Martin found his voice first. "A human being," he said slowly, "as big as the Woolworth Building!"

Chamberlin, apparently still involved in his last abortive try at reason said, "But it's impossible. The laws of mechanics--why the biggest dinosaurs were only eighty feet long, and they had to be supported by water. It's a mechanical device, I tell you."

"It could have been an illusion," I ventured. "Perhaps an image projected on a fog bank, or something similar--" Neither Walt nor I were very convincing--not with the memory of that face fresh in our minds. We all fell silent again.

Several minutes pa.s.sed, when abruptly we became conscious of a movement of the floor, slight but repeated with regularity. A shake, a pause of six or eight seconds, then another shake. Baker stood on the bench and put his ear to the ventilator. He heard nothing. The movement came again. Shake, pause, shake, pause, like some distant and monstrous machine. I was reminded of the small earthquakes felt in the vicinity of a heavy drop hammer. Shake, pause, shake, pause, and then a heavier jolt accompanied by a distinct thud. After that, quiet.

"Obviously," Baker said, "they knew all about us." He was evidently thinking out loud. "Probably picked us up on the beach, and then just let us go on, clearing out the guards ahead, and keeping near enough to see that we didn't use the radio. Why? Maybe to find out how much we knew about the place already. I daresay they know one thing now: we never expected to find--what we did. Which brings us to our Buddha. The big question is, is it mechanical or--alive?" He paused. "I don't know--none of us can know yet--but, I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Cady, what's your opinion?"

I had forgotten for the moment that I was a zoologist. To tell the truth, the whole thing had been a little outside of the type of specimen I was familiar with.

"Its movements were lifelike," I replied. "They suggest muscular action rather than mechanical drive. But, as Walt says, it's just not possible.

Nature has placed a limit on the size of living creatures. The strength of bones, the energy requirements, the osmotic pressures needed to move fluids through tissue. Besides, where could it come from? There have been giants--eight, ten, maybe up to twelve feet--but this thing is of a different order of magnitude. It must weigh millions of pounds. As a zoologist, I can't believe that it's alive."

Martin and Chamberlin had a few more remarks of the same nature, and then the conversation died away. We waited. Eventually they would come--the yellow-robed ones. When they did, we might learn more. I had little doubt as to our ultimate fate, but in the dulled condition of my senses, I didn't seem particularly to care.

My watch had been smashed in the struggle, so that I had no idea of how long they kept us in the cell. It could not have been too many hours, for the elementary needs of nature had only begun to a.s.sert themselves when the sound of a key came from the door. We all stood up. It was our conductor of last night, the one who spoke pidgin English.

"Good morning, gentlemens," he said with a bow. "You spend nice night, yes? Get plenty sleep?"

We did not reply. Still smiling politely, he beckoned. "Now please to come with me. Head Lama talk to you now."

Once more we traversed the interminable concrete corridors of that subterranean city, but this time we came out into a hall illuminated by natural daylight. The walls here were neatly plastered, and the doors more ornamental.

"Getting near the high bra.s.s," murmured Chamberlin.

The last hall was terminated by a window and balcony, beyond which the green of a distant hillside could be seen. Before we reached this, however, our guide stopped at a heavy aluminum door and directed us into a sort of ante-room, occupied by uniformed guards and a male receptionist. A few words were exchanged in j.a.panese, and the guards quickly and expertly frisked us, although this had already been done once. This ceremony over, another door was opened and we were admitted to a large and sunny office, whose big windows gave a panoramic view of the whole crater.

Our eyes were so dazzled by the sudden burst of light, and our curiosity was so great to see that fantastic place by daylight, that we did not at once see the man who sat behind a desk opposite the windows, watching us with an expression of high amus.e.m.e.nt. Baker first noticed him.

"Phobat Rau! So you're back of this, after all!"

The other stood up. He was a short man, evidently Burmese, and wore a tan military uniform. His smile revealed a bonanza of gold teeth, while his thick lensed spectacles glittered in the brilliant sunshine streaming in through the windows.

"It is a great pleasure to have you here, Professor Baker, although there is in the circ.u.mstances some cause for regret. But all that in its time. What do you think of our Buddha?"

As he spoke, Baker was glancing about the room, and I saw that his eye had alighted upon an instrument just behind Rau's desk. A second look showed it to be a tape recorder, with the operating lamp on.

"Until we have more data," replied Baker, "our views are still as you have them recorded."

Phobat Rau laughed delightedly. "You're a good observer, Professor. Yes, I must confess I was curious about your reactions to our charge. So you doubt that he is alive?"

Baker nodded. "Under the circ.u.mstances last night, there was every chance for a mistake, or a hoax."

"In that case, perhaps you would like a second look. He's right across the valley now, having his breakfast."

We hastened to the window. Rau's office, we found, was in a sort of cliff house perched half way up the northern side of the crater, and commanded a view of the entire area, now brightly illuminated by the morning sunlight. We easily identified the enormous furniture of last night, against the west cliff about a mile away. But we had little interest in these structures, monstrous as they were. For, sitting cross-legged on the ground before the low table, was the giant. At that distance he did not look so huge--in fact, with an effort we could almost ignore scale and perspective and imagine that he was a normal human fifty feet distant. He appeared a typical young j.a.panese, his hair cut long in the old style, and wearing a sleeveless tunic like the statues of Buddha. His face was smooth and serene, and he was eating a white pasty looking substance from his great steel dish, using a big spoon. Even as we watched, he finished the meal and stood up, causing the whole building to sway slightly. He glanced about for a moment, his eye lingering briefly in our direction, and then he walked in a leisurely way to the lagoon, where he bent over and rinsed out his utensils. Returning to the table, he placed them carefully in the position we had noted last night. He then straightened to his full height, raised his great arms far up into the morning air and began a series of earth shaking calisthenics. After about ten minutes of this he walked over to the leanto structure, entered and closed a curtain behind him.

Rau, who had been watching us with great amus.e.m.e.nt, offered an explanation.

"His reading room. Books on his scale would be a bit difficult to make, so he uses microfilm and a projector. The microfilm," he added, "is on eight by ten plates, and the screen is two hundred feet square."

We returned to the desk and took the seats Rau indicated.

"So now," said our host, "you would like to hear a word of explanation, perhaps?"

"Several, if you can spare the time," answered Baker with a dryness equal to Rau's.

"It all began," began Phobat Rau, "on a beautiful summer's day in 1945, August 6, I believe, was the exact date. Perhaps you recall what happened on that day, in the city of Hiroshima. If not, I will refresh your memories. A bomb was dropped on that day, a new type of bomb. It caused a great deal of destruction, and killed tens of thousands of people. Some died at once from the blast and heat, but many more, who had escaped apparently uninjured, developed serious illness days later and died. The cause you know, of course. It was called radiation injury, the internal destruction of cell structure by gamma rays emitted by the bomb.

"Many strange things happened in that blast. In some, injury was confined to particular parts of the body, as the hair. Others were made sterile, in fact, the reproductive function and apparatus seemed particularly susceptible to the rays. In many cases, the genes--those vital units within the cell which determine growth and structure and all physical and mental characteristics--the genes were altered, so that children grew abnormally, with deformities or mental sickness.

"But these things you well know. Afterwards biologists and physicians and geneticists came from all parts of the world to study the effects of the atomic bomb, and the flow of learned papers on this subject is not ended even now."

The speaker paused, as if inviting some comment or question. Seeing that we intended to remain silent, he resumed.

"There was one case, however, which was not studied by western scientists. In many respects, it was the most interesting of all, for the bomb blast and the accompanying deluge of gamma radiation occurred just at the instant of conception. As usual, damage was sustained by the genes, but this damage was of a peculiar and highly special sort. The only gene affected, apparently, was the one controlling growth, although, as you will see presently, other structural and chemical changes took place without which the growth could never have occurred.

"The infant involved was a male, named Kazu Takahashi. He was born prematurely on March 26, 1946, with a weight of fourteen pounds six ounces. The parents were well to do, and the infant was given the best of care, first in a private hospital, and later in its own home.

"During the first few days of life, little Kazu was apparently normal, except for his prematureness and a rather great weight for a seven-month infant. And then the change began. His nurse first noticed an increasing appet.i.te. He cried constantly and would be silent only when feeding. He emptied nursing bottles in a few seconds, after he learned to pull off the nipple, and was soon consuming a quart of milk every hour. The nurse humored him, in order to keep him quiet, and presently became afraid to tell either the parents or the doctor just how much milk her charge was drinking. As the days pa.s.sed and no ill effects developed, she became less worried, although the daily milk ration had to be increased twice, to 23 quarts a day on the sixth day.

"Kazu doubled his weight in the first eleven days, and at the end of two weeks tipped the scales at 39 pounds. His pink tender skin was now rapidly becoming normal in color and texture, and he was behaving more and more like an ordinary child, although already of startling size. By the fourth week he was drinking 59 quarts of milk a day and weighed 145 pounds. The parents--by now thoroughly alarmed--called in the doctor, who at once realized the cause of the abnormality. He could offer no suggestions, however, save to continue feeding at a rate to keep the child quiet. This, by the sixth week, soared to the incredible figure of 130 quarts a day to feed a baby now five feet tall and weighing 290 pounds. At this point the Takahashi family felt that their problem was getting beyond them, and being Buddhists, they appealed to the local temple--it was not in Hiroshima, but at a nearby town--for a.s.sistance.

The priests took the child in, after a generous contribution had been made by father Takahashi, and for a time the embarra.s.sing matter seemed solved. The Takahashis went on a three weeks vacation to the south coast of Honshu, and all was peaceful, externally at least.

"When the family returned, they found a note under the door urgently requesting their presence at the temple. When they arrived, they were met by a highly agitated chief priest. Something had to be done, he said. Things were getting out of hand. He then took them to the nursery.

Here they beheld a baby that would have been seven feet eight inches tall if it could stand, and which had weighed in that morning on the platform scales in the temple kitchen, at 670 pounds. After hearing the details of the milk bill, father Takahashi wrote out another check and departed hurriedly.

"After the pa.s.sage of three more weeks, a delegation from the temple again waited upon Mr. Takahashi, with the news that his son now measured 9 feet 3 inches in length, weighed 1175 pounds, and consumed the entire output of a local dairy. They politely requested that he take care of his own infant. Mr. Takahashi as politely refused, and at this point bowed out of our story completely."

Phobat Rau hesitated again and inquired if his statistics were boring us. Baker glanced out of the window and replied that while he ordinarily did not have much appreciation of figures of this kind, under the circ.u.mstances they had a certain interest. Rau smiled briefly and continued.

"The summer of 1946 was one of increasing difficulty for the temple. By the beginning of July Kazu weighed 1600 pounds and cried with a voice like a wounded bull. A number of trustworthy medical men examined him, and concurred that his only abnormality was size. In bodily proportions he was quite ordinary, and, for a 3-1/2 month baby, his mental development was, if anything, a bit ahead of normal. The priests took in their belts, appointed eight of the strongest as nursemaids, and wondered where it would all end.

"It was at this point that a member of the Buddhist priesthood from Burma happened to pa.s.s through the neighborhood and heard of the infant.

After being sworn to secrecy; even from other members of his order, he was allowed to view little Kazu. Now this priest, whose name I might as well admit was Phobat Rau, had perhaps a bit more imagination than some others, and when he looked upon the little monster, he was struck by an idea which was to grow like Kazu himself."

"The Living Buddha," murmured Baker, "Ye G.o.ds, what a symbol."

Rau nodded like a schoolteacher. "A symbol, and more. A machine to rebuild the world, or conquer it!"