Spoiler Warnings: This story has many pretextual references to episodes of "Land of the Giants". Do not read the story before watching the series, unless you want to learn the series plots in summary first.
Story notes: This is built around an alternate ending to "Wild Journey", which has implications for a new timeline affecting plots of "The Crash," & "Weird World" and "The Lost Ones" & "Secret City of Limbo."
The original story so far:
Steve and Dan are in the giant city, believing that the SID are after them. They soon discover that the SID are actually pursuing a man called Thorg, who uses his STM (Space Time Manipulator) to teleport himself, Steve and Dan to the forest, where he introduces them to his partner Berna, who also has an STM.
They demonstrate the device's capability of locating earth 1983 just before the Spindrift left Los Angeles Airport. Steve asks if they can use the STM to go back to 1983 earth, but is told that only Thorg's team can use an STM. Thorg asks to visit their camp site, and is told that only Steve's team can approach it. Steve and Dan head off, and Berna and Thorg secretly follow
But what if Steve and Dan had made it back to camp, with Berna and Thorg on their tail?
Now pick up the action of this new plot.
Steve and Dan returned to the Spindrift base camp and found the others waiting.
"You won't believe what happened to us," said Dan, and began to explain.
When he had reached the part, where the STM projected the image of Los Angeles airport 1983 onto the rock, the Spindrift team heard a loud bark.
"That sure wasn't Chipper!" thought Barry, and then saw Berna and Thorg run into their campsite. Looming behind them was a giant SID officer, with a leashed Doberman barking viciously. The giant reached down and grabbed Thorg, who unwittingly dropped his STM.
Chipper began barking at the giant dog, distracting it.
As subtly as he could, Steve Burton grabbed Thorg's fallen STM, his mind racing with possibilities. This device could take him back in time. Since two versions of a being can't co-exist in one time period, Steve would end up merged with his younger self, but yet retain his memory of the last 2 years. He could refuse to pilot Spindrift, and prevent the original accident which had brought them to the giant planet.
The giant was struggling to control the dog with one hand (which held its leash), and to grab for the other Little People with his other hand, which was already partly full of Thorg.
As the giant reached for Dan, he managed to wedge Thorg tightly between his last two fingers, and grabbed at Dan with his finger and thumb.
Berna pointed her STM at the giant's hand, and teleported Thorg free.
While the giant was still reacting in surprise, Dan jumped free, and ran for the bushes, where Betty, Valerie, Fitzhugh and Mark had already fled.
Berna and Thorg followed them. The giant tried to grab Chipper, but his hand was too clumsy to close around the elusive dog.
He tied his Doberman's leash to a tree, and then called out to the Little People.
"Run all you want, you little pests! You'll never get off our planet without this!"
To the dismay of all the earthlings, the giant SID officer accomplished something which would put him in the good graces of Inspector Kobick for a long time to come, and no doubt secure him a promotion: He picked up the space ship and walked off with it, leaving his dog to be collected later.
He had not captured any earthlings, and would have a hard time explaining the stunt with the STM as anything more than another advantage of earth's technology (which was 50 years ahead of the giants). However, Kobick would revel in the fact that the earthlings were now ultimately stranded on the giant world forever, and subject to eventual capture by the SID.
Berna and Thorg were soon talking with Dan and the others. Steve and Barry were conspicuously absent.
"How did you do that?" asked Fitzhugh.
"We can manipulate space and time," said Berna, "and there's no limit to how far we could send people."
"Then couldn't you take us back to earth?" asked Valerie.
"No. Your captain asked me that," said Thorg, "He wanted to go back to Los Angeles airport 1983, but that would alter history, which we must avoid. It could be harmless, but we can't change the risk. The butterfly effect of such action could rewrite so much of the last two years, that the consequences for the universe could be very serious."
"Then why not just send us back to earth in 1985 now?" asked Fitzhugh, his cunning mind forever in pursuit of his own ends.
"Yes, that wouldn't break your time rules, would it?" asked Betty.
"You have to look at it from our perspective," said Berna, "We are time travellers from your future. To us, this is the inviolate past. Whatever happens from 1985 onwards must play out for you as it would without our interference. You either find your way back to earth or you don't. It can't be with the aid of our futuristic STMs."
"Finding our way back now is unlikely, with our ship captured and all of the hopes of the last two years shot to blazes!" said Mark, always the first to lose his cool.
He had been secretly studying the STMs, wondering if his advanced engineering skills could possibly hope to reverse engineer one. Yet he was daunted, and had placed his hopes in the others persuading Berna and Thorg to help them.
"I'm sorry," said Thorg, "Maybe you can recover it from SID headquarters, but we really have to go… Hey, where's my STM?"
"You must have dropped it, when the giant grabbed you," said Berna.
"Where are the other two members of your party?" asked Thorg, "The one in red and the boy."
In the meantime, Steve had grabbed Barry's hand and pulled him away from the scene, running with the STM. They fled further into the forest and then stopped.
"Captain, why aren't we helping the others with that thing?" asked Barry.
"There's no sense in getting captured too," said Steve, "You heard what that giant called out. He's got the ship. It's all over for us in this timeline. We have to change the past."
"What do you mean, Captain Burton?" asked Barry.
"This device was last set for Los Angeles airport, before we took off. You and I are going back there now, Barry. You won't board Spindrift, and I won't fly it. I'll order Dan not to. His younger self won't understand why, but if we don't take off in the first place, then we'll never come here, and the last two years of struggling and suffering will never have occurred, except in your memory and mine, because we've time travelled. That means every past event will be altered, right up to what just happened. The SID will never discover our base camp and never capture the ship."
"But Captain, what about the people we helped? We saved two innocent people from execution, when they were framed for murders: the giant alcoholic who was framed by the photographer who killed his model, and the man that Mrs & Mrs Cass framed for the murder they committed."
"I know, but it can't be helped, Barry. Maybe time will find other ways to help them. My first responsibility is to our party."
"But you took that device from the time traveller."
"He asked us to respect the rules of his machine. I asked him to respect my old rule that nobody but us comes to our base camp. They secretly ignored it and tailed us back here, and that's the only reason we've got this device. I can do it, now Barry. I can get us all back, as though it never happened."
"What about the man who almost drowned in quicksand? And you told me about Inidu being framed as well?"
"I know, Barry. It grieves me to think about it, but we don't know for certain that those matters won't somehow be put right. We could even try to make a more prepared controlled visit through the space warp to this world, armed to the teeth with advanced earth weaponry and have the ship fully functioning. We could bring a few ships, and scout this world and help people in need, with the ones you mentioned at the top of the list. I'm open to anything. It was my idea to risk the ship to save that guy in the quicksand, even though Mark tried all he could to stop me."
"I admired you for that, Captain."
"Thank you Barry, but it's left us stranded here ever since. We've missed our chance so many times. To think that Fitzhugh and I actually made it back to a time on earth decades before we were born, only to have to return here and send up the time ship alone. This is our second time travel opportunity, a deliberate and controlled attempt. Shouldn't we take it?"
Barry began to wonder if Steve had been subconsciously influenced by the way Fitzhugh presented one sneaky argument after another to justify his actions. Yet he had to concede that Steve was trying to present a win-win situation for everyone.
"I guess we should, Captain."
"Hold it!" said Thorg, who had just located them.
Steve stood close to Barry, and activated the STM.
They were briefly surrounded by a cloud of sparks, which was a necessary side effect of teleportation with an STM, and then they appeared at Los Angeles airport.
Steve and Barry quickly found a way to check the date. They were back in 1983.
"Captain, do you feel it?"
"Yes, Barry. Our memories of 2 years ago are slightly altering. The STMs made us two years younger. You're not in the waiting room to board Spindrift now. You're here in this hanger with me. Dan will be wondering where I am. I'm going to try to convince Miss Collier to cancel all sub orbital flights until the space warp can be properly investigated by the military."
Steve and Barry went to Miss Collier's office.
"Captain Burton! You can't bring a civilian passenger in here."
"He's a witness. You won't believe this, but the Captain Burton you know flew Spindrift, shortly after now, up into the atmosphere, bound for London. The ship was sucked through a space warp and trapped on a planet of giants until 1985. He found a time travel device and brought this passenger Barry back to 1983, with our memories of OUR last two years preserved. We can't take the flight out, Miss Collier. We have to cancel all sub orbital flights from now on."
"I thought you didn't drink, Captain. That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard. Giants are outlandish enough, but time travel is an absurd idea. You've been watching my boyfriend Irwin's latest TV science fiction show, haven't you?"
"No, Miss Collier," said Steve, taking the STM out of his pocket, "This is the device."
"It looks like a radio to me," she said.
Steve fiddled with the controls.
"I can't seem to reset it," he said, "But show it to our scientists on earth. They'll work it out. Better still, show it to a passenger who'll be arriving soon, named Mark Wilson. He's a brilliant engineer. He'll figure out how to operate it. And how could I know about him, if I'm not from the future? I'll go and meet him myself now."
"You see here, Burton. You're obviously under some stress from taking too many flights. You need a medical and psychiatric examination. I'm calling your superiors to recommend it."
"You do that, Miss Collier. Come on Barry. Let's find Mark," said Steve, and went to the door. He opened it a little, before he saw Thorg and Berna walking in the corridor!
"They must have followed us here with her STM!" he thought.
He called security, using Miss Collier's intercom, and had them clear the VIP room. This did not deter Berna and Thorg. Steve had no option but to smash a glass window with a chair and run for it, with Barry doing his best to keep up.
They were eventually caught, and Berna managed to teleport Thorg's STM into her hand, using her own STM.
Berna and Thorg tried to send them back to the giant planet.
"We can't do that now," said Thorg, "They're not from our team. They haven't had the preservative treatments. STM time travel has de-aged them to the ages that they had in this time. They'll have to repeat the original journey to the giant planet."
"Forget it," said Steve, as they stood on a path near some bushes, "We're staying here."
Steve and Barry walked away.
"I'm sorry my friend. I can still do this," said Thorg, and demonstrated a previously unseen feature of the STMs.
He used his STM to actually shrink Steve and Barry down to tiny size. Steve was now only three inches tall, and Barry around two.
As they stood on the edge of the garden beside the pathway, Bern and Thorg lay down on their stomachs in front of them and tried to talk them into agreeing to repeat history. They were distracted by a man who wondered what they were doing.
Steve and Barry ran off and concealed themselves in the bushes.
"We can't find them now, and they're not going to do it anyway," said Berna.
"The most we can do is keep history as unaltered as possible. The co-pilot will make the journey, probably with another pilot. We can never return to our people. We'll be drummed out of the time research society for this foul-up," said Thorg.
"It doesn't matter, honey, so long as I'm with you. Let's just go a few years into the future, and check that time isn't too radically altered," said Berna.
Steve and Barry had at least some cause for celebration.
"We've done it," said Steve, "But I've no right to speak for you. Do you want to give into them and go back to the giant world at normal size, or stay here at tiny size and try to talk the others out of making the flight?"
"We should try that, Captain," said Barry.
The boy was 13 years old again. His last two years of aging had been instantly reversed by the STM. Steve was 32. Yet they were so tiny, that it would take them a while to walk to the VIP room.
Back in the waiting room, Mark Wilson and Alexander Fitzhugh were becoming extremely agitated. Chipper was not around in the altered timeline, as Barry had never brought him to the airport. Valerie was waiting for their flight, so that she could enjoy another holiday as a wealthy socialite. She was 31 years old at this point. Mark was 39. Fitzhugh was the oldest passenger, but also the most dangerous. He'd stolen a million dollars and was attempting to flee the country. Dan was around Steve's age.
Betty the stewardess was 23, and working in Miss Collier's office with Dan Erickson to try to organise new arrangements for Spindrift.
"Miss Hamilton, you keep making calls, to try to find any available pilot," said Miss Collier to Betty, "Mr Erickson, you go and try to explain things to the passengers. I've just had security telling me they're getting a little peeved."
Dan went to the VIP waiting room, and found Mark, Fitzhugh and Valerie.
"Are you the pilot?" asked Mark.
"I'm the co-pilot. We regret to inform you that our pilot is missing. We're doing everything we can to make new arrangements."
"I have to be on that flight," said Fitzhugh, nervously clutching his brief case.
"As do I!" said Mark, "I have a fifty million dollar deal in London that won't wait. Now how much do I have to pay you to fly us there without your pilot?"
"I'll take off when ordered to, and not before," said Dan, "Now all of you please wait in your seats and be patient."
Dan walked out into the corridor.
Fitzhugh walked over to Mark, who wondered what a naval commander could do to exert his influence over a commercial pilot.
"Sir, I'm Alexander," said Fitzhugh, "I believe we could be mutually helpful to each other."
"How?" sighed Mark.
"I have a gun. With your help I could make that co-pilot take us to London immediately."
"Is that standard naval procedure?" asked Mark in a whisper inaudible to Valerie Scott.
"Are you with me or not?" asked Fitzhugh.
"I'm desperate enough to try anything," said Mark.
"Then let's go find him."
Mark and Fitzhugh went out into the corridor, ambushed Dan and forced him to lead them to their ship and commence the flight.
"There's something you two should know, other than the fact that you're committing a criminal hijacking," said Dan, "Theoretically the ship can be flown by only one person. Both Captain Burton and I have the knowledge, but I may need help with the instruments, if anything goes wrong with our flight."
"This man … "began Fitzhugh
"Mark," offered Mark Wilson.
"Mark will act as co-pilot and take instructions from you. When we get to London, you will be our hostage, until I'm sure nobody has come after us."
"You're crazy, but you're the man with the gun," said Dan.
"Maybe I shouldn't be doing this," said Mark, "Can you take responsibility for my involvement, Commander?"
"You shall be completely absolved," said Fitzhugh, "You have my word."
What he intended was to flee London airport with the money and leave Mark Wilson to be the fall guy. The businessman had no idea he was dealing with a con man.
Mark sat in the co-pilot's seat, while Dan took the pilot's chair. Spindrift took off, before airline officials knew what had happened.
Berna and Thorg had gone on the run from their own people. They would not be seen again.
Betty was eventually sent to inform the passengers that Spindrift had been apparently hijacked and taken off without them. She found only Valerie there, and said she'd arrange to squeeze her onto the next sub-orbital flight.
Valerie waited in the VIP room. Betty returned to Miss Collier.
"Spindrift was your only job left for today," said Miss Collier, "You might as well take the rest of the day off, and wait in your Los Angeles apartment. We'll call you to confirm your next job, once the Spindrift hijacking has been sorted out."
Barry and Steve reached the VIP room, to find that only Valerie was present.
"Maybe the other passengers haven't arrived yet," said Barry.
"Or they're still arguing over my absence," said Steve, "I'm going to try to talk to Valerie. Hopefully my size will convince her of our story, and she won't take the flight out. We'll have at least saved her. Can you go and look for Dan and present the same argument I used, for grounding Spindrift?"
"Yes Captain," said Barry.
He snuck out of the VIP room and into the corridor.
Steve Burton walked over to Valerie, and called up to her: "Valerie!"
Valerie looked down in surprise.
"You can't take that flight out. You'll never make it!" said Steve.
"Didn't you know?" said Valerie, "That flight was hijacked. The naval commander and the businessman haven't come back. Maybe they were on it."
Steve thought of all he knew about Fitzhugh and Mark. His sharp mind had no trouble deducing what had happened. His co-pilot (along with two passengers from a previous time line) were on their way to the biggest surprise of their lives.
"At least you're safe then," said Steve.
"But are you?" asked Valerie, mischievously, picking him up, "I've changed my mind about flying off in search of holiday amusement. I think I just found all I need."
"Valerie, wait!"
The wealthy jet set society girl was used to doing as she pleased. She opened her handbag and dropped Steve unceremoniously into it, closed her bag and walked out of the VIP room. She had told him about her mansion in Los Angeles once. She was presumably taking him there.
Steve remembered what he had said to Valerie in the original timeline, when they had been trying to escape from the giant entomologist's laboratory, before the giants had found them.
"The giant seems civilized. If he knew we were here, maybe he'd help," Valerie had said.
"To them we're just six inch oddities," Steve had replied.
Even back then, Steve Burton's sharp intuitive mind had understood human psychology well, and assumed that it would be no different with the giants. For the next two years, most of the giants had proved him right, snatching up earthlings (known to them as 'Little People') and using them for their own selfish ends. They had seen no reason to respect the rights of people identical to their own species, but so small that they were completely helpless most of the time.
Steve realised that, with no knowledge of what she had been through in the last time line, and having her own selfish mischievous personality to begin with, Valerie would be no more concerned with Steve's rights as a human being, than the average giant had been with her own rights.
To her, Steve Burton was just a three-inch oddity, a rare find. She could do with him whatever she pleased, and was answerable to nobody.
Spindrift had reached the atmosphere, and was taking its sub-orbital short cut to London, passing over whole continents as the earth rotated below it.
Suddenly a huge ball of green light came into view.
"What is that?" asked Fitzhugh.
"I can't be sure, but it looks like some warp in space," said Mark, "I studied them from a hypothetical understanding at M.I.T. I didn't know that they were real."
"Well this one's real enough," said Dan, "And look at our instruments. It's sucking us towards it. I've got to pull up and veer away from it!"
"It's not working!" yelled Fitzhugh, "That green goop is like a giant vacuum cleaner. Do something, co-pilot!"
"Your threats won't help now, Commander. Don't you think I'm doing all I can. You might as well strap in in the passenger compartment. This ride is already getting rougher."
To their horror, the ship was drawn into the warp and emerged on the other side, apparently over an earth city.
"Thank goodness it didn't take us away from earth," said Mark, "From what I've learned those things could lead anywhere."
This time, Spindrift only had 3 humans aboard, instead of 7 and a dog. The lighter weight gave the ship more manoeuvrability.
With different circumstances, they didn't land in the same part of the city. Instead they managed to land in the park, which was dimly lit by its lamps. There was apparently nobody there.
Dan, Mark and Fitzhugh had not yet realised that they were on a planet of giants. They stepped out of the ship, and started walking.
"Why is that light built so high up?" asked Dan.
"I don't know," said Mark, as they walked across some thick grass (to them anyway) and came to a large concrete expanse.
To their utter amazement, a giant blond haired woman began walking towards them. She was taller than the skyscraper buildings of Los Angeles.
They had no time to avoid being seen, nor to make it back to the ship. Even as she approached, Mark Wilson theorized that the warp had taken them to a world of giants.
The woman was wearing a nurse's uniform, if the fashions were the same on this world.
"Oh my!" she said, "Have you contracted some kind of vitamin deficiency?"
"What?" asked Fitzhugh.
"She thinks we're giants with an illness," said Mark, "No, Madam. We come from a world like yours, but where the people are smaller. Our space ship landed nearby."
"I'm nurse Helg," said the woman.
"You remind me of someone," said Dan, "I can't explain it, since you're the first giant we've met, but you have a voice very similar to someone I've heard recently."
"It's probably just a coincidence," said the giant woman, "But you people aren't safe here. Our government is very totalitarian. If the authorities found you, they'd treat you as hostile prisoners. You must leave this planet, while you can. Let me take you back to your transportation."
She picked them up and followed Dan's directions back to the Spindrift.
They took off quickly, and tried to reach the warp. Yet it had closed.
"Of course. They only open periodically," said Mark, "We'll be here for a while."
At least in this timeline, they still had the use of the Spindrift, which had not been exhausted in a struggle to escape a giant boy's clutches and then assaulted by a giant cat.
Time was already making exchanges. Maybe they would never help the people that Barry had mentioned to Steve at the end of the last timeline. Yet there were giants who had suffered as a result of aiding earthlings. With Barry's appendicitis occurring on earth, Dr Bruhl would never be arrested for aiding his operation, and would never go to the SID prison.
The giant optometrist would never be killed by the explosion which destroyed his infra red night vision glasses. The examples were endless. A whole new timeline had come into being.
Barry went walking along the corridor, hoping to find Dan. He too was unaware that Dan had been kidnapped by Fitzhugh in order to hijack Spindrift.
Walking along the corridor towards him came the most beautiful woman Barry had ever seen! It was Betty, now like a giantess to the lad. She would have been ten years older than him, with the last two years of his age reversed. He still had the memories of the last two years, and the memories of the way she had offered to take him home with her in the first timeline, to adopt him as a foster son. He had loved her from the start, and enjoyed her comforting hugs in the previous timeline.
She had a medium length grey skirt, with a matching stewardess's coat, and a yellow skivvy met her soft white neck. She was quite tall, Barry surmised, at his reduced size, going by the closeness of her head to the ceiling. She had relatively short blond hair, and the loveliest facial features, just as he had remembered her appearance from their first meeting. He forgot the pink outfit she had recently worn in the previous timeline, which had revealed more of her cleavage than he'd seen before. He thought back to all the outfits she had worn in the giant world. There had been the pale green jumper with the light brown vest. There had also been his favourite outfit: the light green jumper with the long red skirt. It had accentuated her femininity. How he had so often wanted to overcome his boyish shyness and take her into his arms and confess his crush on her. Instead, he recalled the affections she'd shown him at times. There was the time when Major Kagen had died, and she had hugged him. If not for the trauma, he'd have enjoyed that.
When Fitzhugh had told her how Barry had persuaded him to help to free the girls from the trap in the giants tent, Betty had approached Barry privately and kissed his cheek, saying that he was a stabilizing influence on the con man's conscience.
But for most of the two years in the previous timeline, they had been running from giants and had no time to explore other feelings.
The boy had never even noticed girls in any romantic way before, but this woman had become the most instantaneous first crush that he could ever have had in any timeline.
Now she hadn't yet met him. She was a stewardess on earth, and had not yet made the trip to the giant land. He wondered how she would respond to him. He'd previously had to settle for the hopes of being her foster son. Now that he was so small, her protective instincts would be even more endearing, he hoped.
Time continued to reset itself in the giant world.
Mark, Fitzhugh and Dan set up a camp in the forest, but purely for seclusion, as the ship wasn't grounded this time. They had only to wait for the next warp appearance, checking the skies regularly with patrol flights. They were careful, and were never discovered by giants. The SID never knew of their existence, and there were no bounty hunters searching for little people, in order to claim rewards.
Fitzhugh soon used all the bullets of his gun on a giant insect, which had menaced him. He now had no further ability to dictate terms to anyone.
One day they met Major Kagen, a true refugee on the giant world. They managed to win his trust, and he joined their party, being promised a journey back to earth, as his own ship had been found by giant scientists and mistaken for a toy and dismantled.
Soon after that, they met Nick, and the three boys whose all American flight had stranded them on the giant world. There was a brief struggle for power, but Dan had assumed the leadership of the party, once Fitzhugh's gun had run out of ammunition. With Spindrift as the only means of getting all of them home, the new party of eight men had to work together under Dan's leadership to find food and avoid discovery, until they could time a flight to catch the next opening of the space warp.
Valerie reached her mansion, and opened her bag on her bed, and emptied Steve onto the pillow.
"You said something about my being safe," she said, "Safe from what?"
Steve didn't want to make matters worse by corrupting history any more. He was finally beginning to wonder if he'd done the right thing by defying Berna and Thorg. On the one hand he'd prevented at least one Spindrift passenger from living among giants. Yet he was now at her mercy. Should he tell Valerie about the previous timeline.
"You'd never believe me," he said.
"That's a cop out, little man. You approached me in the waiting room hoping to convince me of something. I think I'll believe anything after discovering that miniature men have found earth. What planet are you from? How did you get here, and what am I safe from? You'll tell me, or I'll have to just lock you in my cupboard until you're ready to be more fun."
Steve sighed.
"Same old Valerie," he said.
"That's another thing. How do you know my name? You used it when you first showed up?"
He told her the entire story. For hours he recounted all their adventures in the giant world, and finally got to the part where he'd bent the laws of time and reverted back to Los Angeles Airport 1983.
"And now you've got me," he concluded, "What about the others?"
"Betty, that must be the stewardess, told me the flight was hijacked. Your Mark Wilson and Alexander Fitzhugh must have gone with the co-pilot Dan Erickson. Don't ask what happened to Barry. I never met him."
"If he couldn't find Dan, he would have approached Betty," said Steve, "She was like a foster mother to him last time around. They were very close friends."
"So here you are stuck on earth in the same predicament you were in on the giant world," said Valerie.
"I guess so," said Steve.
"You gave up your size and went against the time travellers, just to save me from facing the original timeline again."
"If I'd taken the flight, we'd all be in this mess," said Steve.
"You know, for a hero, you're really rather cute, Skipper," said Valerie, "And I guess I guess I can do whatever I want with you."
She had been lying on the pillow, with her hand supporting her head, while Steve had sat there and told her everything.
"Valerie, what…?" Steve started, as her other hand's fingers closed around him from behind.
Valerie brought her lips towards Steve and kissed him.
"What was that for?" asked Steve.
"For saving me."
"It turns out I didn't do that. Fitzhugh saved you by default, and doomed Dan and Mark."
"I don't just mean now. You saved me from drowning in that awful fiery trap that Manfred prepared for me in the giant movie lot. You saved me from so many things in that other time line. Then you gave up everything to come back here and save me from ever facing it all in the first place. And right now, Steve Burton, you are really turning me on!"
Steve's account of their adventures had merely covered the basic events, and the action. He had left out much of the character development. It suddenly occurred to him, that he had been wise to leave out the growing affection between Valerie and Mark in the last few months of the previous timeline.
"I must admit, you've certainly done that for me just now!" said Steve, "For so long I've had to think about group security, avoiding giants, and trying to get back to earth. I never even considered what could happen like this before. It was very enjoyable, Valerie."
He was looking at her grey dress, probably the most feminine of her outfits. The red and orange outfit she had changed into after a few months on the giant world was not nearly as feminine. The grey and yellow outfit she'd started wearing after they'd been there a year didn't have the same appeal either.
"Let's rewrite time together for the rest of our lives, Skipper," said Valerie.
Barry was transfixed by the beauty of Betty from his current perspective. She stopped just in front of him and leaned down and closed her soft white fingers around him. The boy loved the feeling of this, and looked adoringly into her eyes, as she held him in front of her face.
"I don't believe this," said Betty, "But I'm sure I'll make the adjustment. I've just been given the day off, since my flight was hijacked."
Barry made the same deductions as Steve, while Betty walked to her car, with Barry nestled between her fingers.
There was nothing more he could do. Neither could Steve. They would live out their lives under the same conditions as they had on the giant world, but at least he would be with Betty now. At this size he was more noticeable to her, more special to her. He would mean something to Betty.
Betty reached her car and put him in the glove box, while she concentrated on driving.
"You'll be safe in there from any impact damage," she said, and closed the glove box door.
He loved the way she cared for him.
The car stopped for a while, and Betty opened the glove box.
"I'm just going to the shops," she said, "I'd better not let anyone see you. I'll be back soon."
She closed the glove box, went into the shopping complex for forty minutes, and came back and drove to her apartment block, parked in the underground car park, and then took Barry out of the glove box. She placed him into just behind the neck of her skivvy, so that he rested against her own soft white neck.
"You'll be comfortable there until we get upstairs," she said, and held her large shopping bag with her free hand, while using the other to operate the elevator. When they reached her floor, which was near the top of the building, she took Barry to the desk by the window, opened the curtains, and put him on the desk. He looked out at the huge (now gigantic) city below.
Betty stood in front of the desk, and opened her shopping bag.
To his surprise, she took out a cage.
"I'm Betty, little boy. What's your name?"
"Barry."
"Well you'd best get into your cage now, little pet. That's where you're going to live from now on."
Barry was in shock. Could the Betty he'd loved and befriended for so long really do this to him? Still it was two years earlier, and they'd never met. She had rarely shown the same propensity for naughty behaviour as Valerie, in the previous timeline. Yet under these circumstances, she enjoyed the same advantages as the giants had once had over all of them. This Betty hadn't been softened by being stranded with an orphan boy on a giant world. Though sweet and lovely to people her own size, it seemed she had a different attitude to a tiny boy, having never had the experiences of the previous time line, which would have enabled her to see Barry's perspective on being held captive by a giantess.
"But Betty, you have no need to worry about me leaving."
"Oh I'm sure I haven't," said Betty, amused, "Into the cage, little pet."
Her hand pushed him towards it, forcing him to walk into the cage. Then she locked the padlock and placed the key in the desk drawer.
"You don't understand," said Barry, "I love you. I want to stay here with you anyway."
"You're a bit fresh, young man," said Betty, "But you're my pet, and you won't be leaving that cage. I'm going to fetch some comforts and food for you."
Such was Barry's lot, as he struggled to come to terms with the Betty he'd known for two years turning out this way in her own past. He would be left to daydream of her treating him differently, whenever she was off on flights with the airline. He tried all he could to win her over, and gradually formed a friendship with her. It never occurred to him to tell her of the previous timeline. His mind wasn't as matured as Steve Burton's. All he could do was make the most of his situation and try to win Betty's heart as the new timeline continued.
The eight earthlings continued exploring the giant land with the space ship, until they landed their ship on a small mountain, and went walking down the side to explore.
They came across two archaeologists performing experiments near the mountain. In the original timeline, they had been tricked into thinking that the mountain was unsuitable, as their mineral sample tests had been sabotaged by the earthlings. This time, there was no such outcome. Unknown to the scientists, the City of Limbo was just below the mountain.
"Giants!" said Nick, and the party ran to hide in the forest, unable to openly climb back up to the ship at that time. The archaeologists set off an explosion that they had been preparing.
Other giants came up out of the base of the mountain, armed with strange ray guns, and began to fight the archaeologists.
"You've gutted our city and caused widespread panic!" one of them called.
As Mark and the others looked on, they saw that Spindrift had been blown to pieces by the explosion. They were truly stranded there now. All they could do was to walk through the forest, hoping that one day they would be rescued by people from earth making a subsequent flight through the warp.
They had not gone that far into the forest, when they came across a giant woman, who befriended them. This was fortunate, as they had been taken by surprise. The woman invited them to ride on the large plate she'd been carrying, and took them to a small campsite in the forest, where she and eleven other giant women were seated around a campfire, as the night had set in.
"We have never seen men your size," said the leader of the twelve women."
"We came from another planet, called earth," said Dan, and related their journey through the warp. One of Nick's team told their story, and Major Kagen added his."
"So you see, Madam, we are all fugitives from another planet, unable to return to our home," said Fitzhugh.
"We left our home too," said the leading giantess, "We came from a nearby city called Limbo, which is under a mountain nearby. We had visions of our city facing a great catastrophe, and we formed a small group called the Secret Sisters of Limbo, as we planned to leave our city. We knew the officials could not ultimately prevent it. So we made our way to the surface, with what little we could salvage, and camped in the forest. We have been living here, subsisting on what grows, not knowing where to go, but surviving."
"Your catastrophe may have been what we saw today," said Mark, "The explosion that destroyed our ship would have damaged your city too. It seems we're all refugees unable to return to our homes."
"But there is hope, if we work together, or starting a new life," said Nick, "We could take you to the city we secretly explored, when we had our ship. More to the point, you could take us, if we told you the way. You could settle there, and start new lives."
"We would be grateful, and could take care of you," said the leading giantess.
"In time, I could probably design a new space ship for us," said Mark, "but we'd need your help to obtain parts and build it in secrecy."
"We'll help each other all we can," said the leading giantess, "I am Zelthine, the leader of the Secret Sisters of Limbo."
The 12 ladies of Limbo were all extremely good looking, and soon found high paying jobs as models in the city, which funded their accommodation and food supplies with plenty of money to spare.
As time progressed, the all male party of earthlings and the all female Sisterhood of Limbo could not help the inevitable social intrigue which typically happened between people of the same sizes. 10 of the 12 giant women found the earthlings attractive. Every man except Mark responded, which saw seven budding romantic relationships formed. The other five women continued competing for Mark, who was more concerned with constructing the ship, which was becoming a very slow process. Finally Mark gave into the advances of the giantess he found most attractive. The others would simply have to find men their own size, and so the Little People were always kept at the places belonging to the eight women that they were dating. This would preserve secrecy.
One day they might all make it back to earth, or they might choose to stay with the giant women. Some might go. Some might stay. For now, it was all speculation, as they continued to work on the space ship that Dan was determined to call Spendthrift, as the title amused him in the light of Fitzhugh's stolen money being of no use to him. The conman had confessed it all, while under the reckless influence of giant whisky one night. They'd long suspected he wasn't the most honourable of naval officers anyway.