* * * * *
"2 Jan. 1930:
The New Year has been kind to me. Last night, I was re-united with Klaus Kraus; my former under-graduate roommate at Leipzig! He is a professor of biochemistry, now. With cross-training in pharmacological botany. And, after several hours of beer-fueled reminiscing, he revealed to me that, while conducting blood analyses for the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Geneva, he came across an interesting file."
" 'It was the one pertaining to your little...misadventure...at Kapu Hiva.' "
"I was initially reluctant to recount my side of things, as it has taken me almost seven years to convince myself that I was hallucinating, at the time. But, I relented after he took me back to his house, and showed me something astounding in the laboratory he has made for himself, in his proportionately modified basement."
"First, he filled an hypodermic needle with a clear solution of some kind. Then, he grabbed one of the white mice he privately breeds for his own experiments...and injected it with the solution."
"In the space of ninety seconds, it had grown to the size of a rat!"
" 'Gott in Himmel!' I exclaimed: 'How...?' "
" 'Distilled water containing microscopic spores,' he replied: 'Spores I extracted from several mushrooms I found at the base of a first-generation regrowth conifer near Lake Cheko. In the Tunguska region of Siberia!' "
"Whereupon, he told me how he had been part of a scientific expedition to that region, six months earlier. The aim of this expedition, funded by the Thule Society, was to see how plant and animal life of the region had recovered (if at all), in the twenty years since the infamous meteorite impact."
" 'Our resident zoologist, Bernhard Heuvelmann, was astonished by the above-average size of the local reindeer. They were, at least, twice the size of the closely-related American caribou. In fact, they were closer in size to the extinct Irish elk! And, obviously, I soon discovered why.' "
"So, we went upstairs to his living room, where I recounted my version of the events at Kapu Hiva. Fortified by several shots of Schnops!"
"When I had finished, he said to me: 'It is my hypothesis that something was left behind by the Tunguska meteorite. Something that has long since entered the ground water that the regrowth trees have soaked up. And, which has been absorbed by mycorhizzal fungi, in turn.' "
" 'It is therefore possible,' he added: '...that you did not hallucinate seeing a giantess at Kapu Hiva. That she might actually _be_ a proto-Polynesian who partook of some genetically mutated mushrooms. And, became mutated herself. Perhaps, even to the point of gaining equally heightened mental powers (including extra-sensory hypnotic suggestion)! It is also possible that the male and female giants of our _own_ country's folklore were not figments of bardic imagination, either.' "
"As a result of this fateful reunion, I am going to apply for membership in the Thule Society, myself. First thing tomorrow."
* * * * *
"31 Jan. 1930:
My application has finally been approved."
* * * * *
"1 May 1931:
I did it! I finally have proof the Varangiants truly existed. The personal journal of Ilya Muromets; yeoman turcopole of the Teutonic Knight, Holgar Gudfredsen. Now, the board of governors will _have_ to believe me, and grant me further funding."
* * * * *
"2 May 1931:
Verdammt dumpkopfen!"
tbc
Giantess World
Chapter End Notes:
The Thule Society was a real-life occult secret society that Hitler belonged to, just prior to World War II. And, "Bernhard Heuvelmann" is strictly a pun/pastiche on Bernard Heuvelmans (the French-Belgian "Father of Cryptozoology").