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

was beside whom Aura and the Very Young Man were standing.

"You tell me if they mention Loto," whispered the Very Young Man. Aura nodded and they stood silent, listening. The men all appeared deeply engrossed with what their leader was saying. The Very Young Man, watching his companion's face, saw an expression of concern and fear upon it. She leaned towards him.

"In Arite, to-night," she whispered, "Targo is organizing men to attack the palace of the king. Him will they kill—then Targo will be proclaimed leader of all the Oroid nation."

"We must get back," the Very Young Man answered in an anxious whisper. "I wish we knew where Loto was; haven't they mentioned him—or any of us?"

Aura did not reply, and the Very Young Man waited silent. Once one of the men laughed—a laugh that drifted out into the immense distances of the room in great waves of sound. Aura gripped her companion by the arm.

"Then when Targo rules the land, they will send a messenger to my brother. Him they will tell that the drugs must be given to Targo, or Loto will be killed—wait—when they have the drugs," Aura translated in a swift, tense whisper, "then all of us they will kill." She shuddered. "And with the drugs they will rule as they desire—for evil."

"They'll never get them," the Very Young Man muttered.

Targo's brother leaned forward and raised a goblet from the table. The movement of his foot upon the floor made the two eavesdroppers jump aside to avoid being struck.

Again Aura grasped her companion by the arm. "He is saying Loto is upstairs," she whispered after a moment. "I know where."

"I knew it," said the Very Young Man exultingly. "You take us there. Come on—let's get out of here—we mustn't waste a minute."

They started back towards the wall nearest them—some fifty feet away—and following along its edge, ran down towards the doorway through which they had entered the room. They were still perhaps a hundred yards away from it, running swiftly, when there appeared in the doorway the feet and legs of two men who were coming in. The Very Young Man and Aura stopped abruptly, shrinking up against the side of the wall. Then there came a heavy metallic clanging sound; the two men entered the room, closing the door.

CHAPTER XXXII AN ANT-HILL OUTRAGED

"We'll have to get smaller," said the Doctor.

"There's Rogers' house."

They had been walking along the beach from the king's palace hardly more than a hundred yards. The Doctor and the Big Business Man were in front, and Oteo, wide-eyed and solemn, was close behind them.

The Doctor was pointing down at the ground a few feet ahead. There, at a height just above their ankles, stood the Chemist's house—a little building whose roof did not reach more than half-way to their knees, even though it stood on higher ground than the beach upon which they were walking. On the roof they could see two tiny figures—the Chemist and Lylda—waving their arms.

The Big Business Man stopped short. "Now see here, Frank, let's understand this. We've been fooling with this thing too damned long. We've made a hell of a mess of it, you know that." He spoke determinedly, with a profanity unusual with him. The Doctor did not answer.

"We got here—yesterday. We found a peaceful world. Dissatisfaction in it—yes. But certainly a more peaceful world than the one we left. We've been here one day—one day, Frank, and now look at things. This child, Loto—stolen. Jack disappeared—God knows what's happened to him. A revolution—the whole place in an uproar. All in one day, since we took our place in this world and tried to mix up in its affairs.

"It's time to call a halt, Frank. If only we can get Jack back. That's the bad part—we've got to find Jack. And then get out; we don't belong here anyway. It's nothing to us—why, man, look at it." He waved his arm out over the city. In the street beside them they could see a number of little figures no bigger than their fingers, staring up into the air. "What is all that to us now, as we stand here. Nothing. Nothing but a kid's toy; with little animated mannikins for a child to play with."

"We've got to find Jack," said the Doctor.

"Certainly we have—and then get out. We're only hurting these little creatures, anyway, by being here."

"But there's Rogers and Lylda," added the Doctor. "And Loto and Lylda's sister."

"Take them with us. They'll have to go—they can't stay here now. But we must find Jack—that's the main thing."

"Look," the Doctor said, moving forward. "They're shouting to us."

They walked up and bent over the Chemist's house. Their friend was making a funnel of his hands and trying to attract their attention. The Big Business Man knelt upon the beach and put his head down beside the house. "Make yourselves smaller," he heard 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