CHAPTER XV

_Togaro at Bay_

The silence was horrible. If the girls were in there, why didn't they answer? We thumped and pounded.

"Dianne! Dianne, answer us! Ahlma--Ahlma--"

Our cries brought members of the crew. The body of the murdered guard was shoved aside. We jammed the passage, assailing the stout metal door which was glowing with the current in it.

"Dianne--Dianne dear!"

The door resisted our efforts. We stood listening; I put my ear against the door.

Only silence. It seemed that even a scream would be less horrible.

"Break it down," exclaimed Drake. "We must hurry!" He flung his powerful body against it, but the door held. Alt came running with a metal bar. We rammed. The passage was too narrow to give us room. But at last the door yielded a little and we got the bar into the crack and pried.

We burst into the room. Ahlma lay upon the bed, unconscious. Her robe was torn; there were bruises upon her temple, her shoulder and arm. The room showed evidences of struggle.

Dianne was gone!

Ahlma had fainted or been knocked unconscious. We revived her presently. Meanwhile we were searching the room, examining every inch of it for tiny human forms who might be lurking in the shadows, still large enough to be visible.

But there was nothing.

"Watch the doorsill!" Drake commanded. "If he's here--he may make a rush to get out--"

They carried away the body of the murdered guard; two men knelt, with faces close to the doorsill, watching it.

But there was nothing.

We knew, even before Ahlma revived, what must have happened. Togaro, with an inch or two of height, armed with a needle-like sword, had crept upon our guard in the passage. Amazing, reckless villain!

He must have dared to crawl upon the guard; then leaped, plunging his little sword like a long needle into the guard's heart.

Then he had scuttled into the girls' room, to grow large and softly close its door. He had fifteen minutes, probably, before we discovered the murder.

Ahlma revived and told us the rest of it. She had been awakened to find Togaro--in a size nearly as large as herself--forcing a pellet of the drug upon Dianne. The girls struggled and fought. Their screams, barred by the closed door and the humming, throbbing ship, had not been heard. Togaro had taken the diminishing drug, and forced some of it upon Dianne. He had struck at Ahlma. Her senses faded. Her last memory was the sight of Togaro standing in the middle of the floor with Dianne gripped in his arms. Both he and Dianne were dwindling.

We searched the room again. But we could find nothing.

Were Togaro and Dianne still here? If he was still here, we could keep him here in smallness. If he had got small in the center of the room it might be hours, or days of marching to reach the doorway and through it to the passage, even if he could find his way.

Drake cried, "By heaven, we won't land! I'll keep this ship in space until we find him! Starve him out--there'll be no food probably, here in smallness on the floor of this room."

But starve Dianne also! I was shuddering. Dianne here--down here by my feet perhaps--here with Togaro, hiding or wandering in some desolate abyss of smallness. Or perhaps we had already trodden upon them!

We stood with sudden terror, hardly daring to move. But were they here? I said, "Let's try getting small, Drake. We've got to try something. Get small here--in the center of the room where Ahlma says she saw them. Search for them. Drake, we've got to get her away from him!"

I was talking wildly and I knew it. Drake gripped me.

"Wait, let's try and figure it out. Easy, Frank--don't let's lose our wits."

It seemed as though every moment was vital. I stood listening to Drake's theory. Theory, at such a time! A surge of self-condemnation was upon me. If only I had had the sense to stay close by Dianne!

Drake was trying to estimate what Togaro had done. This door had been barred on the inside. But there was a crack under the bottom of the door an eighth of an inch high, at least. Drake closed the door for a moment and showed me it.

"Frank, they could be anywhere. Not here in the room--he wouldn't stay here in the room--he had fifteen minutes maybe."

With sinking heart I realized how easily he could have escaped out of here. He and Dianne, diminishing say to an inch. Then walking to the locked door. Dwindling again--walking, carrying Dianne--through the crack under the door.

He had had fifteen minutes--and another fifteen had now passed. He could indeed be almost anywhere in the ship.

There was a sound near by--a scream! Not that exactly. A shout. It sounded above the throbbing, humming of the ship.

We stood frozen, listening.

"Drake, you heard it? Where was it?"

He murmured, "What was it? A voice--"

Not in this cabin. We stood listening in the doorway. Diagonally along the passage on the other side was the door to another small cabin. It stood open. Had the shout come from there? We had searched all the cabins ten minutes before. We did not dare move without extreme care. An incautious step might crush Dianne.

There was a guard out here in the passage. All the crew were forbidden to move except with the greatest circumspection. The guard said, "It sounded in there. Shall I go?"

A moment of waiting. I murmured, "Drake, over there."

It came again, unmistakably from that opposite cabin. A single shouted word, but we heard it.

"Frank!"

Dianne's voice!

We rushed. No need for caution now. Hardly more than a dozen steps to that open cabin doorway. But as we reached it, the heavy door clanged violently in our faces!

We stood baffled. We shouted. "Dianne! Dianne, are you in there?"

From behind the barred door came Togaro's jeering, sardonic laughter.

"We are here. Come in and get us--if you dare!"