* * * * *
LAKE NAHUEL HUAPI, ARGENTINA
(10 FEBRUARY, 1943)
"Willkommen, Herr Keller," said the stocky man with the salt-and-pepper hair and pince-nez spectacles: "Ich bein Herr Professor Klaus Kraus. Und, dies ist Isla Utgard. I trust your journey here was a pleasant one?"
"Nein, Herr Professor," replied the trench-coated younger man: "It was not! I spent five of the last seven days breathing the stale air of a U-boat. After that, I spent eight hours, in a bone-jarring cattle truck, getting to an airfield with an obsolescent Fokker airplane...propelled by three near-deafening engines! So, to describe myself as not being in the best of humors would be an overly charitable under-statement."
"Ach, so?" countered Kraus: "Then, perhaps, you should rest and refresh yourself before we..."
"Nein!" repeated Wolfgang Keller (even more emphatically): "I have been sent here to examine your progress. So, das ist what we shall do. Sofort!* "
Kraus shrugged and nodded, resignedly. Whereupon, he led Keller to the main research building of the complex. The first room of which seemed to contain nothing but cages. And, the occupants of those cages made the newly arrived Gestapo agent livid with rage.
"Donnerwetter! For the past twelve months, we have been sending you badly needed funds, from our Swiss bank accounts, for your biochemical research. Und, dies ist what you have been doing with it? Breeding albino capybaras???!"
"Not quite, mein herr," replied a strangely calm Kraus: "Wacht!"
Kraus nodded to one of the male lab technicians along the far back wall. Whereupon, the latter reached into a small cage and withdrew a pure white guinea pig. Another technican then came along and injected it with the contents of a certain hypodermic needle. Thereby causing it to utter (in momentary pain) the kind of high-pitched squeal partly responsible for this rodent species' common name. The first technician then placed the guinea pig in one of the empty, Welsh pony-sized cages along the nearer wall.
A minute later, that guinea pig had expanded to fill almost every inch of the interior. Stunning the Gestapo agent speechless for twice that long!
"Gott in Himmel!" he muttered upon finally regaining his voice: "How...?"
"I call it 'Der Laestrygon Effect.' After a tribe of man-eating giants in Homer's 'Der Odyssey.' Mein old freund, Gustave Liebenkraft, regards that tribe as not only having existed at one time. But, also, as having been identical to the Jotuns of Norse mythology! Und, I have not only proved that true. I have also discovered the scientific reason for it. Spores from the mycorrhizal fungus called Amanita gemmata! More specifically; a variety of the species that grows in the vicinity of ancient meteor impact crater sites. The most geologically recent of which--the Tunguska River region of Siberia--was also my chief source of supply. Das ist; up until the commencement of the ill-fated Ordnung: Barbarossa!"
Keller's eyebrows arched in sudden realization.
"Is that why you had my people traipsing all through the woods of occupied Norway? To find more mushrooms with this same property?!"
"Ja und nein," the stocky scientist half-corrected him: "I had your people search the forests near the Gardnos Crater area of Norway. You see, most geologists regard that crater to be of volcanic origin due to the legend of it being a portal to the realm of Hela Lokisdottir! But, I believe it to be of...meteoric origin. Just like the crater lake in Siberia, where I first found these wondrous fungi!"
Keller looked back at the cage containing the newly gigantized guinea pig.
"Und, will the solution derived from these spores have the same effect on people?"
Kraus grinned and nodded. Slyly adding:
"All I need is permission to begin human trials."
Keller immediately subjected the scientist to a fixed stare.
"Permission granted."
tbc
Giantess World
Chapter End Notes:
* "Sofort" ("At once")!
Capybara: the largest rodent in the world (native to Brazil's Amazon Rain Forest).
"Wacht" ("Observe")!
Capybara: the largest rodent in the world (native to Brazil's Amazon Rain Forest).
"Wacht" ("Observe")!