The Girl in the Golden Atom by Ray Cummings (buy e reader txt) 📗

a broad disc of porous stone; a similar stone section divided the cylinder horizontally into halves. From the bowl a fluid was dropping in a tiny stream through the top stone segment into the upper compartment, which was now about half full. This in turn filtered through the second stone into the lower compartment. This lower section was marked in front with a large number of fine horizontal lines, an equal distance apart, but of unequal length. In it the fluid stood now just above one of the longer lines-the fourth from the bottom. On the top of this fluid floated a circular disc almost the size of the inside diameter of the cylinder.

The Chemist explained. "It really is very much like the old hour-glass we used to have in your world. This filters liquid instead of sand. You will notice the water filters twice." He indicated the two compartments. "That is because it is necessary to have a liquid that is absolutely pure in order that the rate at which it filters through this other stone may remain constant. The clock is carefully tested, so that for each eclipse the water will rise in this lower part of the cylinder, just the distance from here to here."

The Chemist put his fingers on two of the longer marks.

"Very ingenious," remarked the Doctor. "Is it accurate?"

"Not so accurate as your watches, of course," the Chemist answered. "But still, it serves the purpose. These ten longer lines, you see, mark the ten eclipses that constitute one of our days. The shorter lines between indicate halves and quarter intervals."

"Then it is only good for one day?" asked the Very Young Man. "How do you set it?"

"It resets automatically each day, at the beginning of the first eclipse. This disc," the Chemist pointed to the disc floating on the water in the lower compartment. "This disc rises with the water on which it is floating. When it reaches the top of it, it comes in contact with a simple mechanism—you'll see it up there—which opens a gate below and drains out the water in a moment. So that every morning it is emptied and starts filling up again. All that is needed is to keep this bowl full of water."

"It certainly seems very practical," observed the Big Business Man. "Are there many in use?"

"Quite a number, yes. This clock was invented by Reoh, some thirty years ago. He is the greatest scientist and scholar we have." The old man smiled deprecatingly at this compliment.

"Are these books?" asked the Very Young Man; he had wandered over to the table and was fingering one of the bound sheets of parchment.

"They are Reoh's chronicles," the Chemist answered. "The only ones of their kind in Arite."

"What's this?" The Very Young Man pointed to another instrument.

"That is an astronomical instrument, something like a sextant—also an invention of Reoh's. Here is a small telescope and——" The Chemist paused and went over to another table standing at the side of the room.

"That reminds me, gentlemen," he continued; "I have something here in which you will be greatly interested."

"What you—will see," said Reoh softly, as they gathered around the Chemist, "you only, of all people, can understand. Each day I look, and I wonder; but never can I quite believe."

"I made this myself, nearly ten years ago," said the Chemist, lifting up the instrument; "a microscope. It is not very large, you see; nor is it very powerful. But I want you to look through it." With his cigar-lighter he ignited a short length of wire that burned slowly with a brilliant blue spot of light. In his hand he held a small piece of stone.

"I made this microscope hoping that I might prove with it still more conclusively my original theory of the infinite smallness of human life. For many months I searched into various objects, but without success. Finally I came upon this bit of rock." The Chemist adjusted it carefully under the microscope with the light shining brilliantly upon it.

"You see I have marked one place; I am going to let you look into it there."

The Doctor stepped forward. As he looked they heard his quick intake of breath. After a moment he raised his head. On his face was an expression of awe too deep for words. He made place for the others, and stood silent.

When the Very Young Man's turn came he looked into the eyepiece awkwardly. His heart was beating fast; for some reason he felt frightened.

At first he saw nothing. "Keep the other eye open," said the Chemist.

The Very Young Man did as he was directed. After a moment there appeared before him a vast stretch of open country. As from a great height he stared down at the scene spread out below him. Gradually it became clearer. He saw water, with the sunlight—his own kind of sunlight it seemed—shining upon it. He stared for a moment more, dazzled by the light. Then, nearer to him, he saw a grassy slope, that seemed to be on a mountain-side above the water. On this slope he saw animals grazing, and beside them a man, formed like himself.

The Chemist's voice came to him from far away. "We are all of us here in a world that only occupies a portion of one little atom of the gold of a wedding-ring. Yet what you see there in that stone——"

The Very Young Man raised his head. Before him stood the microscope, with its fragment of stone gleaming in the blue light of the burning wire. He wanted to say something to show them how he felt, but no words came. He looked up into the Chemist's smiling face, and smiled back a little foolishly.

"Every day I look," said Reoh, breaking the silence. "And I see—wonderful things. But never really—can I believe."

At this moment there came a violent rapping upon the outer door. As Reoh left the room to open it, the Very Young Man picked up the bit of stone that the Chemist had just taken from the microscope.

"I wish—may I keep it?" he asked impulsively.

The Chemist smiled and nodded, and the Very Young Man was about to slip it into the pocket of his robe when Reoh hastily reentered the room, followed by Oteo. The youth was breathing heavily, as though he had been running, and on his face was a frightened look.

"Bad; very bad," said the old man, in a tone of deep concern, as they came through the doorway.

"What is it, Oteo?" asked the Chemist quickly. The boy answered him with a flood of words in his native tongue.

The Chemist listened quietly. Then he turned to his companions.

"Targo has escaped," he said briefly. "They sent word to me at home, and Oteo ran here to tell me. A crowd broke into the court-house and released him. Oteo says they went away by water, and that no one is following them."

The youth, who evidently understood English, added something else in his own language.

"He says Targo vowed death to all who have the magic power. He spoke in the city just now, and promised them deliverance from the giants."

"Good Lord," murmured the Very Young Man.

"He has gone to Orlog probably," the Chemist continued. "We have nothing to fear for the moment. But that he could speak, in the centre of Arite, after this morning, and that the people would listen—"

"It seems to me things are getting worse every minute," said the Big Business Man.

Oteo spoke again. The Chemist translated. "The police did nothing. They simply stood and listened, but took no part."

"Bad; very bad," repeated the old man, shaking his head.

"What we should do I confess I cannot tell," said the Chemist soberly. "But that we should do something drastic is obvious."

"We can't do anything until Lylda gets back," declared the Very Young Man. "We'll see what she has done. We might have had to let Targo go anyway."

The Chemist started towards the door. "To-night, by the time of sleep, Reoh," he said to the old man, "I expect Lylda will have returned. You had better come to us then with Aura. I do not think you should stay here alone to sleep to-night."

"In a moment—Aura comes," Reoh answered. "We shall be with you—very soon."

The Chemist motioned to his companions, and with obvious reluctance on the part of the Very Young Man they left, followed by Oteo.

On the way back the city seemed quiet—abnormally so. The streets were nearly deserted; what few pedestrians they met avoided them, or passed them sullenly. They were perhaps half-way back to the Chemist's house when the Very Young Man stopped short.

"I forgot that piece of stone," he explained, looking at them queerly. "Go on. I'll be there by the time you are," and disregarding the Chemist's admonition that he might get lost he left them abruptly and walked swiftly back over the way they had come.

Without difficulty, for they had made few turns, the Very Young Man located Reoh's house. As he approached he noticed the figure of a man lounging against a further corner of the building; the figure disappeared almost as soon as he saw it.

It was a trivial incident, but, somehow, to the Very Young Man, it held something in it of impending danger. He did not knock on the outer door, but finding it partly open, he slowly pushed it wider and stepped quietly into the hallway beyond. He was hardly inside when there came from within the house a girl's scream—a cry of horror, abruptly stifled.

For an instant, the Very Young Man stood hesitating. Then he dashed forward through an open doorway in the direction from which the cry had seemed to come.

The room into which he burst was Reoh's study; the room he had left only a few moments before. On the floor, almost across his path, lay the old man, with the short blade of a sword buried to the hilt in his breast. In a corner of the room a young Oroid girl stood with her back against the wall. Her hands were pressed against her mouth; her eyes were wide with terror. Bending over the body on the floor with a hand at its armpit, knelt the huge, gray figure of a man. At the sound of the intruder's entrance he looked up quickly and sprang to his feet.

The Very Young Man saw it was Targo!

CHAPTER XXVI THE ABDUCTION

When the Very Young Man left them so unceremoniously the Chemist and his companions continued on their way home, talking earnestly over the serious turn affairs had taken. Of the three, the Big Business Man appeared the most perturbed.

"Lylda isn't going to accomplish anything," he said. "It won't work. The thing has gone too far. It isn't politics any longer; it's a struggle against us—a hatred and fear of our supernatural powers."

"If we had never come——" began the Doctor.

"It probably would have worked out all right," finished the Big Business Man. "But since we're here——"

"We could leave," the Doctor suggested.

"It has gone too far; I agree with you," the Chemist said. "Your going would not help. They would never believe I did not still possess the magic. And now, without the drugs I might not be able to cope with affairs. It is a very serious situation."

"And getting worse all the time," added the Big Business Man.

When they arrived at the Chemist's home Loto did not run out to meet them as the Chemist expected. They called his name, but there was no answer. Inside the house they perceived at once that something was wrong. The living-room was in disorder; some of the pieces of furniture had been overturned, and many of the smaller articles were scattered about the floor. Even the wall-hangings had been torn down.

In sudden fear the Chemist ran through the building, calling to Loto. Everywhere he saw evidence of intruders, who had ransacked the rooms, as though making a hasty search. In one of the rooms, crouched on the floor, he came upon Eena, Lylda's little serving-maid. The girl was stricken dumb with terror. At the sight of her master she sobbed with relief, and after a few moments told him what had happened.

When the Chemist rejoined his friends in the lower room his face was set and white. The girl followed him closely, evidently afraid to be left alone. The Chemist spoke quietly, controlling his emotion with obvious difficulty.

"Loto has been stolen!" he said. "Targo and four of his men were here soon after we left. Eena saw them and hid. They searched the house——"

"For the drugs," muttered the Doctor under his breath.

"——and then left, taking Loto with them."

"Which way did they go?" asked the Big Business Man. "Good God, what a thing!"

"They went by water, in a large boat that was waiting