The Girl in the Golden Atom by Raymond King Cummings (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

roof. He advanced to the parapet with several others standing respectfully behind him.

"Targo!" murmured Oteo.

It was Targo—Targo triumphantly standing with uplifted arms before the people he was to rule. When the din that was raised at his appearance had subsided a little he spoke; one short sentence, and then he paused. There was a moment of indecision in the crowd before it broke into tumultuous cheers.

"The king—he killed," Oteo said softly, looking at his master's friends with big, frightened eyes.

The Big Business Man stared out over the waving, cheering throng, with the huge, dominant, triumphant figure of Targo above and muttered to himself, "The king is dead; long live the king."

When he could make himself heard, Targo spoke again. The Doctor and the Big Business Man were leaning over the parapet watching the scene, when suddenly a stone flew up from the crowd beneath, and struck the railing within a few feet of where they were standing. They glanced down in surprise, and realized, from the faces that were upturned, that they were recognized. A murmur ran over the crowd directly below, and then someone raised a shout. Four words it seemed to be, repeated over and over. Gradually the shout spread—"Death to the Giants," the Big Business Man knew it was—"Death to the Giants," until the whole mass of people were calling it rhythmically—drowning out Targo's voice completely. A thousand faces now stared up at the men on the roof-top and a rain of stones began falling around them.

The Doctor clutched his friend by the arm and pulled him back from the parapet. "They know us—good God, don't you see?" he said tensely. "Come on. We must get out of this. There'll be trouble." He started across the roof towards the opening that led down into the house.

The Big Business Man jerked himself free from the grasp that held him.

"I do see," he cried a little wildly. "I do see we've been damn fools. There'll be trouble. You're right—there will be trouble; but it won't be ours. I'm through—through with this miserable little atom and its swarm of insects." He gripped the Doctor by both shoulders. "My God, Frank, can't you understand? We're men, you and I—men! These creatures"—he waved his arm back towards the city—"nothing but insects—infinitesimal—smaller than the smallest thing we ever dreamed of. And we take them seriously. Don't you understand? Seriously! God, man, that's funny, not tragic."

He fumbled at the neck of his robe, and tearing it away, brought out a vial of the drugs.

"Here," he exclaimed, and offered one of the pellets.

"Not too much," warned the Doctor vehemently, "only touch it to your tongue."

Oteo, with pleading eyes, watched them taking the drug, and the Doctor handed him a pellet, showing him how to take it.

As they stood together upon the roof-top, clinging to one another, the city dwindled away rapidly beneath them. By the time the drug had ceased to act there was hardly room for them to stand on the roof, and the house, had it not been built solidly of stone, would have been crushed under their weight. At first they felt a little dizzy, as though they were hanging in mid-air, or were in a balloon, looking down at the city. Then gradually, they seemed to be of normal size again, balancing themselves awkwardly upon a little toy-house whose top was hardly bigger than their feet.

The park, only a step now beneath the house-top, swarmed with tiny figures less than two inches in height. Targo still stood upon the palace roof; they could have reached down and picked him up between thumb and forefinger. The whole city lay within a radius of a few hundred feet around them.

When they had stopped increasing in size, they leaped in turn over the palace, landing upon the broad beach of the lake. Then they began walking along it. There was only room for one on the sand, and the other two, for they walked abreast, waded ankle-deep in the water. From the little city below them they could hear the hum of a myriad of tiny voices—thin, shrill and faint. Suddenly the Big Business Man laughed. There was no hysteria in his voice now—just amusement and relief.

"And we took that seriously," he said. "Funny, isn't it?"

CHAPTER XXIX ON THE LAKE

"You're right—we are being followed," the Very Young Man said soberly. He had pulled the girl over close against the wall of a house. "Did you see that?"

"Three, they are," Aura answered. "I saw them before—in the street below—Targo's men."

Evidently the three men had been watching the house from which they had come and had followed them from there. If they were Targo's men, as seemed very probable, the Very Young Man could not understand why they had not already attacked him. Perhaps they intended to as soon as he and Aura had reached a more secluded part of the city. They must know he had the drugs, and to gain possession of those certainly was what they were striving for. The Very Young Man realized he must take no chances; to lose the drugs would be fatal to them all.

"Are we near the edge of the city?" he asked.

"Yes, very near."

"Then we shall get large here. If we make a run for it we will be in the country before we are big enough to attract too much attention. Understand, Aura?"

"I understand."

"We mustn't stir up the city if we can help it; with giants running around, the people would get worked up to a frenzy. You could see that with Lylda this afternoon. Not that you can blame them altogether, but we want to get Loto back before we start anything here in Arite." He took the pellets out as he spoke, and they each touched one of them to the tip of their tongues.

"Now, then, come on—not too fast, we want to keep going," said the Very Young Man, taking the girl by the hand again.

As they started off, running slowly down the street, the Very Young Man looked back. The three men were running after them—not fast, seeming content merely to keep their distance. The Very Young Man laughed. "Wait till they see us get big. Fine chance they've got."

Aura, her lithe, young body in perfect condition, ran lightly and easily as a fawn. She made a pretty picture as she ran, with her long, black hair streaming out behind her, and the short silk tunic flapping about her lean, round thighs. She still held the Very Young Man by the hand, running just in advance of him, guiding him through the streets, which in this part of the city were more broken up and irregular.

They had not gone more than a hundred yards when the pavement began to move unsteadily under them, as the deck of a plunging ship feels to one who runs its length, and the houses they were swiftly passing began visibly to decrease in size. The Very Young Man felt the girl falter in her stride. He dropped her hand and slipped his arm about her waist, holding her other hand against it. She smiled up into his eyes, and thus they ran on, side by side.

A few moments more and they were in the open country, running on a road that wound through the hills, between cultivated fields dotted here and there with houses. The landscape dwindled beneath them steadily, until they seemed to be running along a narrow, curving path, bordered by little patches of different-colored ground, like a checkerboard. The houses they passed now hardly reached as high as their knees. Sometimes peasants stood in the doorways of these houses watching them in terror. Occasionally they passed a farmer ploughing his field, who stopped his work, stricken dumb, and stared at them as they went swiftly by.

When they were well out into the country, perhaps a quarter of the way to Orlog—for to beings so huge as they the distance was not great—the Very Young Man slowed down to a walk.

"How far have we gone?" he asked.

Aura stopped abruptly and looked around her. They seemed now to be at the bottom of a huge, circular, shallow bowl. In every direction from where they stood the land curved upward towards the rim of the bowl that was the horizon—a line, not sharp and well defined, but dim and hazy, melting away into the blackness of the star-studded sky. Behind them, hardly more than a mile away, according to their present stature—they had stopped growing entirely now—lay the city of Arite. They could see completely across it and out into the country beyond.

The lake, with whose shore they had been running parallel, was much closer to them. Ahead, up near the rim of the horizon, lay a black smudge. Aura pointed. "Orlog is there," she said. "You see it?"

To the Very Young Man suddenly came the realization that already he was facing the problem of how to get into Orlog unheralded. If they remained in their present size they could easily walk there in an hour or less. But long before that they would be seen and recognized.

The Very Young Man feared for Loto's safety if he allowed that to happen. He seemed to be able to make out the city of Orlog now. It was smaller than Arite, and lay partially behind a hill, with most of its houses strung along the lake shore. If only they were not so tall they could not be seen so readily. But if they became smaller it would take them much longer to get there. And eventually they would have to become normal Oroid size, or even smaller, in order to get into the city unnoticed. The Very Young Man thought of the lake. Perhaps that would be the best way.

"Can you swim?" he asked. And Aura, with her ready smile, answered that she could. "If we are in the water," she added, seeming to have followed his thoughts, "they would not see us. I can swim very far—can you?"

The Very Young Man nodded.

"If we could get near to Orlog in the water," he said, "we might get a boat. And then when we were small, we could sail up. They wouldn't see us then."

"There are many boats," answered the girl in agreement. "Look!"

There were, indeed, on the lake, within sight of them now, several boats. "We must get the one nearest Orlog," the Very Young Man said. "Or else it will beat us in and carry the news."

In a few minutes more they were at the lake shore. The Very Young Man wore, underneath his robe, a close-fitting knitted garment very much like a bathing-suit. He took off his robe now, and rolling it up, tied it across his back with the cord he had worn around his waist. Aura's tunic was too short to impede her swimming and when the Very Young Man was ready, they waded out into the water together. They found the lake no deeper than to Aura's shoulders, but as it was easier to swim than to wade, they began swimming—away from shore towards the farthest boat that evidently was headed for Orlog.

The Very Young Man thought with satisfaction that, with only their heads visible, huge as they would appear, they could probably reach this boat without being seen by any one in Orlog. The boat was perhaps a quarter of a mile from them—a tiny little toy vessel, it seemed, that they never would have seen except for its sail.

They came up to it rapidly, for they were swimming very much faster than it could sail, passing close to one of the others and nearly swamping it by the waves they made. As they neared the boat they were pursuing—it was different from any the Very Young Man had seen so far, a single, canoe-shaped hull, with out-riders on both sides—they could see it held but a single occupant, a man who sat in its stern—a figure about