CHAPTER XXXII

_The Fugitives_

It was near the dawn of May 21 when Drake and I, with Dianne and Ahlma, crouched in our boathouse at King's Cove. Giants seemed everywhere outside, towering figures in the moonlight, tramping about the cove.

I think that our best chance to escape from the Togarite territory was offered us there at the beginning--those first minutes just before dawn. We had the drugs. We might have plunged into the channel, swimming out, expanding our size and taking the chance that we would not be discovered too soon.

How easy to look back on what one might have done! But instead of that we crept from the boathouse and turned inland. Ran back from the cove. Past our house; Togarites in our normal size were thronging it.

We were confused. Behind us, giants were rising everywhere. People were pouring from the boathouse.

"If we can get to Elton--" Drake panted. We found the road and dashed along it. The moon was momentarily under a cloud. The concealing darkness was helpful.

A giant went past us. We ducked off the road. He did not see us--he strode toward Elton.

We started again. Then the moon came out. We did not dare use the open road. We skulked through the fields. Then the moon was paling with the coming dawn. We had not escaped. Giants were ahead of us, and to the sides.

We crouched by a fence and argued. If we got large, we might in a few moments dash out of this captured territory. But we would be seen at once--pounced upon.

If we got smaller, we would be safe from discovery.

But Drake was vehement against it. "Damn it, Frank, I've had enough of that! It'd be a journey of a hundred miles just to Elton, when we're smaller! I tell you we've got to get out of here quickly! Frank, these drugs are vital to the world."

It seemed that our best chance was in our normal size. The dawn came. We found a dilapidated barn on a side road halfway to Elton. We hid in it.

We were, with the daylight upon us, hopelessly caught within the Togarite lines. It was soon obvious that getting to Elton would not help us. Giants were already there. We thought, if we could head inland, but then south, toward Portland, we might get past them.

So many things we might have dared to do are apparent, looking back upon it now! We struggled--all those days in May--to get to civilization somewhere, to find transportation south to New York. We had the vital weapon--the one thing the world could successfully use against this enemy. Because it was so important, we were afraid to chance anything. If Togaro caught us, the world was doomed. Terrible responsibility! An excess of caution was upon us.

We skulked and hid by day, and traveled at night. But there were always giants around us. Patrolling watchfully in the daylight, and at night with their lights and torches. It seemed that we could never escape those widening lines. Within a day or two we realized that we should have headed north; but it was too late now to change.

We tried to get to the coast. It was too dangerous; there were more giants that way than anywhere else. We had a hundred narrow escapes from capture. It was a problem to find food and water as we went. But there were deserted houses into which we slid by night.

Once we found an abandoned automobile. We ran it southward, all one night, dashing forward, stopping with lights out and silent motor when a giant approached. Then on again--until at last we barely were able to fling ourselves from it and take the diminishing drug, when a giant came up, stooped and tossed the car into the air. We lay in the bushes by the roadside and dwindled in size until the danger was past.

We lost count of the days on this strange flight. And we lost our way--wandered, following what roads we dared, working southward by what devious routes I have no idea. It seemed a hopeless journey. The country was now a torn mass of wreckage. Littered, burning towns. Roads obstructed. No storm of nature could ever devastate a countryside like this!

After more than a week of wandering, it seemed that we were still as far inside the spreading Togarite lines as ever. We had stolen garments to disguise the girls. We had several times tried getting larger. One dark night, when it chanced that the lights of the giants were not too near us, we traveled in a fifty-foot size for hours. It gained us so much distance that we tried it again several times. We passed inland from Boston, crossing into the desolation of what had been Rhode Island, then into Connecticut.

There came a night which, though we did not know it, was the evening of the 1st of June. We lay in the wreckage of a farmhouse which had been demolished. The girls were too exhausted to travel farther, and we all needed a rest. It had been the most fearful day of our trip. That morning we had been driven out of our hiding place where we intended to spend the daylight hours. It was an abandoned house near the edge of a town. What town I do not know.

Marauding giants had come and burned the town. We had escaped into smallness. It was night when after desperate efforts, we again emerged to find ourselves barely a hundred feet away from where we had been before.

The night came. We could not travel farther. One of us had always to be awake on guard. The girls were bravely standing the hardships, but they were both in miserable plight. They lay now, huddled in this shattered farmhouse. The broken roof was like a tent over us. We had had a meal, of food picked up along the way. We decided not to travel until the next night. The girls wrapped themselves in the men's overcoats we had found for them. They were soon asleep, huddled amid the litter of plaster and lath strewn around us.

Drake and I sat whispering. Drake wore now a single automatic. The girls and I were unarmed. The automatic was a futile weapon--a thousand times Drake cursed its futility; never once had we found any rational use for it.

"Where do you suppose we are, Frank?"

We had but the vaguest idea. But it was not far from the coast--Long Island Sound lay a mile or so off there.

"Not far from New York," I said. "This might be near Norwalk."

We had often been able to locate ourselves by broken street signs in the wrecked towns. At night sometimes, when we were in the fifty-foot size, we would poke about to find a railroad station which would have its name upon it.

It seemed now that the outposts of the captured territory must be close ahead of us. A line of standing giants had been visible down there. They had not yet entered New York City, we felt sure.

"We'd better try and get to the coast," Drake said. "If it weren't for the girls--" He shot a glance toward where they were sleeping. "Frank, I wish we'd been able to find a plane, take a chance on getting out of here with one dash--"

"Well, we haven't found one," I retorted. There had been many, but they were all wrecked. "Besides, Drake, we decided that would be too dangerous. You remember those Canadian war planes."

We had seen that episode. We saw, indeed, so many strange things which I have no space here to mention!

I added: "If we had a plane we'd no more than get it into the air before we'd be struck. You know that."

He paused, then reached a sudden decision. "Frank, we'll rest here. But tomorrow night I'm going to make a break for it. You stay with the girls. They can't travel much farther."

He shot another glance at them. Was Dianne awake and listening to us now? I think so. I seem to recall that she stirred. But at the time we did not notice.

Drake went on vehemently. "We've got to do something--get the drugs to Washington. Why, Frank, in a few days New York City will be gone."

"What do you mean, make a break for it?"

"You stay with the girls. Keep hidden. No use to try to travel. Get yourself food and water and dig in somewhere and wait. And I'll get out--I can do it, Frank, alone."

"How?"

"Get large. We'll get over by the coast. I'll make a dash for it, swimming. They won't see me until I'm large enough to put up a fight. Frank, it should have been done long ago."

He was my older brother, I could not talk him out of it. And it did seem the only thing left for us to do.

"You go to sleep, Frank. I'll stand guard for awhile."

"You're not going to try it tonight?" I demanded, with anxious suspicion.

"No."

"You promise?"

"Yes, of course. I'm tired as hell. Go to sleep. We'll stay here all tomorrow."

Sleep came always to us the instant we relaxed. But this time, as though fate would have it so, I awakened within a few hours.

"Drake?"

"Yes."

He was sitting beside me; the girls were still asleep.

"Take your turn, Drake. I'm wide awake." He needed no urging. He rolled up near me without a word.

I sat motionless. We were half outdoors; the tilting fallen roof only partially covered us. I could see the stars.

I presently went outside. A starlit, moonless night, a few hours before dawn. No giants seemed in sight. A deserted, desolate, shattered countryside, wan and pitiful in the starlight. The thought flashed to me: might we not make a break for it now? No giants were near here at the moment.

But we had often tried that before, and there always was a giant within sight of us when we dared get larger.

I went back under the broken roof. Out of its other side, where the shattered wall had left a jagged opening, a small dark form was running.

Dianne! I caught a glimpse of her golden robe beneath the flap of the dark overcoat.

I stopped for nothing, but ran. Outside I called softly, "Dianne! Where are you going? Come back!"

There was a dim road. She was running along it.

I called again, but she did not stop, so I dashed after her.

I was overtaking her at first; then her strides lengthened and she drew away from me.

I gasped with horror, and fumbled at my belt. She had taken the drug; her running figure on the starlit road was growing larger!