Miniaturized(Gordon B. Robey) ‘Miniaturized’
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Prologue

Have you ever thought about Space, or been interested in space travel? Like many other children of my age, we read the comics that were on sale every week. ‘Superman’…and ‘Dan Dare v The Mecon’… ‘Captain Marvel’ and ‘Flash Gordon’. We even sent for do it yourself cardboard cutouts of Spaceships. I remember keeping mine for years. Then later in life came the films. ‘Journey into Space’… ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’… ‘Lost in Space’ (the Robinson Family)…. ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’… And then the Star Wars films. I think once it’s in your blood you never forget. I know it’s still in mine.

I often look up at the sky at night. Dreaming like I did when I was a kid, looking up at the stars twinkling in the blackness of space. (Depending where you are in the world) And to sometimes see shooting stars as they appear, and then fade from sight. Will we ever get to the stars I ask myself? Will we ever build a Spaceship and leave this Planet, and find a new one where we could go and start a new life, and decongest the Planet that we live on?

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in July, I lay on my back, as I had done for the last two hours. I was looking up at the small round disc of our moon, and thinking that in the daytime it looked so dead and useless. I looked at my watch. It said two thirty, time to go back to my lonely little cottage. One day soon I hoped that maybe I would find some one to share it with. I got up and turned to go towards the path that led to the bottom of the hill. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something very small heading straight towards me, was it a large fly, or a wasp?
It was so close to my face that I closed my eyes. As I tried to dodge out of its way, I felt the blow between my eyes. And the lights went out.

“Am I dead”? I asked myself “If I am then it’s my own fault, for not looking what I was doing”. But then as light began to seep into my befuddled brain, I knew I was still alive. I opened my eyes slowly. Everything was blurred, so I closed them again. Then a female voice said “It will pass in a few moments, you will be all right”. I opened my eyes at the sound of the voice. I was on a bed of some kind looking up at a silver ceiling. Then as I turned my head I was looking at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I blinked my eyes and looked again, but she was still there. “I am dead aren’t I? And you’re an angel”.

Her laugh sounded like tinkling bells, as she smiled down at me.
“No, you’re not dead” she said. “And no, I am not an angel” The smile left her beautiful face, as she looked at me in a different way. Her eyes moved slowly up and down my body, and then she reached out touching something at the bottom of the bed. It began to rise beneath my shoulders until I was sitting up. “Thank you” I said “I feel much better now”. I looked at her more closely as she stared back at me. She had a kind of bluish green hair, and blue eyes. She stood, I guessed, about five eight tall, and she didn’t have any clothes on.

I slowly lowered my eyes and looked down at myself, and realized that I hadn’t either. I was covered in short blue hairs like an animal. The smiling young woman’s was covered the same, except that she was green. “Who are you”? I asked “And where am I”? She sat down on thin air, or something that was invisible, and crossed her long shapely legs. She pointed to the center of the room. A ball appeared, spinning slowly in mid air. Even as I looked it got smaller and smaller. What made me gasp in astonishment was that it looked like the Planet Earth. “Yes” The woman said still smiling. “It is your Planet Earth. We have traveled more than a million Earth miles through space since we left it”. She stood up as the mirage disappeared “You can get down from the bed now, I have something to show you”.

She reached out to help me from the bed. As our hands made contact, I felt a kind of electric shock pass through my entire body. I followed her from the room into another one. But this one was different, it was circular. Half of it had large screens spaced around the walls. Below them a mass of lights blinked on and off, and in front of them a row of metal seats. “Welcome to my control room” she said, smiling at my astonishment. “My name is Usheer, but in your language it is Lilac. I am the commander of this ship, and the only human type on board, except you.” She pointed to seats that stood around a small table, and sat down.

“Now you know about me, tell me about yourself”. I looked at Lilac as I sat facing her. “There isn’t a lot to tell Lilac” I said as I tried to remember my name. ‘I think my name is Ben, and I think I’m twenty three years old. Other than that I can’t remember anything”. Lilac was looking at me in a funny kind of way. “You don’t remember what happened too you on Earth do you Ben”? I shook my head. “So I will tell you” she continued “It was my ship that hit you. I have had difficulty with the controls since entering the Earths atmosphere. But after our collision with you, the ship now works perfectly”. I laughed as I tried to remember what she was talking about. I looked into her lovely blue eyes. She was surprised when I said, “I’m glad I could help Lilac, anything for a beautiful woman”.

Her smile from was worth waiting for, I felt my heart beat faster. Talk about love at first sight. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I knew that at last I had fallen in love. “Thank you for saying that, Ben. If you say that I am beautiful, that’s all right”. Then the smile left her face as she continued. “It was my fault that you died, the impact split your head wide open. It is not our intention to change anything on any Planet that we visit. So I had to give you back your life. That is the rule”. She turned to look towards the side of the control room. A panel slid silently sideways, admitting five young women almost identical to her. They went to sit at the controls. But none of them spoke a word.

“These are my Robots” Lilac said, smiling at my surprise. “They control the ship when I am sleeping”. As the Robots took control of the ship, Lilac stood up and took my hand, smiling at my reaction. “I know that you have… how do you say it… fallen in love with me”. She saw the look of surprise on my face, as I wondered if she could read my mind. “I have studied your Earths dictionary for many years, so I know the meaning of all the words that you are thinking”. She led me through the doorway which slid silently shut behind us, and down a passage that had metal grills under our feet. The room that we entered was like something that I’d seen before, but try as I might I couldn’t remember where.

I went across to the double bed and flopped down on my back. “Its very comfortable Lilac thank you” I said as I closed my eyes. From a distance I heard her reply “You’re welcome Ben”. How long I slept I don’t know, but I felt a new man when I woke up. Lilac was beside me with her arm across my chest. I almost stopped breathing in amazement. Sure I was in love with her, but to find her in my bed was a bit of a shock. “You said that you loved me” A soft voice said against my chest. “So isn’t it right to sleep in the same bed”? I moved so that I could look down at her. God she was so beautiful. I stared at her shapely green cone shaped breasts with their little pink nipples, and her long shapely legs. I found it impossible to stop the rising excitement that my body was showing.

Her eyes opened wider as she looked down at me. When her hand moved to my body, I gasped at the great feeling of excitement that her touch gave me. Without thinking I moved over and lay on top of her soft warm body. “Now you can show me what this making love is all about, Ben” she whispered. I kissed her trembling lips, kissing her the way that somehow I knew was right. Then as our two bodies became one. She clung to me like a leech. Her fingers were digging into my back. Her breathing got faster and shallow, as her thighs thrust upwards, and her long legs wrapped around my waist. As if from far away, I heard a long moaning sigh that I was sure came from both of us. We lay in each others arms afterwards, but we didn’t let go of each other for a long time. “Now I know what the love making is all about” Lilac whispered in my ear. “It was very nice Ben. I have not had feelings like that before”.

After a shower I made my way back to the control room. Lilac was sitting in the main seat looking up at the largest of the screens. “Hi Ben, how are you feeling now” she asked. Not waiting for me to answer her she said “Come, sit here and take the controls” I sat in the seat next to her, feeling the seat adjusting its self to my body. “Now turn the ship ten degrees to the right”. My hands moved to the right and left half control wheels. Watching the distant stars on the forward monitor screen, I gently turned the right wheel. The stars moved to the left, as the ship turned ten degrees to the right. “Now try ten degrees to the left Ben” Lilacs soft voice instructed.

I turned the same wheel back to center, and then moved the left wheel ten degrees left and saw the stars moving to the right. It was an automatic function by me, as if I knew all about controlling the ship, as I brought it back to its original heading. “I was right in my thinking Ben” Lilac said in a thoughtful voice. “We had to change your brain structure, to give you back your life. It seems that you are losing your Earth memories, and now you are thinking like one of us”. She was right, I had been trying to remember things in my past. Each hour that went by I remembered less and less. “Give the ship to the Robots, Ben. They will pilot the ship from now on, we haven’t got far to go now”.

Again my hands moved automatically to the right buttons. I felt as if I had piloted this ship before. I sat back looking at the controls in a daze. “Excuse us Sir, we will take over now”. I looked up to see one of the Robots smiling down at me. The other four were already in their seats. As I vacated mine the Robot said “Thank you Sir”.

Lilac was staring at the large screen intently. She seemed to have forgotten that I was there. Then I saw the smile spread across her beautiful face. She raised her hand, her finger pointing at the screen. “There” she said in an excited voice, “That’s my Planet. Zallonia”. As I looked at the screen, the round sphere in the center got bigger, until there was no doubt it was a planet. I felt surprised that it looked so small, but then again it could be my imagination working overtime. There was a momentary black out and then the screens came back to life. “Re-entry accomplished Mee Usheer” one of the Robots reported.

I took a seat and continued to watch our approach. As the ship dropped lower, I could see the large glasslike domes that seemed to be everywhere on the Planet. Our ship was heading for the biggest one that I could see. “Number one” Lilac asked in a surprised voice “Why are heading for Betlea? Those were not my orders”. There was a moments silence before the Robot answered “It is the wish of the Queen that we arrive before her as soon as we land, Mee Usheer”. Lilac knew that Queen Zeena had changed the orders she had given the Robots, and she didn’t like it. She was a Zallonian of twenty years, old enough to do as she pleased.

As the ship entered a glass tube all the lights on the consol went out, and the screens went dead. The five Robots left their seats and stood waiting. “Now what” Lilac asked. “We are to escort you to the Palace of Queen Zeena, Mee Usheer. And you are to bring the Earth human with you”. We were escorted from the ship along a passage until we came to a glass door that I couldn’t see through, even though it was made of glass. The door slid silently sideways allowing us to enter. It was a throne room (if that’s the right word). All around the large circular room, there were row upon row of tiered seats, and every one of them was occupied. Below them a woman sat in a high seat, that my mind told me was a throne.

There was utter silence as the Robots, walking each side of us, escorted me and Lilac before the woman on that high seat. This had got to be Queen Zeena. She didn’t say anything. She looked at the Robot in the lead, and nodded her head. Two of the Robots went to the side of the room and returned with a chair that, to my befuddled mind, resembled something out of a science fiction film. Lilac was led to the chair and seated. A dome like cup came down covering the top of her head. She sat ridged like a statue, her eyes staring as lights started to blink on and off. Then the Queen looked at me, her face impassive as she pointed to a seat. I gave a slight bow and sat down.

After a few moments the chair lights stopped blinking. I looked at Lilac, who was no longer ridged. She seemed to bend forward at the waist. It was the look on her beautiful face that scared me. She looked utterly lost and frightened, not at all like the young woman on the space ship. She was taken from the chair to the side of the room were everyone could see her, and sat down on a seat with a Robot standing each side of her. My heart was heavy and ached for her. As I took my eyes from her, I looked again at the Queen. She looked at me, with a look that said she knew what I was thinking.

Talk broke out between those sitting in the rows of seats. I knew they were talking about Lilac, and about me. I saw some of them shaking their heads and others nodding theirs. Then suddenly lights began to blink on and off on the arms of the Queens chair. After a few moments she lifted her head and looked directly at Lilac. “Sit up young woman” She said. “A verdict as been reached and also your sentence”. Then the Queen sat back as a man in flowing robes stood up. He bowed to the Queen and then turned to look at Lilac.

“Mee Usheer. You have been found guilty of a grave misconduct. You took the life of a being from another Planet. And you tried to cover it up, by giving him back his life, and bringing him here to our Planet. You used his body by pretending that you loved him. All that you did was for your own gain. Your mother the Queen is not pleased. You shall be told of your punishment later”. With that said he sat down. Lilac stood up with the help of the Robots, each one holding her elbow. As they passed by me Lilac looked at me. I was sure that I could see the love in her eyes that she had shown me on the ship. And then she was gone from the room. “What my daughter did to you was unforgivable, young man” The Queen said as she looked at me. “It is in my power to grant you whatever you wish. Do not be afraid to speak, we are all friends here”. I looked at her hardly knowing what to say. She’d taken away the only woman that I had ever really loved.

“Your Majesty, I have listened to the evidence you put forward against your daughter. If I asked you to reverse your decision and give her another chance, would that be too much to ask? I love your daughter, Your Majesty, I can’t help that. All my life I dreamed of meeting someone as beautiful and loving as Lilac is. When she came to me she fulfilled my dreams”. Queen Zeena actually smiled. “You will to be changed back to the way you were before, young man. You were taken from your Planet against your will. That is against all that we stand for. She turned then to look around at her seated people. “As for my daughter, something can be arranged, but whatever happens she is not to be trusted to make any decisions, is that clear”?

I bowed slightly as she continued. “You will please sit in the chair that my daughter sat in”. It was a command so I stood and went to the chair and sat down. I felt the disc like cup touch the top of my head, and then all the little lights started to blink. What I felt was very hard to explain. I saw Earth from a distance, and all the Planets going by. The last thing I saw was the tiny spaceship that hit me between the eyes, and my body sprawled on the ground. When I opened my eyes everything seemed different somehow. The Queen still sat there looking at me, with a worried look on her face. “How do you feel young man, do you remember everything”?

I closed my eyes and everything that came into my mind was my life on Earth. I remembered my mom and dad, and my friends, even my ex girl friend. Every thing came back to me. “Yes your Majesty” I said smiling. “I can remember everything that I used to know”. She smiled in return and clapped her hands. “Wonderful” She said. “Now what do you want me to do with my daughter”? Oh, I knew what I wanted to do with Lilac. And it must have shown on my face because the Queen laughed. “You shall be married here in this room before you leave. That is an order young man”. Then she asked one of the Robots to bring Usheer before her.

The same man again stood up and bowed to the Queen “We know that your name is Ben, young man” He said. “When the Princess Usheer put life back into you body, she also had to miniaturize your body to get you inside her craft. Otherwise you would have been found dead by your own people.
Then the charges against the Princess Usheer would have been more serious”. As he sat down everyone started to clap their hands, even the Queen joined in smiling as she looked around. And then into the room came a dejected Lilac, flanked by two Robots.

This time the Queen got to her feet as she addressed her daughter.
“Usheer” She said with a smile on her face. “The charges against you have been dropped, at the request of this young man who loves you very much. Why, I do not know”. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “But you are my daughter and a Royal Princess. It is also the request of Ben that you become his lawful wife. You do not have any say in this matter daughter, unless you want to serve your sentence. What have you to say for yourself”? Lilac turned to look at me. I could see that she couldn’t believe what was being asked of her. “You want to marry me, after all that I did to you. Why”?

I looked at the Queen who nodded her head. I walked forward until I stood close to the trembling Princess. She looked into my eyes and I looked into hers. “Because I love you very much, and I want to be with you always. If you say yes, then I will be the happiest man alive”. Lilac looked at her mother who was smiling at us. Then to me she said “Yes I will marry you Ben, I didn’t realize that I loved you until it was almost too late”. I wanted to take her in my arms there and then, but she was taken to one side by one of the Robots. A white gown was brought into the room for the Princess Usheer, and another one for me. It was slipped over my head by one of the Robots, while two others put the other one on Usheer. We stood in front of the Queen, who seemed to be really enjoying herself. As she held up her hand a Robot came forward and stood before her. She took from a cushion that the robot held. A small crown almost like a tiara, and reaching up placed it on my head.

“Now young man, you are Prince Ben of Zallonia”. Everyone in the room clapped their hands, and they were all smiling as I bowed to their Queen. Two rings appeared as if by magic, one for me and one for Lilac. “Put the ring on his finger dear” The Queen said to Lilac. “And you Ben put your ring on my daughters” which I did gladly. “I now say that you are man and wife. I hope that you will be happy, all your days together”. And then Lilac whispered “Aren’t you going to kiss me Ben”? I laughed softly and said “In front of the Queen”? She heard us even though we were whispering. “If that is your custom, then you may kiss the Princess”. I looked into the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, and then I kissed her. It was warm and tender, her lips melting against mine. Then as we were about to end that lingering kiss, I felt her tongue flick between my lips.

“You shall have the rest of the day together” The Queen said in a soft voice. “And then Ben, you will leave our Planet, and return to yours”. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. It was like a shock to my system. I looked at Lilac, seeing the tears start to run down her cheeks. “It will be only for a little while my love” Lilac whispered. “Soon we will be together for always”. I looked at her in surprise “You knew about this”?
I asked her as I tried to get my thoughts together. “This is part of my punishment Ben. I have to suffer you being away from me. You didn’t think they would let me go with you did you”? I took a deep breath, looking at her, and now I felt like crying. “But for how long”? I asked “I couldn’t stand being alone without you”. The Queen had heard every word we had said. “Six of your Earth months, you will be apart, Ben. Then you will be back together for always. That is punishment enough for my daughter”.

We were alone at last. The first thing Lilac did after the door closed, was to take off the wedding dress and throw it in the floor. She stood there naked, except for the soft fur that covered her lovely body. She was breathing heavily as she looked at me. Her breasts were rising and falling with her fast breathing. What a glorious sight she was. “Take the gown off Ben” She whispered. “Come and make love to me, like you did on the ship”. I didn’t need asking twice. My gown fell to the floor, and I was on the bed with her in a flash. I pushed her onto her back sliding my hand down between her thighs, and then covered her beautiful body with mine. “Now Ben” She whispered against my neck “Do it to me now”.

She let out a moaning cry as our bodies became one. Her long legs came up and wrapped around my waist. She didn’t stop moaning all the time I made love to her. Towards the end her long legs gripped my body so hard I thought they would break my ribs. Then as her thighs arched upwards and thrusting a long groan escaped her open mouth, and her legs slid slowly down from around my waist. Her arms dropped outwards limply across the bed. Her eyes were open wide as she looked up at me. “Now that’s what I call making love” She whispered. “We can do it again, before you leave Ben. Six months is a long time before I can feel you inside me again”.

They all stood looking at the ship, me included. I was going to leave in that, without my lilac. She clung to my arm, tears running down her lovely face. The Queen too had a few tears to shed as she said, “You will know what to do when you arrive on your Planet, Ben. The Robots will show you how to get back to your normal size, and you will find that you can communicate with this Planet through the Robots”. She leaned forward and gave me a hug. Then I kissed Lilac for the last time and whispered “I love you”. I climbed the ramp and boarded the round silver craft, waving to them as the door slid shut behind me.

The ship landed in a discrete place among the trees, about ten yards from where I’d been clobbered. The Robot said that I had to leave the ship and stand about six feet from it, which I did. As I turned around, a blue light came from the ship bathing me in its light.

I watched in amazement as the space craft got smaller and smaller, as I grew up to my Earthly size. The silver space ship was now so tiny, that I almost lost sight of it, as it lay in the grass. At last I reached down and picked it up, and put it in my pocket. As I made my way home, I felt like a new man. Knowing that on a far distant Planet called Zallonia, a beautiful young woman was waiting for me. Arrived home, I looked up at the sky and smiled. Six months isn’t all that long.


The End
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‘Sequel pending’
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