CHAPTER XVIII

_The Escape of Togaro_

It was an anxious time for Drake, this hour during which he was waiting for me to make my attack on Togaro. He stood, with Ahlma behind him, watching me dwindle. Then he stooped, cautiously keeping back where Togaro could not see him, and gave me the signal.

I was about an inch high, down by his shoe. His gaze followed me as I ran toward the doorway. In the shadows there he saw me getting still smaller, until I was lost to his sight.

Drake whispered to Ahlma, "We must act naturally." He put his arm around her in his apprehension for Dianne and me and the knowledge that there was disaster ahead for us all. "Ahlma."

She whispered, "Drake!"

They could find no words, but needed none. For a moment he held her, kissed her; saw in her misty eyes an answer to the tumult of his heart.

"We must be alert, Drake. Be ready for what may come." She turned abruptly and called into the ship, "Frank! Oh, Frank, you go to the control room and tell them again to hasten our landing. Drake and I will watch here." Calling so that Togaro would hear her and not be suspicious that I was not in evidence!

Drake whispered, "Good idea!"

Alt came up. He said aloud, "The ship is diminishing very fast. We will be there soon." He added, in a whisper, "He is gone?"

"Yes. Stay here with us."

The minutes dragged by. Togaro sat quiet; he held Dianne close to him; occasionally he spoke to her. Sometimes he would command Drake, "Remember, when we land--if you do not try to harm me, Dianne will be safe."

Through the windows Dianne's world was constantly visible. It lay now beneath the ship--a great spread of convex, red-brown surface. The light of its parent sun gleamed upon the mountain tops. The configurations of the land and water areas were plainly visible, save where, in patches, cloud masses obscured them.

The vehicle presently was dwindling quite slowly; then its size-change ceased. It dropped swiftly down toward the globe's surface.

* * * * *

There are a few brief astronomical details which I think I should record. When Drake and the ship landed now upon this little globe Drake was normal in size to its inhabitants. Calling him then his earthly standard of six feet tall, a comparative set of measurements may be given of this atomic world.

You who read this can visualize only by earthly standards. That is natural, for to the human mind the conception of one's self is the starting point of every comparison. During all these events I recall that I almost always felt myself to be my original, normal size. I saw landscapes which were huge, and landscapes small as children's toys.

But always I felt myself to be Frank Ferrule, five feet seven inches tall. Thus quaintly egotistical is the human viewpoint; to each man is his own mind the pivot of the universe.

Dianne's earth within the atom, then, you may visualize as a globe with a diameter of about three hundred miles. A circumference something over nine hundred miles. Its inhabitants were far larger, therefore, in comparison to their globe, than we are to our earth. To them it was indeed a little world--small as an asteroid would be to us.

It was called, in the native language, "Mita." A blazing sun was near it--twenty million miles away, perhaps--and Mita was the only planet. It rotated on its axis with a revolution of about six hours and forty minutes; so that, as we experienced the passage of time, the equal days and nights were each about three and a third hours in duration.

There was a slight inclination of its axis--a progression of seasons with a cycle of some three months. There was one small but brilliant moon.

Again, I can only say that textbooks are now being filled with the astronomical technicalities of the planet Mita. I record only such few stray facts as may make my narrative more understandable.

There was, for instance, the gravity as we felt it on Mita. In spite of the globe's smallness, its inhabitants felt a gravitational pull not much different than we feel it on earth. This was caused by the planet's tremendous density. A solid little globe of heavy, metallic rock.

* * * * *

It was night when the vehicle dropped through Mita's atmosphere, heading for the largest city of the world's single nation. Drake stood in the passageway within sight of Togaro and Dianne. There was a window near him. Through it he could see the landscape as it rose and visibly expanded until presently it seemed close underneath the ship. The sunlight had faded from the sky when the ship entered Mita's shadow. It showed now as a line of red-yellow light on distant mountain tops. A fading light--the sunset, with the brief night just beginning. The sea was off there beyond the mountains; and again a line of ocean showed in the opposite direction.

Directly beneath the ship was an island-continent. A land-locked lake with many islands was near its center. A curving reach of lakeshore showed a patch of checkered, shadowed surface which was the city. Overhead a half moon was hanging.

Drake still had Ahlma and Alt beside him. They were watching Togaro--pretending to watch him, but in reality their anxious gazes were searching for me. I was, I think, at about this time lurking behind Togaro. I had reached a size where Drake could have seen me, of course, had he dared advance into the doorway and look; but he did not.

Increasing apprehension swept Drake. The time was growing short. He had ordered the ship to land. It was already filled with the preparatory sounds: the voices of the navigators in the control room giving orders, the rattle and clank of moving chains, the opening of a side door for disembarking.

Drake's apprehension grew into a panic. He had thought, of course, that I would make an attack before this. He did not dare now give orders to have the ship kept in the air. Togaro was watching through the window at his side--his glance darting out there and then back at Drake. The giant held Dianne's small form close against his chest.

He had admonished her not to speak. He kept her face turned now from the doorway, with his huge arm encircling her. And he forced her to reach up and with her tiny hands clutch at the collar of his shirt.

Through the window there was presently the close-at-hand moonlit vista of the lake, the shore front, and the city buildings. Drake saw the familiar landing-space. It came swiftly mounting, only a few hundred feet down now. A crowd of people, dark figures edged with silver moonlight, stood gazing up at the dropping ship.

Ahlma murmured, "What can we do?"

A sudden confusion gripped them. The ship was landing! To Drake it unreasonably seemed as though this sudden crisis had plunged upon him all unawares. He had waited too long for me.

Horror swept him now. Togaro's hand went to his mouth. He took the enlarging drug! A clanging resounded through the ship. It tilted, thumped slightly, came to rest upon the ground. For perhaps five seconds the three in the passageway stood transfixed with horror. Then Drake shouted:

"Dianne! Togaro, sit still, or I'll kill you!"

But it meant nothing, and Drake knew it. He gripped Ahlma and Alt, and flung them back against the passage wall, staring with futile, helpless horror.

The already huge body of Togaro was expanding. But already he filled the small cabin. He lunged, heaved his shoulders up against the ceiling.

Drake shouted again, with more rationality this time. "Togaro, don't hurt Dianne!"

Togaro panted, "No!"

He held her in the protecting hollow of his arm. He rose, straining his shoulders once again against the ceiling in a monstrous lunge. The ceiling broke.

Togaro stood a moment in the wreckage, expanding until only his giant legs remained in the cabin. Then he leaped upward. With a single jump he cleared the ship and landed upon the ground, scattering the terror-stricken crowd.

A growing giant, with huge bounds he fled away down a moonlit road toward the lake. The crowd on the landing field, staring after him, saw the small figure of Dianne hanging to his neck.

At the back of his waistline they saw a far smaller figure. It was I--clinging desperately to his belt, riding him like a clutching insect of whose presence he was unaware!