"Why not just explain it to these men?"
He laughed bitterly. "They wish to use their gigantic size to conquer the world. They can do it, too. Their minds have increased in power. Growth is that way. But moral values are something different—they are acquired by experience. Find some moral men who might use this information to circumvent what is about to happen."
I took the papers and shook his gigantic hand. I left via the back door, and sneaked through a clump of giant ferns to the edge of the airfield. A little prowling revealed a parked plane, long unused because those who had flown it here had grown too big to use it. I waited, hidden in the lush greenery until the setting sun would hide my movements. It would only be a few minutes now....
The hangar in which the plane was parked contained several gasoline drums, the kind with pumps on them that worked with a crank. I got into the hangar, finally, and before it got too dark to see, checked the plane's gas gauge. It was about a quarter full. I connected the gas hose and started pumping. In twenty minutes I had her full, then I climbed into the plane....
When the motor caught, after I was sure it never would, the thunder of the prop brought giants running toward me from the far end of the field, their twenty-foot strides eating up the distance. But I taxied straight toward them, giving the plane's motors all they would take. The plane roared down the field, and they fell flat as the prop came at them. The plane lifted, spun over them, was off. Now slugs from oversize rifles came buzzing about me, crashing through the fuselage. But it was dark and I was away. No serious damage had been done.
In Texas it took me four hours to get the brass to listen to me. Finally they did. They didn't ask me to keep my mouth shut. They just turned me loose. I went to my editor and told him the truth. He didn't believe me. When he checked with the army, they said I was obviously trying to perpetrate a hoax. I nearly got fired.
Months went by, and I waited. I knew I'd have to wait until my chance came. There'd have to be hellfire before anybody'd believe my story. Then the storm broke, in sensational headlines. "Gigantic beasts wipe out town in South America."
My editor sent for me. He showed me the headline. "Maybe I made a mistake not believing your story about Stegner," he said. "I make a lot of mistakes."
"You want me to cover this?" I said.