Kontakte and Thomas had brought the Warpsqueeze down smoothly with power to spare in the park in the middle of the day, while Eli and Danielle were just beginning their ordeal.
Several office secretaries were sitting on seats in the park during their lunch hours, enjoying a chance to eat their meals out of the offices in which they worked from nine until five. Upon sighting the Warpsqueeze's semi-public landing, they got up and approached, gently, so as to honour the new laws and cause the Little People no fear.
"Could this be new Little People?" one of them remarked, as Louisa led the party out of the ship to meet their giant spectators, "I'm Jonsonia."
"I'm Louisa, the leader of our party," said Ms Pearson, "And you are correct in assuming that we have only arrived on your planet. We're looking for a group of seven people we feel certain must have come here from our world some 27 years ago."
"She must mean the ones we've seen on Size Doesn't Scatter and the Cary Wringer show on TV," said another giantess, "The earlier Little Men have been in some interesting talk show interviews about their inter-size romances."
Thomas, along with a few of the passengers, found this remark to be interesting, to say the least.
The other secretaries introduced themselves too: Em-Elsy, Rocks-Ann, Langie, Hydea, Martina, Chifleyta, Ampera, Macquara, and Darlinga.
"I think we know what happened to the Spindrift now," said Pierre.
"You don't need to be afraid of us," said Chifleyta, "We're always happy to welcome Little People. We'll give you any help you need, and I'm sure we'd each be glad to have some of you board with us and look after your ship too."
The secretaries each took down Jonsonia's telephone number, to coordinate future arrangements, and Louisa encouraged them to gather up some earthlings to take with them. Jonsonia herself took Thomas, Kontakte, and the Warpsqueeze.
The exposure of Bertha's criminal history with the secret society had hurt her network's ratings severely. Cary Wringer's network soon held the number one position in the ratings, uncontested in any timeslot. The Frye Network was heavily investigated, and left in the hands of its deputy CEO. It was spiralling downwards in a matter of days, and stocks were soon sold quickly.
Jonsonia and Louisa eventually contacted Cary's network, and asked if the new Little People could appear on a new Cary Wringer show, to announce their presence in the Land of the Giants in the hope of making contact with Captain Steve Burton's group of Little People. The show was a success, and with the Warpsqueeze functioning perfectly and able to return the new visitors through the warp any time they wished, Steve and his friends saw no reason to compromise the security of giant Betty's apartment by mentioning the teleporters to the new visitors. It meant that they had no way to bring up the fact that they had been returning to and from earth a lot and had already become familiar with Mark's discovery of Louisa's web site.
The new community of Little People was happy to have its members make their homes with the secretaries. Those who wished to return home were taken back to earth by Kontakte and Thomas, who then returned to the Land of the Giants to explore what had become the moral utopia that they had landed on. Steve and Mark were particularly keen to share the planet's history with them. This gave Louisa's crew a good understanding of how blessed they had been to have arrived at a time when the Supreme Council would honour their rights and ensure their safety.
Louisa had her answers now. Yet something told her that it would be wise, even when she returned to earth, not to publicise her findings on the web site after all. For earthlings the world over to know of a warp to a Land of the Giants would make her team's secret giant utopia somewhat less special. After 27 years of devotion to her Spindrift cause, Louisa did not want it to turn into a worldwide earth craze. Her crew and passengers unanimously agreed with her on that matter.
Both widows Altha Franzen and Kristeene (surviving wife of the late Thorrg) had used their giant STMs to shrink themselves to earthling size and explore earth in various time periods. While Altha had been somewhat reckless in her use of time travel and size changing technology, Kristeene considered that it would be unsuitable for her to marry someone from a time prior to 1984, as it might take that man away from a wife that he might have had in the original timeline. So she decided to confine her search to any time after 1983.
Having shrunken herself and gone to earth in late 1984, Kristeene wandered the world and found that most of the boys and young men who caught the reduced giant model's fancy already had girlfriends or young wives. Yet the happiness of her days with Thorrg would not allow her to abandon her quest for inter-size romance and return alone to the Land of the Giants. Her time with Thorrg would have made an excellent subject for an episode of the Cary Wringer show in 2010, but Kristeene had never been to either world in that time period.
At the end of each unsuccessful day of searching earth 1984, Kristeene used her STM to return to her home in the Land of the Giants, and slept the night before venturing out again. Each day she would take some giant food with her, without shrinking it, so that it would amply feed her earthling sized reduced form. Though extremely wealthy in the Land of the Giants, she had no money on earth, and this procedure kept her well fed during her visits.
To gain a quick supply of one of the earth currencies, she found a modelling agency, which placed her with a company filming some commercials encouraging people to resist the standard Hollywood and television conditioning about weight loss. By the opinion of the earth masses, Kristeene was a little overweight. Yet the producer of the commercials had a preference for such physiques. Though he didn't appeal to Kristeene romantically, she believed in his cause, and modelled for his commercials. Soon she had enough money to get by on, and was able to purchase train tickets and other small earth necessities, without needing to pay for accommodation, thanks to her STM and her giant mansion estate at home.
One afternoon, she was riding in the downstairs section of a railway carriage, when she noticed that an extremely handsome adolescent boy at the top of the stairs, near the train doors, had been letting his eyes wander her way quite frequently. The lad was 16, and clearly shy. With the confidence and experience of a model in her twenties, Kristeene soon had his number, metaphorically speaking, and knew that the simple thing to do was wait for him to alight from the train and follow.
She soon caught up to the lad at the top of the railway station stairs and turned to smile at him.
"I'm Kristeene," she said, beginning a conversation just like that.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Kristeene," said the boy, "I'm Chad."
They walked and talked for a while, until they reached Chad's street.
"Would you like to see me again, Chad?" she asked.
"Yes," said Chad.
"Where's a good place to meet you? I can pay for outings, if you're not working while you're at school. Are there any nice cafes you can show me?"
He thought of one in the closest large metropolitan area to his suburb and arranged to meet her there on Friday afternoon as soon as the train brought him to that station after school. Coincidentally, it had been that station that the train had been stopped at, when she had noticed him staring.
After a few dates, he had loosened his nerves up enough for her to mention her advertisements and ask his opinion.
"I'm sorry I haven't seen them," he said, "My parents don't let me watch much TV with my school work. I'm glad you're not skinny though. I think that a bigger woman looks nicer."
He had unwittingly said exactly what she'd been hoping for. She knew he wasn't turning it on. A boy that age on his first dating opportunities would speak only from the heart.
"Just how much bigger is still nice to you?" she asked, with a secret reflection of mischief as she felt her STM nudged against the near side of her handbag.
"Well if you were taller, and proportionately wider, I'd still like you just as much, in fact even more. But you're fine to me as you are."
"How much taller and wider?" she asked, "What if I was a giant?"
"You mean twice my height?" he asked in reply.
"Well how about much bigger than that? What if I was so big that you were the size of one of my fingers?"
He stared at her with fascination and pictured what she had just described.
"I'd love it," he said, "It sounds exciting, but we wouldn't have room for privacy, and anyway, you can't become a giant."
"Maybe I can become a giant," she said, smiling in a curiously pleasant way, "And maybe I know somewhere that would have all the room I needed."
"I like this game. So where would that be?" he asked.
"On a whole planet of giants, in a city like yours only giant sized," said Kristeene.
"Well it's nice to imagine it," he said, "And I'm glad I met you. You're such an interesting beautiful girlfriend."
"I used to be married," she said, "Does that put you off at all?"
"No. If someone else liked you enough to marry you, then it just makes you all the more desirable to me," said Chad.
"He was your size too, but I met him on my giant world, when I was a giant," said Kristeene.
"I wish this was real," said Chad, "But it's fun, and so are you, Kristeene."
They went walking to the station and caught the train back to his suburb. He took her to a park and she stared happily at him.
"You're so young and handsome," she said, and put her arms around him and kissed him.
"You're so big and beautiful," said Chad, "I wish you really could become a giant."
"You still don't believe me, do you?" she laughed, "I really can become a giant. I'll show you one day. I'd like to keep you wondering about it for a while first. That's fun too."
After six weeks of dating, the school year came to an end, and Kristeene and Chad had more time together in the school holidays. One day they went on a bushwalk together, in one of Chad's favourite locations. They stopped at a high point and sat on a rock and looked down at the river and kissed each other several times.
"So you still don't think I'm really a giant, do you?"
"I'd love it if you were, but I'm a rational boy. My report card said I do well at school because I analyse the facts," said Chad.
"Would you like me to give you some new facts to analyse?" mused Kristeene, taking her STM out of her handbag and strapping the bag over her shoulder.
"Sure," said Chad.
Kristeene set the STM for her own home in the Land of the Giants, and took them both there instantly. After a few white sparks had dissipated, Chad could see that he was standing on the lawn of a giant sized garden.
"The scale of everything is impossible!" said Chad, "Yet there it is. I do believe you now. I'm sorry I didn't. I've just never seen anything like this before. Can you really become a giant?"
"I can. Would you like me to?" asked Kristeene, embracing him after putting down her bag and the STM.
"More than anything," said Chad.
Kristeene stepped back, picked up her bag and STM, activated the STM and restored herself and the STM to their natural giant sizes. Chad found himself looking up at the grand sight of the beautiful model in her towering pale green dress.
"Would you like me to pick you up?" she asked.
"Would I ever!" said Chad.
She lifted him up and sat him on a shoulder which was the most impressive upper body contact he had ever imagined he could enjoy. She sat on a garden chair, and talked with him. Eventually he walked across and kissed her giant neck.
"I came looking for someone your size on your world. I'm a former model on this world too, and I dismissed lots of men on your world, and found that lots more were unavailable. None of them are as sweet and handsome as you, Chad. I'm very glad to have you here, and my device can take us to earth and back whenever we like, and can also change my size to yours or mine as often as we like."
He saw her hand approaching, and was lifted up a few more feet to her mouth and kissed by her incredible giant lips.
Perhaps the greatest of all inter-size romances had begun some 26 years before television shows like Size Doesn't Scatter and the Cary Wringer show would ever start to document them.