Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

When I had everything packed in, I started to work.

A few days enabled me to rig an undershot waterwheel in the stream and get enough power to turn an electric generator and thereafter I had the strength of twenty men at my call. I built a small wooden building for a laboratory with a room in it for my cooking and sleeping.

I was fortunate enough not to meet with a single major setback in my work, and in about fourteen months I had my first piece of apparatus completed. I don’t intend to tell how I did it, for I do not believe that the world is ready for it yet, but I will give some idea of how it looked and how it was operated. The adjuster has a circular base of silvery metal (it is a palladium alloy) from which rise six supports which hold up the top. The top, which is made of the same alloy as the base, is parabolic in shape and concave downward. In the parabola is set an induction coil with a sparkgap surmounting it, so set that the gap is at the focus of the reflector, which is what the top really is. The coil and gap are connected with other coils and condensers which are actuated by large storage batteries set around the edge of the base. To each of the six uprights is fastened a small parabolic reflector with a small coil and gap at the focus. These small reflectors are so arranged that they bathe the top with the generated ray while the large gap in the top bathes the rest of the apparatus.

When the gaps and coils are actuated by the current, they throw out a ray of such a wavelength that it has the same period as the electronic and atomic vibrations but is half a wavelength out of phase. The ray is effective only when it can flow freely, and the base and top serve not only as conductors, but also as insulators, for they absorb and transform the vibrations falling on them so that nothing outside of the apparatus itself and anything lying between the base and the top is affected.

When I had it completed, I naturally tested it. The whole thing was controlled by a master switch and I reached in with a small steel rod and closed the switch. Immediately the whole apparatus began to shrink. I gave a loud cheer and patted myself on the back. I got down on my knees and watched it as it rapidly diminished in size until I suddenly realized that it would soon get too small to see unless I opened my switch. I tried to reach the switch with my rod but I had waited too long. The rod would not go through the interval between the side columns. I had the mortification of seeing a year’s work grow smaller and smaller until it finally vanished.

The loss of my adjuster was a blow, but at least I had proved my theory and as soon as I had rested for a few days I started in to build a duplicate. The way had already been blazed and it took me less than a year to complete my second piece of apparatus. When I tested this one I stopped the shrinking process when the adjuster was about half its original size and reversed the polarity of my coils. To my delight the adjuster began to expand until it had resumed its original proportions. Then I shut it off and began to experiment to find out its limitations.

When I had determined to my satisfaction that inanimate objects placed on the base would be expanded or contracted, I tried it on living organisms. A jack rabbit was my first subject and I found that I could increase this rabbit to the size of a Shetland pony or reduce it to the size of a mouse without visible ill effects. When I had completed this experiment, I tried the adjuster on myself.

My first experiment was to increase my size. I stepped on the base plate and turned on the current, but I could feel no effects. I looked at the landscape and found to my amazement that something had gone wrong. I was remaining the same size but the house and the surrounding country had come under the influence of my device and was shrinking rapidly. In alarm I shut off my current and got out. The house had shrunk to one-half its normal size and I could not get in the door, even on hands and knees. An idea struck me and I reached in and hauled out a pair of scales and weighed myself. I weighed a trifle over twelve hundred pounds. I suddenly realized that I had succeeded beyond my wildest dreams and I reentered the adjuster and shrunk myself down to four inches tall, again with no ill effects and merely the impression that the house and landscape were growing. I returned myself to my normal size and while I was weak from excitement, otherwise I felt perfectly normal.

My first thought was to return and confound the men who had scoffed at me but the more I considered the matter, the more I realized the importance of my invention and the need of caution in introducing it. I felt that I needed a rest anyway, so I remained in my valley to perfect my plans before announcing my discovery.

Time soon lagged on my hands. I have always been fond of big game hunting and I had an excellent rifle and plenty of ammunition, but game does not abound in the Timpahutes. There were quite a few ants in the valley and it struck me that, were I to reduce myself and my rifle to the proper dimensions, I would have some good sport. The novelty of the idea fascinated me as much as the thought of the hunting and I promptly belted on a pistol and a full belt of ammunition and entered the adjuster.

I closed the switch and the house and landscape began to grow to Brobdingnagian proportions, but I kept my power on until the grains of sand began to look like huge boulders and then I tried to open the switch. It was stuck. Thoroughly alarmed, I tried to wrench it open and as a result broke the handle—the device kept on functioning and I grew smaller and smaller. The grains of sand grew to be huge mountains and presently I felt myself falling. I realized that my adjuster had been balanced on a grain of sand and that it had slipped and was falling into the chasm between two grains. Soon it became wedged in a gloomy chasm, but it was still functioning and presently I was falling again.

A glance at the dial of my relative size indicator showed me that the needle had almost reached the point which I had indicated as infinity. Desperately I battered at the switch with my rifle butt, but it was solidly made. At last I broke it loose and the whine of my coil became audible and ran down the scale until it was silent. I had stopped shrinking but I was already far smaller than any microscope could detect and an examination of the switch soon convinced me that it was completely wrecked and that it would take me hours to repair it.

When I had finished my examination, I looked around for the first time. I could hardly believe my eyes. My adjuster was standing in a beautiful sunlit glade, which was carpeted with grass and dotted with varicolored flowers. Now I will have to explain one thing. As I said, I felt no change when my size was increased and reduced; it only seemed that the familiar landscape was undergoing a change. As a result, I could never realize while I was in Ulm, that everything was really submicroscopic, but persisted in referring everything to my normal six feet of height. In actual fact, the glade in which the adjuster stood was only a minute fraction of an inch across, but to me it looked like about half a mile and it took me ten minutes to walk it. Even now I have no idea of how small I actually was, so I will not try to describe the absolute size of everything, but will speak of things as they appeared to me; in other words, their relative size to me.

I looked over that landscape and rubbed my eyes, trying to convince myself that I was dreaming, but the scene didn’t change and I realized that I had stumbled on something heretofore unsuspected—namely that our world is a very complex affair and supports many kinds of life unknown to us. Everything within the range of my vision looked normal, grass, trees and even mosquitos were buzzing around and one lit on my wrist and bit me. Imagine, if you can, what the actual measurements of that mosquito must have been!