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

the Chemist shouting in a shrill little voice.

"We think it best not to. You must come up to us. Serious things have happened. Take the drug now—then we'll tell you." The Big Business Man, with his knees upon the beach, had one hand on the sand and the other at the gate of Lylda's garden. His face was just above the roof-top.

The two little figures consulted a moment; then the Chemist shouted up, "All right; wait," and he and Lylda disappeared into the house. A moment afterwards they reappeared in the garden; Eena was with them. They crossed the garden and turned into the street towards the flight of steps that led down to the lake.

The Big Business Man had regained his feet and was standing ankle-deep in the water talking to the Doctor when Oteo suddenly plucked at his sleeve.

"The Master—" he cried. The youth was staring down into the street, with a look of terror on his face. The Big Business Man followed the direction of his glance; at the head of the steps a number of men had rushed upon the Chemist and the two women, and were dragging them back up the hill. The Big Business Man hesitated only a moment; then he reached down and plucking a little figure from one of the struggling groups, flung it back over his shoulder into the lake.

The other assailants did not run, as he had expected, so he gently pried them apart with his fingers from their captives, and, one by one, flung them into the air behind him. One who struck Lylda, he squashed upon the flagstones of the street with his thumb.

Only one escaped. He had been holding Eena; when he saw he was the last, he suddenly dropped his captive and ran shrieking up the hill into the city.

The Big Business Man laughed grimly, and got upon his feet a little unsteadily. His face was white.

"You see, Frank," he said, and his voice trembled a little. "Good God, suppose we had been that size, too."

In a few moments more the Chemist, Lylda and Eena had taken the drug and were as large as the others. All six stood in the water beside the Chemist's house. The Chemist had not spoken while he was growing; now he greeted his friends quietly. "A close call, gentlemen. I thank you." He smiled approvingly at the Big Business Man.

Eena and Oteo stood apart from the others. The girl was obviously terror-stricken by the experiences she had undergone. Oteo put his arm across her shoulders, and spoke to her reassuringly.

"Where is Jack?" Lylda asked anxiously. "And my father—and Aura?" The Big Business Man thought her face looked years older than when he had last seen it. Her expression was set and stern, but her eyes stared into his with a gentle, sorrowful gaze that belied the sternness of her lips.

They told her, as gently as they could, of the death of her father and the disappearance of the Very Young Man, presumably with Aura. She bore up bravely under the news of her father's death, standing with her hand on her husband's arm, and her sorrowful eyes fixed upon the face of the Big Business Man who haltingly told what had befallen them. When he came to a description of the attack on the palace, the death of the king, and the triumph of Targo, the Chemist raised his hands with a hopeless gesture.

The Doctor put in: "It's a serious situation—most serious."

"There's only one thing we can do," the Big Business Man added quickly. "We must find Jack and your sister," he addressed Lylda, whose eyes had never left his face, "and then get out of this world as quickly as we can—before we do it any more harm."

The Chemist began pacing up and down the strip of the beach. He had evidently reached the same conclusion—that it was hopeless to continue longer to cope with so desperate a situation. But he could not bring himself so easily to a realization that his life in this world, of which he had been so long virtually the leader, was at an end. He strode back and forth thinking deeply; the water that he kicked idly splashed up sometimes over the houses of the tiny city at his side.

The Big Business Man went on, "It's the only way—the best way for all of us and for this little world, too."

"The best way for you—and you." Lylda spoke softly and with a sweet, gentle sadness. "It is best for you, my friends. But for me——" She shook her head.

The Big Business Man laid his hands gently on her shoulders. "Best for you, too, little woman. And for these people you love so well. Believe me—it is."

The Chemist paused in his walk. "Probably Aura and Jack are together. No harm has come to them so far—that's certain. If his situation were desperate he would have made himself as large as we are and we would see him."

"If he got the chance," the Doctor murmured.

"Certainly he has not been killed or captured," the Chemist reasoned, "for we would have other giants to face immediately that happened."

"Perhaps he took the girl with him and started off to Orlog to find Loto," suggested the Doctor. "That crazy boy might do anything."

"He should be back by now, even if he had," said the Big Business Man. "I don't see how anything could happen to him—having those——" He stopped abruptly.

While they had been talking a crowd of little people had gathered in the city beside them—a crowd that thronged the street before the Chemist's house, filled the open space across from it and overflowed down the steps leading to the beach. It was uncanny, standing there, to see these swarming little creatures, like ants whose hill had been desecrated by the foot of some stray passer-by. They were enraged, and with an ant's unreasoning, desperate courage they were ready to fight and to die, against an enemy irresistibly strong.

"Good God, look at them," murmured the Big Business Man in awe.

The steps leading to the beach were black with them now—a swaying, struggling mass of little human forms, men and women, hardly a finger's length in height, coming down in a steady stream and swarming out upon the beach. In a few moments the sand was black with them, and always more appeared in the city above to take their places.

The Big Business Man felt a sharp sting in his foot above the sandal. One of the tiny figures was clinging to its string and sticking a sword into his flesh. Involuntarily he kicked; a hundred of the little creatures were swept aside, and when he put his foot back upon the sand he could feel them smash under his tread. Their faint, shrill, squeaking shrieks had a ghostly semblance to human voices, and he turned suddenly sick and faint.

Then he glanced at Lylda's face; it bore an expression of sorrow and of horror that made him shudder. To him at first these had been savage, vicious little insects, annoying, but harmless enough if one kept upon one's feet; but to her, he knew, they were men and women—misguided, frenzied—but human, thinking beings like herself. And he found himself wondering, vaguely, what he should do to repel them.

The attack was so unexpected, and came so quickly that the giants had stood motionless, watching it with awe. Before they realized their situation the sand was so crowded with the struggling little figures that none of them could stir without trampling upon scores.

Oteo and Eena, standing ankle-deep in the water, were unattacked, and at a word from the Chemist the others joined them, leaving little heaps of mangled human forms upon the beach where they had trod.

All except Lylda. She stood her ground—her face bloodless, her eyes filled with tears. Her feet were covered now; her ankles bleeding from a dozen tiny knives hacking at her flesh. The Chemist called her to him, but she only raised her arms with a gesture of appeal.

"Oh, my husband," she cried. "Please, I must. Let me take the drug now and grow small—like them. Then will they see we mean them no harm. And I shall tell them we are their friends—and you, the Master, mean only good——"

The Big Business Man started forward. "They'll kill her. God, that's——" But the Chemist held them back.

"Not now, Lylda," he said gently. "Not now. Don't you see? There's nothing you can do; it's too late now." He met her gaze unyielding. For a moment she stared; then her figure swayed and with a low sob she dropped in a heap upon the sand.

As Lylda fell, the Chemist leaped forward, the other three men at his side. A strident cry came up from the swarming multitude, and in an instant hundreds of them were upon her, climbing over her and thrusting their swords into her body.

The Chemist and the Big Business Man picked her up and carried her into the water, brushing off the fighting little figures that still clung to her. There they laid her down, her head supported by Eena, who knelt in the water beside her mistress.

The multitude on the sand crowded up to the water's edge; hundreds, forced forward by the pressure of those behind, plunged in, swam about, or sank and were rolled back by the surf, lifeless upon the shore. The beach crawled with their struggling forms, only the spot where Lylda had fallen was black and still.

"She's all right," said the Doctor after a moment, bending over Lylda. A cry from Oteo made him straighten up quickly. Out over the horizon, towards Orlog, there appeared the dim shape of a gigantic human form, and behind it others, faint and blurred against the stars!

CHAPTER XXXIII THE RESCUE OF LOTO

The Very Young Man heard the clang of the closing door with sinking heart. The two newcomers, passing close to him and Aura as they stood shrinking up against the wall, joined their friends at the table. The Very Young Man turned to Aura with a solemn face.

"Are there any other doors?" he asked.

The girl pointed. "One other, there—but see, it, too, is closed."

Far across the room the Very Young Man could make out a heavy metal door similar to that through which they had entered. It was closed—he could see that plainly. And to open it—so huge a door that its great golden handle hung nearly a hundred feet above them—was an utter impossibility.

The Very Young Man looked at the windows. There were four of them, all on one side of the room—enormous curtained apertures, two hundred feet in length and half as broad—but none came even within fifty feet of the floor. The Very Young Man realized with dismay that there was apparently no way of escape out of the room.

"We can't get out, Aura," he said, and in spite of him his voice trembled. "There's no way."

The girl had no answer but a quiet nod of agreement. Her face was serious, but there was on it no sign of panic. The Very Young Man hesitated a moment; then he started off down the room towards one of the doors, with Aura close at his side.

They could not get out in their present size, he knew. Nor would they dare make themselves sufficiently large to open the door, or climb through one of the windows, even if the room had been nearer the ground than it actually was. Long before they could escape they would be discovered and seized.

The Very Young Man tried to think it out clearly. He knew, except for a possible accident, or a miscalculation on his part, that they were in no real danger. But he did not want to make a false move, and now for the first time he realized his responsibility to Aura, and began to regret the rashness of his undertaking.

They could wait, of course, until the conference was over, and then slip out unnoticed. But the Very Young Man felt that the chances of their rescuing Loto were greater now than they would be probably at any time in the future. They must get out now, he was convinced of that. But how?

They were at the door in a moment more. Standing so close it seemed, now, a tremendous shaggy walling of shining metal. They walked its length, and then suddenly the Very Young Man had an idea. He threw himself face down upon the floor. Underneath the door's lower edge there was a tiny crack. To one of normal Oroid size it would have been unnoticeable—a space hardly so great as the thickness of a thin sheet of paper. But the Very Young Man could see it plainly; he gauged its size by slipping the edge of his robe into it.

This crack