And as he ran the floor became rougher and rougher. Soon he was forced to stop, falling over boulders and rocks. Hadn’t they smoothed the pipe down? What had gone wrong with the sanding, the steel wool —
“Of course,” he murmured. “Even the surface of a razor blade. . . if one is small. . . .”
He walked ahead, feeling his way along. There was a dim light over everything, rising up from the great stones around him, even from his own body. What was it? He looked at his hands. They glittered in the darkness.
“Heat,” he said. “Of course. Thanks, Hardy.” In the half light he leaped from stone to stone. He was running across an endless plain of rocks and boulders, jumping like a goat, from crag to crag. “Or like a frog,” he said. He jumped on, stopping once in a while for breath. How long would it be? He looked at the size of the great blocks of ore piled up around him. Suddenly a terror rushed through him.
“Maybe I shouldn’t figure it out,” he said. He climbed up the side of one towering cliff and leaped across to the other side. The next gulf was even wider. He barely made it, gasping and struggling to catch hold.
He jumped endlessly, again and again. He forgot how many times.
He stood on the edge of a rock and leaped.
Then he was falling, down, down, into the cleft, into the dim light. There was no bottom. On and on he fell.
Professor Grote closed his eyes. Peace came over him, his tired body relaxed.
“No more jumping,” he said, drifting down, down. “A certain law regarding falling bodies. . . the smaller the body the less the effect of gravity. No wonder bugs fall so lightly. . . certain characteristics. . . .”
He closed his eyes and allowed the darkness to take him over, at last.
“And so,” Professor Hardy said, “we can expect to find that this experiment will go down in science as –”
He stopped, frowning. The class was staring towards the door. Some of the students were smiling, and one began to laugh. Hardy turned to see what it; was.
“Shades of Charles Fort,” he said.
A frog came hopping into the room.
Pitner stood up. “Professor,” he said excitedly. “This confirms a theory I’ve worked out. The frog became so reduced in size that he passed through the spaces –”
“What?” Hardy said. “This is another frog.”
“–through the spaces between the molecules which form the floor of the Frog Chamber. The frog would then drift slowly to the floor, since he would be proportionally less affected by the law of acceleration. And leaving the force field, he would regain his original size.”
Pitner beamed down at the frog as the frog slowly made his way across the room.
“Really,” Professor Hardy began. He sat down at his desk weakly. At that moment the bell rang, and the students began to gather their books and papers together. Presently Hardy found himself alone, staring down at the frog. He shook his head. “It can’t be,” he murmured. “The world is full of frogs. It can’t be the same frog.”
A student came up to the desk. “Professor Hardy –”
Hardy looked up.
“Yes? What is it?”
“There’s a man outside in the hall wants to see you. He’s upset. He has a blanket on.”
All right,” Hardy said. He sighed and got to his feet. At the door he paused, taking a deep breath. Then he set his jaw and went out into the hall.
Grote was standing there, wrapped in a red-wool blanket, his face flushed with excitement. Hardy glanced at him apologetically.
“We still don’t know!” Grote cried.
“What?” Hardy murmured. “Say, er, Grote –”
“We still don’t know whether the frog would have reached the end of the tube. He and I fell out between the molecules. We’ll have to find some other way to test the paradox. The Chamber’s no good.”
“Yes, true,” Hardy said. “Say, Grote –”
“Let’s discuss it later,” Grote said. “I have to get to my classes. I’ll look you up this evening.”
And he hurried off down the hall clutching his blanket.
The Crystal Crypt
“Attention Inner-Flight ship! Attention! You are ordered to land at the Control Station on Deimos for inspection. Attention! You are to land at once!”
The metallic rasp of the speaker echoed through the corridors of the great ship. The passengers glanced at each other uneasily, murmuring and peering out the port windows at the small speck below, the dot of rock that was the Martian checkpoint, Deimos.
“What’s up?” an anxious passenger asked one of the pilots, hurrying through the ship to check the escape lock.
“We have to land. Keep seated.” The pilot went on.
“Land? But why?” They all looked at each other. Hovering above the bulging Inner-Flight ship were three slender Martian pursuit craft, poised and alert for any emergency. As the Inner-Flight ship prepared to land the pursuit ships dropped lower, carefully maintaining themselves a short distance away.
“There’s something going on,” a woman passenger said nervously. “Lord, I thought we were finally through with those Martians. Now what?”
“I don’t blame them for giving us one last going over,” a heavy set business man said to his companion. “After all, we’re the last ship leaving Mars for Terra. We’re damn lucky they let us go at all.”
“You think there really will be war?” a young man said to the girl sitting in the seat next to him. “Those Martians won’t dare fight, not with our weapons and ability to produce. We could take care of Mars in a month. It’s all talk.”
The girl glanced at him. “Don’t be so sure. Mars is desperate. They’ll fight tooth and nail. I’ve been on Mars three years.” She shuddered. “Thank goodness I’m getting away. If –”
“Prepare to land!” the pilot’s voice came. The ship began to settle slowly, dropping down toward the tiny emergency field on the seldom visited moon. Down, down the ship dropped. There was a grinding sound, a sickening jolt. Then silence.
“We’ve landed,” the heavy set business man said. “They better not do anything to us! Terra will rip them apart if they violate one Space Article.”
“Please keep your seats,” the pilot’s voice came. “No one is to leave the ship, according to the Martian authorities. We are to remain here.”
A restless stir filled the ship. Some of the passengers began to read uneasily, others stared out at the deserted field, nervous and on edge, watching the three Martian pursuit ships land and disgorge groups of armed men.
The Martian soldiers were crossing the field quickly, moving toward them, running double time.
This Inner-Flight spaceship was the last passenger vessel to leave Mars for Terra. All other ships had long since left, returning to safety before the outbreak of hostilities. The passengers were the very last to go, the final group of Terrans to leave the grim red planet, business men, expatriates, tourists, any and all Terrans who had not already gone home.
“What do you suppose they want?” the young man said to the girl. “It’s hard to figure Martians out, isn’t it? First they give the ship clearance, let us take off, and now they radio us to set down again. By the way, my name’s Thacher, Bob Thacher. Since we’re going to be here awhile –”
The port lock opened. Talking ceased abruptly, as everyone turned. A black-clad Martian official, a Province Leiter, stood framed against the bleak sunlight, staring around the ship. Behind him a handful of Martian soldiers stood waiting, their guns ready.
“This will not take long,” the Leiter said, stepping into the ship, the soldiers following him. “You will be allowed to continue your trip shortly.”
An audible sigh of relief went through the passengers.
“Look at him,” the girl whispered to Thacher. “How I hate those black uniforms!”
“He’s just a Provincial Leiter,” Thacher said. “Don’t worry.”
The Leiter stood for a moment, his hands on his hips, looking around at them without expression. “I have ordered your ship grounded so that an inspection can be made of all persons aboard,” he said. “You Terrans are the last to leave our planet. Most of you are ordinary and harmless — I am not interested in you. I am interested in finding three saboteurs, three Terrans, two men and a woman, who have committed an incredible act of destruction and violence. They are said to have fled to this ship.”
Murmurs of surprise and indignation broke out on all sides. The Leiter motioned the soldiers to follow him up the aisle.
“Two hours ago a Martian city was destroyed. Nothing remains, only a depression in the sand where the city was. The city and all its people have completely vanished. An entire city destroyed in a second! Mars will never rest until the saboteurs are captured. And we know they are aboard this ship.”