A Small Place in the Sun Ch7 Pt10 The Eye of Ra

A Small Place in the Sun.
Chapter 7 The Eye of Ra.
Part 10

“You are welcome. Can I help you out of there Geordie?” She asked him softly.

George continued to stare at her, there was something very different about Sandra. Maybe it was simply that being so small while Sandra was now huge, he could make out many features of her face that would have gone unnoticed had he been his... large size. Whatever it was, she was different, she seemed more relaxed and the strain of her anger seemed to be gone. She looked even more youthful then when he had first met her.

Sandra suddenly became very self-conscious when George failed to respond to her question. “Maybe... maybe you don't trust me. I... know I've said things, gone out of my way to piss you off. I'm a.....”

“A self-reliant woman who was put into a situation she never dreamed o' bein' in.” George interrupted, finishing her sentence for her. “Let’s not start a discussion that we will end up regretting.” He took off the restraining belts that held him in his seat and he pulled himself over the side of the cockpit as Sandra quickly brought her hand back to catch him as he let himself drop over the side into her palm.

Yet again, Sandra found herself amazed as she held yet another tiny person in her hand. However, this time, the amazement was soon replaced by the emotions Sandra had felt when she had been restored earlier. Looking at George, sitting in her hand. It just felt wrong somehow.

George saw her expression change. “Is everything alright lass?”

“It's.... I'm... just fine.” She replied. “I just had a thought pop into my head.” She said, changing the subject and giving George a warm smile.

“Oh yeah? Care tae share it?” George asked.

“Well, my instrument panel is pretty dirty, and I do happen to have some spray cleaner and a roll or two of paper towels. So I thought I might just put you to work for a change.”

George laughed at the broad grin on her face. “Turnabout is fair play as they say.”

“You would actually clean my instruments then?” Sandra asked.

“Sure, why not? I will wager I could do the job better and faster, then you did when ya cleaned mine.” He said with a wink.

“Hey! Not fair. Your instrument panel is far larger then what I have on this boat, and you know it!”

“Says who? It looks right huge tae me.” George said teasing her.

Sandra laughed and set him down on the deck in front of her. “Well, I would put you to work, but you currently don't have any anger issues to work out. So I guess you are off the hook.”

George nodded and smiled at her. He walked over to his plane and went under the nose to the other side where he put the ladder away. Walking back under the plane again he brought himself to the other side of the deck and sat down with his feet dangling over the side. The floor of the cockpit was a long fall away. He brought out the ray gun and shot himself. Sandra watched him as he quickly returned to his normal size.

“Do you ever get used to seeing all of this? People shrinking and growing in front of you? Little people sitting in your hand, or being held by a Giant?” She asked him once he had been restored.

George slid off the edge of the deck, letting his feet touch the floor of the cockpit, which was only a short drop of 22 inches away from the heal of his boots. He turned to face Sandra. “Honestly, so far I still get amazed..... Amazed.... every......”

George began to notice that as he was speaking to Sandra, as he looked at her face, his line of sight from his eyes to hers was very wrong. It was slight, but he was still looking up at her eyes. She was still taller than him. If she was 5 feet 2 inches, then he estimated that he had only grown to be about 5 feet tall. He turned to Neil and Kim, Neil was sat on the lounge with Kim lying upon her stomach on his left leg as he massaged her back.

“Neil, Kim. There is a problem wi' the gun.” George said, causing them to look up at him. They both looked at him intently as he turned his gaze back to Sandra and gestured. “I've lost about a foot of my height. It did'nae restore me completely.

Kim looked at George and Sandra and started to laugh. “George, it's.......”

“Are you sure you set the gun to Restore, George?” Neil asked. “Let me see the gun. You may not have set the dial in the right spot.”  

George looked at the dial himself and then turned the gun around to show Neil that it had been set properly. Sandra was listening and even she looked startled for a moment as she looked at George. She soon blushed and turned her head away to try and hide the wide smile that came to her face as she sought to gain control of herself before she started laughing.

“Oh wow George.” Kim said. “You set the gun correctly, so maybe, something got knocked loose or damaged inside when we landed. That net did bring us to a rough stop. It sure jarred me. But we may have a serious problem here if that is the case.”

Kim took out her gun and shot herself. After she and her gun grew back to their original sizes she gave her gun a second look to make sure that it was set properly and then shot George again. George felt and saw no difference as he continued to look at Sandra. He turned back to Kim, who was still sitting on Neil's lap.

“Oh no.” Kim said. “That's what I was afraid of. The main board or the CPU in your gun may have been damaged. In restoring you, the chip brought you back to this height and sadly, it has basically “reset” your original height to what you are now. I didn't bring a measuring tape, but it looks like you are right. You are about 5 feet tall now. I'm.... I'm not sure this is something Peggy can fix George. We will have to tie in the board to one of our computers back on the Antelope and see if we can retrieve your original parameters from the system core memory.”

“O.... O K.” George said in a shaky voice. He turned and looked back at Sandra, who was smiling at him.

“You do look cute George.” Sandra stated, accentuating the word 'cute' knowing full well that it would only unsettle him even further in his already very flustered state of mind.

“I knew this damn invention was a bad idea.” He said finally.

Sandra, Neil, and Kim all burst into laughter at his comment. Neil and Kim suddenly realizing that they might have taken the little joke too far in scaring George. For Neil had known right away, what it was that had gotten George so worried. Kim had only noticed the problem when she looked up and examined George and Sandra. And Sandra was so used to her boat that it did not dawn on her right away what George was upset about.

Finally Sandra looked at George and said, “You're alright George. Look down at my feet.”

George looked down, and then he too saw the reason for Sandra's height advantage. Her boat had originally been designed for racing, and as such it had a deep cockpit for the safety of the crew operating the boat. The forward two seats were designed that seat bottoms could be folded away and the seat backs, along with their armrests would move forward so that the driver and the observer could stand up and be supported safely as they ran the boat. The boat had been designed for men with an average height of 5 feet 10 inches or taller to run the boat with good all-around visibility over the long foredeck ahead of the cockpit.

Sandra, with her small stature, could just barely see over the instrument cluster when she stood at the helm which was O K so long as she was only going very slowly with the boat. But it was dangerous for her once the boat was moving at higher speeds where the hull would start to plane, since the bow would rise up and she would then have no forward vision. If she adjusted the seat height, she had good visibility while sitting down, but it was a pain for her to climb into the seat. So when she bought the boat and started modifying it for her purposes, she added a folding teak platform that was attached to the bulkhead below the instrument panel. This platform was situated so that when in use, it was a foot above the floor of the cockpit. This made it much easier for Sandra to use the seat when she felt like sitting down. But it also added a foot to her standing height, so that she had excellent visibility at all times and in all conditions at sea. She preferred to run the boat from a standing position most of the time anyway.

George burst out laughing along with everyone else as he realized all was right within his world again.
“Damn you guys fer playin' me like that.” He said finally.

“I'm sorry Boss, but I couldn't resist teasing you. It was just too good not to pass up.” Neil said.

“I suppose you will want to shrink me now.” Sandra said softly.

“No just yet lass. I'm sure you would like tae enjoy drivin' your boat for the trip back tae the Antelope.” George said. “You deserve tae be your own size again. Ya must be happy tae be your right size where the world makes sense eh?”

“Yeah..... Sure.... Thanks George.” She said slowly. Yet as she spoke the words, her mind was fighting with her. She actually wanted to be small again. George brought the plane down from the deck and set it down behind the seat he was going to be using on the port side of the boat. This placed the plane just in front of Neil and Kim where they were sat on the lounge seat.

“Keep an eye on it for me.” George asked Neil, who responded with a nod and a thumbs up as his other hand started massaging Kim's back as she was slowly shrinking on his lap. Sandra stood watching the strange sight. Kim had adjusted the settings so that she would only reduce slowly as she shrank down to her 1/12th scale. Sandra found it to be very erotic and she soon blushed and turned away from the couple as she started to feel like an intruder. She had to stop herself from asking them if they wanted to use the privacy of her forward cabin.

With the plane put safely away. Sandra pushed the throttles up again and turned the boat to the northwest and set a course back to the Antelope. She kept the speed down to a more comfortable 24 knots as they made the return trip due to the building seas. The waves now averaged about 3 to 4 feet tall with deep swells. She remained quiet as she kept her eyes focused on the sea ahead. Her mind was deep in thought pondering her mixed emotions over the course of the day. She had found herself mesmerized at Kim in her hand. She was so cute sitting there. She was trying to grasp at why she felt so different between holding Kim and then George. She wasn't attracted to Kim in any sexual way. She had no lesbian tendencies. Oh, she had once experimented with one of her friends back when they had formed their rock group, The Sirens, and they had spent a night together. Sandra had wondered what it would be like, since who would know how to please a woman better then another woman. She soon found out that a woman could be just as clueless about pleasuring another woman as a man could. Everyone's bodies were unique in one way or another, and what might work on your own body, a touch here, a caress there, along with a playful bite, or a lick of the tongue thrown in for good measure would not necessarily work in pleasing your same sex partner. No, you still had to work at discovering, through trial and error, how to find and unlock the secrets that would bring your lover to ache for only your touch, regardless if they were male or female.

She thought back to when Peggy had asked her if she had ever wished to be taller. She had answered truthfully that she had always been fine with her height. Why was that? She thought. She looked back on her life, remembering when she was very young and how teachers and other adults would always compliment her on how cute she looked.

Then her memories took her to her high school years, and how every guy that saw her wanted to take her out. They couldn't stop staring at her. She remembered picture days for the school yearbook. She was one of those petite girls who had a perfectly proportioned body. Whenever she had pictures taken standing in front of some bare wall, or a plain color backdrop, with no props or furniture in the frame, she always looked taller then she really was. Her legs looked long and slender, shapely, yet in perfect scale to the rest of her. Her hips, her torso, her arms, her head, everything was in perfect harmony. In her pictures, she could easily pass for a much taller woman. She smiled to herself. It was as if she had once been a 6 foot tall Amazon, but someone had shrunk her slightly in her sleep one night.

After she graduated high school, her life went on the same way. She always enjoyed the looks people gave her as she walked along the sidewalk fronting San Diego's waterfront. Men, even married men, were drawn to look at her. For women, there was just something about being small that made them cuter and more enticing. She could understand why Peggy, even though she was an attractive woman in her own right, wanted to be smaller. Tall women were not as appealing to most men. Of course there were some men who loved their women taller, but in the mainstream, shorter was cuter.

Taller women were often viewed as being domineering, assertive, and controlling bitches that men avoided whenever they could. Tall women were seen as being liberated and more then capable of looking after themselves. Small women were viewed very differently indeed and they attracted not only decent upstanding guys, but they were often the prey of abusive, and manipulative men. While she loved the attention she got, she also found that she had to learn how to defend herself when that attention led to situations she did not want or desire in kind. In the end, Sandra adopted all of the traits that men found unattractive in women. She became, in essence, a tall woman trapped in a short woman's body. She smiled at that thought.

While she was naturally small, she had never felt helpless, not ever, until the day George came and shrank her to a mere 5 inches tall. She had felt then, that there was indeed, such a thing as being too small. And yet, George had taught her that even being reduced to the size of a doll, she was not completely helpless, not if she used her brain, was patient, and she could control her emotions.

She thought about George. He had looked very cute when she had held him in her palm. And there was a part of her that had wanted to just hold and protect him, and it was that very thought that made it so very wrong for her, at least with George. Sandra now found herself wanting George to be the White Knight she had accused him of trying to be. And to Sandra, heroes needed to be big, tall, and strong to fit her vision of the world. Seeing a tiny guy bordered on the absurd. Oh there had been a time when they first met, that she would have liked nothing better than having George in the palm of her hand. She would have loved to have slowly crushed the life out of him. However, she no longer wanted to hurt George.

Henry appeared in Sandra's thoughts. Now there was a guy any woman would enjoy having in the palm of their hands just to experiment in discovering new creative ways in which to torture and eventually do away with the sleazy, abusive, scumbag.

“Penny for your thoughts.” George offered her, bringing Sandra back into the present. He had been watching her, enjoying the kaleidoscope playing across her face as the expressions changed to fit her thoughts.

Sandra turned to him and smiled. “I think they are worth much more than a penny.”

                      *************************************************

Phoenix Archer called in his two associates. The two men entered the cabin and closed the door.

“Orders sir?” John asked.

“We enact Set's Judgment tonight at 2230 hours gentlemen. However the charges need to be set for a controlled detonation. We have transport coming to pick us up at 2300 hours, however we must always factor in that they may not arrive at the exact time.” Archer said.

“In anticipation that you would so order sir, I have already set the charges as you have requested.” Adam responded, holding up a small black box that looked similar to an automatic garage door opener with a small white button in its center. He brought up his other hand and placed the remote into a protective sheath.

“Thank you Adam. Now, after we are picked up. We will be taken to the USS Wraith where we can gear up for our next move. Which we will launch tomorrow night.” Archer turned to his desk and picked up two folders and turning back to the two men, he gave one folder to each man. “This is our target. Be sure to study the layout of the ship. Also study the dossiers on each passenger. Pay specific attention to the first two, particularly George Grant. If you find him, he is to be eliminated immediately. The rest are to be taken alive. Under no circumstances are the three women to be hurt.”

“Sir? If I may?” John asked. “The Blond. The Van Clousen girl? Isn't she a liability at this point? Clearly...”

“I may need her John.” Archer stated. “She may make a valuable addition to the Company, or, we may need her as an offering to appease our partner. In any case, take these files to your room and study them thoroughly until you can see each page clearly in your minds. And then as always...”

“Destroy the documents.” The two men said in unison. They then turned and left Archer alone in his cabin.

Archer, sighed as he fished out his cellphone and found Waldhern's number and had the phone dial it. He hated making these useless checkup calls. Waldhern really couldn't give him any new intelligence on the situation he had not already been given by the Eye.