pyle@ut-ngp.UUCP (03/29/84)
I remember the episode that moriarity mentions fairly well, and Ralph did get and lose the book. The instructions were an apparently meaningless series of letters/numbers/symbols that I gathered were susposed to induce a certain mental pattern. The suit operated by "reading" the pattern of the wearer and was apparently "tuned" only to read Ralph's mind, hence the suit only worked for him. As others have stated, his first use of the new book resulted in his shrinking, being startled by an ant, and returning to normal size. Unfortunately, he placed the book on a boulder (grain of sand) before returning and it stayed small. The alien behind all of this was indeed shown. As I recall, he was somewhat reptilian and told Ralph and Bill that he was the last survivor of his race. He showed them his home planet, now desolate as the result of some action (war, ecological diaster, ?) by his race. He had made it his task to insure that this did not happen to other planets and for some time had been helping Earth by choosing someone to use the suit for the good of the race. Keith Pyle . . .!ihnp4!ut-ngp!pyle