tense reddish beam, and out of the
beam....

It was a minute before he understood, and then comprehension came to
him. Those dark spots shooting from the cabinet, no larger than peas,
were the mysterious drifting globes whose scattered seed was fast
covering miles of Arizonian soil with impenetrable jungle. From a
universe in a piece of matter no larger than a pin-head, from a
sub-atomic world, the weapons of an alien intelligence were ruthlessly
being hurled against man, to conquer, to destroy him.

And now it was made plain to him why the drifting globes had seemed to
materialize out of thin air. Being infinitesimally small parts of an
atom, these globes were released from the cabinet and soon assumed the
size of peas; they were guided across the crypt, up the old Wiley
shaft, and high in the air, somewhere in space, enlarged to immense
proportions. How? Talbot could not guess. By some manipulation of
science and machinery beyond that of earth.

Engrossed, he moved an inch forward, craned his head, and in that
moment it happened. Beneath his weight a section of earth and rock
crumbled, cracked, slid forward, and he plunged headlong to the floor
below, striking his skull with stunning force!

He came to himself, staring up into the dour-looking face of a tall
man. He recollected pitching forward among the birds and the machines.
But the birds and the machines had disappeared and he was lying in an
odd room without windows but lit with a soft radiance. Bewildered, he
sat up.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The man's beard looked straggly, untrimmed.

"My name," he said, "is Reubens--Professor Reubens."

Professor Reubens! Talbot gasped. "Not the scientist who disappeared?"

"Yes--as you've disappeared."

"What!"

"Through the machine."

It was a moment before Talbot understood. "You mean...."

"That you are a prisoner in a sub-atomic world."

Talbot now realized with startling clearness what had happened to him.
When he had fallen into the crypt the weird birds had directly placed
him in the cabinet and transported him to their own world. In other
words, he and Reubens and everything he saw about him were infinitely
small creatures in an atom-world. He and the Professor were trapped!
And when Manuel blew up the only means of return....

"How long have I been here?" Talbot asked hoarsely.

"Five minutes at the most."

Then, at the shortest, the way to earth would exist twenty minutes
longer. Twenty