Jim just stared, goggle-eyed, at the miniature woman between the rocks. It was as if he had been paralyzed. She clutched at her arm, looking up at him in obvious pain, but he was oblivious to her predicament. He was too stunned by what he was seeing to do anything at all.
It never even crossed his mind that this was some sort of doll or toy. It seemed immediately obvious to him that this was a real, two-inch-high woman. She was breathing and bleeding, and making some kind of barely audible squeak from her mouth, as if calling out to him. He couldn't move.
He watched with his mouth dangling open while she finally gave up on getting any help. She turned away from him, hefted her little pack, and walked calmly over to the stream, glancing back at Jim occasionally. It seemed as if she looked away from his face with only the greatest of difficulty, as if afraid he might do something to her while her back was turned.
She washed the wound out with a splash of water, grimacing in pain as she did so, while all he could do was stare in wonder at her graceful movements. She then took out a strip of woven cloth from the pack at her feet and started to wrap it around the gashes on her unbelievably tiny arm.
After about a minute, she seemed satisfied that she'd applied the field dressing properly, and turned back to look up at him. Her mouth opened and she made another high-pitched squeaking sound, but he couldn't make any sense of it.
Finally, he snapped out of his daze. All at once he understood why they hadn't been able to see any humans from orbit. They were here--they were just incredibly small! Somehow, the population of Earth had been reduced to--to what? One-thirtieth normal size, or more? And it wasn't just the people, either, Jim realized. The bear had also been miniaturized, like she was. Yet there were still birds, and fish, and insects too, all of them still the old, familiar proportions. Had whatever happened affected only the mammals? And was it still around--was he going to shrink, too? Well, if he was, there was nothing he could do about it now, so there was no sense worrying about it.
The tiny woman was still staring up at him, only now she had her hands on her hips, a plainly impatient look. He finally recovered his composure and got down on his belly in front of her. She was so small! It was like she wasn't even real. He couldn't be hallucinating, could he? No--the slight pain in his thumb reminded him that this was no dream.
"Hello," he finally said. "Can you understand me?"
She seemed to shy away, and put her hands to her ears. Her mouth opened and she squeaked again, but it was almost inaudible.
"Sorry," he went on, whispering now. "If you can understand me, nod your head."
She did, smiling at him, and he grinned back. "Good--you speak English! It's been so long--I was afraid it might have changed."
She shouted something at him, but he didn't understand. It was like trying to listen to an insect's buzz. She pointed at him, then at herself, and flashed a quizzical look his way.
"No, sorry," he told her. "I can't understand you at all. I can't hear your voice. It's too small."
Her shoulders sagged. She glanced around, as if looking for something, and then finally spotted a chunk of driftwood on the ground near the stream. She went over to look at it more closely, then discarded it and continued searching.
Jim watched in amusement as the diminutive woman hunted around among the rocks. What she was looking for, he had no idea. She was amazing, though. She was dressed in what looked like cured animal hides, with leather wraps around her feet tied up by the knees, and a little stick with a chunk of metal on the end. Suddenly he had a mental image of that Raquel Welch poster for "One Million Years BC," where she was dressed as a cave woman. Only this time she was two inches high, with short brown hair and a much darker tan. Just as attractive, though, he noticed appreciatively. Her little body was quite slender and athletic-looking, with long, lean legs obviously hardened from plenty of running. She'd have to run a lot, he thought, to get around in the world at that size.
Finally, she found what she was looking for, a pair of similar-looking curved chunks of wood. She brought these back to where Jim waited, removed a knife from her belt, and started carving. Resourceful little thing, he noted as he watched, realizing she was using a blade made of a sharpened sliver of metal. Where had she gotten that? Had she scavenged it? Or was it still possible to smelt iron at 1/30th normal size?
He shook his head. The sheer impossibility of what he was seeing boggled his mind. Man would have had a lot of adapting to do to survive in a world suddenly very much larger than before. He tried to imagine what that would've been like, and how many people must have perished as a result. Whatever had happened must have come on suddenly. There hadn't been any attempt to send a message to the ship, and there was no sign that any technology had been preserved. What had gone wrong? Had the people of the world just gone to bed one night and awakened the next morning two inches tall? Had there been a disaster or explosion of some kind? Was this an experiment gone awry? He had no way of knowing--and if it had happened as long ago as he thought, she probably wouldn't know, either.
Finally the tiny woman finished her work and held it up. The two pieces of wood now, together, formed a kind of cone. She put this to her lips, so her mouth was in the open end, and shouted something up at him. Her voice sounded deeper and more understandable now, but it was still all but inaudible.
"Sorry," he replied, putting his ear down closer. "I couldn't hear."
"Hellah!" she called again. "Canya unnahstand me nohw?"
"Yes!" Jim said excitedly. "I can understand! Well, sort of, anyway. Who are you? I mean, what's your name?"
"Lyza ohv thah Streamahs," she yelled at him. "Yall shore da tahk funnah! Whutz yoah nahm, giahnt?"
"I'm Jim, Jim Fitzpatrick," he answered after a moment. Her accent was horribly thick, but it was still, at its roots, English. It sounded like the worst Southern twang he could've ever imagined, taken to the next level and beyond. Well, they had landed in was what was left of Texas, he thought, so it made a certain amount of sense. After 900 years, he was lucky he could understand her at all.
"Nahs tah meetyah, Jahm," she hollered. "Wheah yall from, an wah yall heah? Ah thought ahl thah giahnts wuz goahn frohm thah woahld."
"Well, we were, I guess," replied Jim, after pausing for a moment to translate her drawl in his head. "I'm an astronaut, see, and we were on a mission to Alpha Centauri--" He stopped as he saw her completely blank expression. "You don't know what that is, do you? All right, let me put it to you this way. We were up exploring the stars."
"Ah donna," she replied, shaking her head. "Hoah ya geht up theah? Soh fah awahy."
"In my ship," he replied, grinning. "Hey, do you want to see it? I'll be happy to take you there, and I'd like you to meet the rest of my crew. I'm sure they'd love to see the answer to the mystery."
"Ah'd be sahf?" she asked with what appeared to be a concerned expression. "Yall noht gohnna huaht me, ah?"
"No, no, we won't hurt you, I promise," said Jim honestly, still trying half the time to figure out just what it was she was trying to say. "We're humans, just like you. We're just--well, we're from before everyone got small, I guess. When we left, all humans were as big as we were. Something must have happened while we were gone--I admit I don't understand it, but we'll figure it out. Maybe there's a way to make you all big again."
"Ah don unnahstand, buht ahl cohm witcha. Hoah ya gohnna tahk me?"
"Hang on a minute and I'll carry you," replied Jim. He got up and went back to where he'd left his boots and socks. He put these on quickly while she watched patiently. Then he went over to where she was standing and put down his hand next to her.
She looked at the gigantic fingers doubtfully, but after a moment shrugged and climbed in, dropping her spear, pack, and the improvised loudspeaker in the middle of his palm. Then she sat down and settled back to enjoy the ride.
He stared at her for a moment, marveling not only at her small size but her fearlessness. If that had been him, he thought, he'd have been terrified. Could he even have forced himself to climb into a two-hundred-foot-tall man's hand? She just looked up at him curiously, though, as if waiting for him to get started. After a moment, he tore his eyes away and started back towards the ship.