried, and turned him out on the quilt. Maybe he had

suffocated in the box. Irrational thought! Small though it might be to

me, the little box was as big as all outdoors to him. It was the bumping

about he'd endured; I hadn't been very thoughtful of him.

 

He was reviving now, and raised himself on one arm. I pushed myself off

the bed, and stepped quickly to my table to procure something with which

I could control him. Not that he could get away, but he was so tiny I

thought I might lose sight of him.

 

Pen, pencil, paper, stamps, scissors, clips--none of them were what I

wanted. I had nothing definite in mind, but then remembered my stamp

outfit and rushed to secure it. Evidently college work had cramped my

style along the collecting line, for the tweezers and magnifier appeared

with a mild coating of dust. But they were what I needed, and I blew on

them and returned to the bed.

 

The little man had made his way half an inch or so from his former

prison; was crawling over what I suppose were, to him, great uneven

blocks of red and green and black moss.

 

He crossed from a red into a black patch as I watched his movements

through the glass, and I could see him more plainly against the darker

background. He stopped and picked at the substance of his strange

surroundings, then straightened to examine a tuft of the cloth. The

magnifier enlarged him to a seeming half inch or so, and I could see

better, now, this strange tiny creature.

 

It  was a metal cap he wore, and it did have protruding knobs--two of

them--slanting at 45 degree angles from his temples like horns. I

wondered at their use, but it was impossible for me to imagine. Perhaps

they covered some actual growth; he might have had real horns for all I

knew. Nothing would have been too strange to expect.

 

His clothing showed up as a simple, white, one piece garment, like a

shirt and gym shorts. The shorts ended at the knee, and from there down

he was bare except for a covering on his feet which appeared more like

gloves than shoes. Whatever he wore to protect his feet, it allowed free

movement of his toes.

 

It struck me that this little man's native habitat must have been very

warm. His attire suggested this. For a moment I considered plugging in

my small heater; my room certainly had no tropical or sub-tropical

temperature at that time of the morning--and how was I to know whether

he shivered when he felt chill. Maybe he blew his horns. Anyway, I

figured 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 my

interest in examining this unusual personage.

 

The little man had dropped the cloth now, and was staring in my

direction. Of course, "my direction" was very general to him; but he

seemed to be conscious of me. He certainly impressed _me_ as being

awfully 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 a

piece of wood, five scientists were grouped before a complicated

instrument with a horn like the early radios. Two sat and three stood,

but their attention upon the apparatus was unanimous. From small

hollowed cups worn on their fingers like rings, came a smoke from

burning incense. These cups they held to their noses frequently, and

their eyes shone as they inhaled. The scientists of infra-smallness were

smoking!

 

With the exception of a recent prolonged silence, which was causing them

great 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 telepathic

communication made audible. The scientists brightened.

 

"There is much that I cannot understand," it said. The words were

hesitant, filled with awe. "I seem to have been in many worlds. At the

completion of my experiment, I stood on a land which was brown and black

and very rough of surface. With startling suddenness, I was propelled

across this harsh country, and, terrifyingly, I was falling. I must have

dropped seventy-five feet, but the strange buoyant atmosphere of this

strange world saved me from harm.

 

"My new surroundings were grey and gloomy, and the earth trembled as a

giant cloud passed over the sky. I do not know what it meant, but with

the suddenness characteristic of this place, it became very dark, and an

inexplicable violence shook me into insensibility.

 

"I am conscious, now, of some giant form before me, but it is so

colossal that my eyes cannot focus it. And it changes. Now I seem

confronted by great orange mountains with curving ledges cut into their

sides. Atop them are great, greyish slabs of protecting opaque rock--a

covering like that above our Temples of Aerat--'on which the rain may

never fall.' I wish that you might communicate with me, good men of my

world. 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 many colors,

but mostly there is the orange of the mountains. It hangs in the air,

and from the portion nearest me grow dark trees as round as myself and

as tall. There is a great redness above, that opens like the Katus

flower, exposing the ivory white from which puffs the Tongue of Death.

Beyond this I cannot see well, but ever so high are two gigantic caverns

from which the Winds of the Legends blow--and suck. As dangerous as the

Katus, by Dal! Alternately they crush me to the ground, then threaten to

tear me from it and hurl me away."

 

My nose was the cavern from which issued the horrifying wind. I noticed

that my breath distressed the little man as I leaned over to stare at

him, so drew back.

 

Upstairs, the visor buzzed. Before answering, so that I would not lose

the little man, I very gingerly pinched his shirt with the tongs, and

lifted him to the table.

 

"My breath! I am shot into the heavens like Milo and his rocket! I

traverse a frightful distance! Everything changes constantly. A million

miles below is chaos. This world is mad! A giant landscape passes

beneath me, so weird I cannot describe it. I--I cannot understand. Only

my heart trembles within me. Neither Science nor the gods can help or

comfort in this awful world of Greatness!

 

"We stop. I hang motionless in the air. The ground beneath is utterly

insane. But I see vast uncovered veins of rare metal--and crystal,

precious crystal, enough to cover the mightiest Temple we could build!

Oh, that Mortia were so blessed! In all this terrifying world, the

richness of the crystal and the marvelous metal do redeem.

 

"Men!----I see ... I believe it is a temple! It is incredibly tall, of

black foundation and red spire, but it is weathered, leaning as if to

fall--and very bare. The people cannot love their Gods as we--or else

there is the Hunger.... But the gods may enlighten this world, too, and

if lowered, I will make for it. A sacred Temple should be a

haven--friends! I descend."

 

_The little man's eye had caught my scissors and a glass ruler as I

suspended him above my desk. They were his exposed vein of metal and the

precious crystal. I was searching for something to secure him. In the

last second before I lowered him, his heart swelled at the sight of the

"Temple"--my red and black pen slanting upward from the desk holder._

 

_A stamp lying on my desk was an inspiration. I licked it, turned it gum

side up, and cautiously pressed the little man against it feet first.

With the thought, "That ought to hold him," I dashed upstairs to answer

the call._

 

_But it didn't hold him. There was quite a bit of strength in that tiny

body._

 

"Miserable fate! I flounder in a horrid marsh," the upset thought-waves

came to the men of Mortia. "The viscous mire seeks to entrap me, but I

think I can escape it. Then I will make for the Temple. The Gods may

recognize and protect me there."

 

*

 

I missed the call--I had delayed too long--but the momentary diversion

had cleared my mind and allowed new thoughts to enter. I now knew what

my first step would be in presenting the little man to the world.

 

I'd write a newspaper account myself--exclusive! Give the scoop to Earl.

Would that be a sensation for _his_ paper! Then I'd be made. A friend of

the family, this prominent publisher had often promised he would give me

a break when I was ready. Well, I _was_ ready!

 

Excited, dashing downstairs, I half-formulated the idea. The

headlines--the little man under a microscope--a world afire to see him.

Fame ... pictures ... speeches ... movies ... money.... But here I was

at my desk, and I grabbed for a piece of typing paper. They'd put that

in a museum, too!

 

The stamp and the little man lay just at the edge of the sheet, and he

clutched at a "great orange mountain" covered by a "vast slab of

curving, opaque glass" like the "Temples of Aerat." It was my thumb, but

I did not see him there.

 

I thrust the paper into the typewriter and twirled it through.

 

"I have fallen from the mountain, and hang perpendicularly, perilously,

on a limitless white plain. I tremble, on the verge of falling, but the

slime from the marsh holds me fast."

 

I struck the first key.

 

"A metal meteor is roaring down upon me. Or is it something I have never

before witnessed? It has a tail that streams off beyond sight. It comes

at terrific speed.

 

"I know. The Gods are angry with me for leaving Mortia land. Yes! 'Tis

only They who kill by iron. Their hands clutch the rod in mighty tower

Baviat, and thrust it here to stamp me out."

 

And a shaking little figure cried: "Baviat tertia!... Mortia mea...." as

the Gods struck wrathfully at a small one daring to explore their

domain. For little man Jeko had contrived to see Infinity--and Infinity

was only for the eyes of the Immortals, and those of the Experience who

dwelt there by the Gods' grace. He had intruded into the realm of the

rulers, the world of the After Life and the Gods Omnipotent!

 

A mortal--in the land of All!

 

In a world deep down in Smallness, in an electron of a cell of dead

wood, five scientists were grouped before the complicated instrument so

reminiscent of early radios. But now they all were standing. Strained,

perspiring, frightened, they trembled, aghast at the dimensions the

experiment had assumed; they were paralysed with terror and awe as they

heard of the wrath of the affronted Gods. And the spirit of science

froze within them, and would die in Mortia land. "Seek the skies only by

hallowed Death" was what they knew. And they destroyed the machine of

the man who had found Venquil land--and thought to live--and fled as

Jeko's last thoughts came through.

 

For many years five frightened little men of an electron world would

live in deadly fear for their lives, and for their souls after death;

and would pray, and become great disciples, spreading the gospels of the

Gods. True, Jeko had described a monstrous world; but how could a mere

mortal experience its true meaning? It was really ethereal and

beautiful, was Venquil land, and they would spend the rest of their days

insuring themselves for the day of the experience--when they would

assume their comforted place in the world of the After Life.

 

As I struck the first letter, a strange sensation swept over me.

Something compelled me to stop and look at the typing paper. I was using

a black ribbon, but when the key fell away, there was a tiny spot of

red....

 

 

THE RECORD

 

For twenty years--for twenty long, horror filled, war laden years the

Earth had not known peace.

 

Hovering over the metropolises of the world came long, lean battle

projectiles, glinting silver in the sunlight or coming like gaunt

mirages of grey out of the midnight sky to blast man's civilization from

its cultural foundations. Man against man, ship against ship--a

ceaseless and useless orgy of slaughter. Men, at their battle stations

in the ships, pressed buttons, releasing radio bombs that blistered

space and lifted whole cities up in shattered pieces and flung them

down, grim ruins, reminders of man's ignorant hatreds and suspicions.

 

And gas--thick black clouds of it--billowing over the cities, seeking

every possible egress, pushed forward by colossal Wind machines. But

even when Victory came for the one side, often Nature, in one of her

vengeful moments, would send the black gas flowing back to annihilate

its senders.

 

Rays cut the air! Power bombs exploded incessantly! Evaporays robbed the

Earth of its water--shot it up into the atmosphere and made of it a fog

that condensed only after many months. And heat rays made deserts out of

fertile terrain.

 

Rays that hypnotized caused even the strong minded to commit suicide or

reveal military secrets. Rays that effected the optical nerves swept

cities and left the population groping and blind, unable to find food.

 

It was a war that destroyed almost all of humanity. And why were they

fighting? _For pleasure and amusement!_

 

In the middle of the twenty-second century, every nation had a standard

defense. The weapons of war of each were equal--not in proportion to

size, but actually, since man-power no longer counted high. Pacifism had

done its best, but the World was armed to the hilt. And now--though

illogically--it felt safe--for every nation meant the same as if all had

nothing.

 

Another thing--there was no work to be done. Robots did it. And there

seemed nothing left to discover, invent or enjoy. Art was at its

perfection, poetry was mathematically correct and unutterably

beautiful--worked out by the Esthetic machines. Sculptoring had been

given the effect complete, artists hands guided by wonderful pieces of

machinery. Huge museums were crammed with art put out synthetically.

 

And thus it was with the many Arts and their creators who grew stagnent

in their perfection. And it was that way with the many sciences

also....

 

Paleontologists had found, and articulated, and catalogued every fossil.

The ancestor of the Eohippus, the little four-toed Dawn Horse, was

discovered; the direct line between man and ape established in skeletal

remains; the seat of _life_ itself definitely proved Holarctica. And

great bio-chemists, skilled in the science of vital processes, had

created synthetic tissues and muscles and flesh, built upon the frames

that had been recovered bodies with skillful modeling ... even supplied

them with blood and given them the spark of LIFE ... so that

Paleobotonists recreated the flora of a prehistoric era. Again the

ponderous amphibious brontosaur pushed through marshes. Fish emerged

upon the land, and the first bird archaeopteryx tried his imperfect

wings for flight. In the regulated climates of long dead ages, fish,

amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals lived again for the edification

of those interested in the very ancient--or who were amused with queer

animals.

 

But that was only paleontologically speaking. There were the heavens to

be considered. They had been: the stars and planets weighed and

measured, their composition noted, courses plotted with super-accuracy.

Every feature had been mapped--every climactic condition recorded. Life

had been named and numbered ... then photographed. And these were but

first considerations. Actually, what wasn't known about the Solar System

had not occurred as yet. But that would probably be remedied by a

machine to view the future.

 

There was physics, biology, anthropology, zoology, geology,

bacteriology, botany--and 'ologies' and 'otonies' and 'onomies' such as

ran into figures which only machines could calculate.

 

A book could indeed have been written of the accomplishments of super

race. But this is of the WAR itself, and how it came about, and how

it all ended.

 

Stated simply, in 2150 the point of DIMINISHING UTILITY had been

reached. To the hungry man, the first course of dinner is wonderfully

delicious, the second good, the third satisfying. Through the ages

people have hungered after luxury and leisure--but when he finds his

food, a lot of it, MAN finds suddenly that it no longer appeals to him.

In fact, too much is bound to make him sick and often disagreeable. He

looks around for something else. So did the people of the 22nd Century.

They had all of the pleasurable amusements they wanted, but it was all

so intellectual. Everything was culture. They had surfeited with it. And

suddenly they wanted to forget it. All play and no work made MAN a

discontented citizen. A reaction set in. Man was not completely

civilized as yet----THE WAR!

 

Twenty-one years the war raged. And scarcely a million survived. Bit by

bit this million was whittled down by the weapons of destruction to

ragged handfuls of things that once had been cultured. Finally only one

hundred humans remained alive--and they kept fighting blindly, none of

them realizing how close to oblivion they were crowding themselves and

the future of humanity--and they went on killing, killing, killing!

 

It is doubtless but what the entire human race would have vanished,

leaving the world to the more competent, though half-ignorant, hands of

the beasts, who fought and killed one another for self-preservation and

for food--not because of madness ... and who did not have books and talk

and have _culture_. The human race would have gone, had it not been for

the record.

 

The fighters of WAR'S END, leaving their machines and countries to

congregate for personal combat, were engaging in hand-to-hand attacks in

the ruins of what once had been a tall and powerful city in the

Twentieth Century, but now lay crumbling, its proud buildings falling to

the ground, sticking out iron-rusted skeletons to the sky--and the city

was LOS ANGELES!

 

HEDRIK HUNSON was fighting with phosphorized fists--hand inclosed in

chemically treated gloves that burned as they struck the antagonist,

insulated on the interior for the wearer--when suddenly the two of them

were caught by a spreader. The other man died instantly, but Hedrik got

it in the side and was whirled about sickeningly, and survived.

 

He was lying painfully on something when he came to, but felt too dizzy

and sick to move. At last, when his head had cleared a bit, he rolled

over into a sitting position and reached out his arms to grasp--a

phonograph!

 

Big things came in small packages in the days of 2171, and a portable

phonograph might well be taken for a weapon of some sort--which was

exactly what Hedrik thought! And you can hardly blame him, because no

one in that generation had ever seen one of the things.

 

There was a curious story connected with the dying of music, concerning

the days of 2050 when there was a movement to stamp out all symphonies

and songs and things even slightly sentimental.

 

--but back to Hedrik!

 

Hedrik found the crank that wound the portable, turned it, reasoning

that perhaps it gave power--and then--holding it away from him--he

waited for rays to spurt out or something to explode. Nothing happened!

Hedrik was disappointed. After an agony of perspiration and puzzlement

he finally accidentally placed the needled arm onto the disk. The disk,

he noticed, was black and filled with little undulations. The disk was

like a wheel--so Hedrik thought--it should revolve like one, shouldn't

it? He pushed the starter thoughtfully and was more than surprised when

the disk started spinning.

 

From the phonograph came music--music and singing! The lost Art had

returned! The Art banished under compulsion had made a comeback.

 

Some man was singing on the record--in a queerly interesting and

familiar tongue, the ancient English. The singer seemed sad, almost

crying. And Hedrik was thrilled as he played it over and over again,

drinking in the new experience like wine on the lips of a connoisseur.

The voice rose, fell, lingered. And Hedrik suddenly didn't feel like

fighting anymore!

 

The music floated out over the tumbled ruins, descended to the ears of

the other people. AND THE FIGHTING CEASED! They were transformed. They

came running to crowd about the machine.

 

And there in that aged music shop they stood enthralled--music filled

their souls. It was exactly what they had needed and wanted for many

years. And it had been denied them. Music was the balancing force ...

the force that would help them struggle ahead rebuilding the world. And

next time they would be saner ... they knew ... the lesson of luxury had

been learned and learned well. Never again would they leave all of the

work to the machines. Now they would work and sing and play.

 

It would be work ... hard work ... for some time to come. But they had

found music again, and that would anchor them to sanity.

 

And thus was mankind saved through a record...SONNY BOY!