CHAPTER V

_Princess of the Atom_

Drake and I were transfixed; amazed, doubting the evidence of our senses. Yet there was Dianne at our feet. She stood with a hand holding a fern stalk. Her little face was smiling. I heard a voice, of microscopic smallness, but clear. Dianne's voice; her familiar accents.

"You came, Frank. I--we've been waiting."

I became aware that Drake had taken a step or two forward. The little figures in the grass scattered. Dianne called up sharply, "Careful, Drake! Don't step on us! Stand quiet! In a moment I'll be larger."

She turned and ran into the grass. Its blades were no higher than the length of my hand, but as though they were a jungle of huge green stalks they sheltered the small human figures. Half a dozen men, and one other girl, like Dianne, but with a robe of pale silvery white.

The figures clustered together. We could hear their faint voices. Words in a language unintelligible. Then the two girls drew apart. The men moved away. Hiding, watching from the concealing grass.

Amazing sight! Inconceivable shock to our normal senses! Before our eyes, Dianne and this other girl were becoming larger. A visible change. In a moment they were above the grass. They moved away from it. They bent the ferns aside. Dianne trampled one now. They came out into the little open patch of rock and pebbles where Drake and I were standing by the embers of the camp fire. Already they were as tall as our knees.

Dianne's voice, now more familiar than ever, said, "Don't look like that! Move back. Don't stand so close to us!"

For a moment neither Drake nor I spoke. A new realization of this thing swept me. The menacing giants along the coast had disappeared because they had become small. I had already contemplated that. But I had envisaged them only as small as myself. Like the midnight visitor who had called upon Drake and father. Yet here were humans still smaller.

And I realized then that what we had called a giant could be lurking here upon this island now. Any of these little patches of grass would shelter him, and a thousand like him.

Dianne had been furtive with her smoke signal to us. She had made it; and then had grown small with her companions, to hide in the grass and await our coming. She was so obviously furtive! As tall as my waist now, she gazed around anxiously as though, with her greater height than before, she might now discern some near-by enemy.

The girl with her seemed equally apprehensive. An air of haste enveloped them both.

And I saw now that the tiny figures of the men in the grass were spreading out and vanishing. Or searching? Or guarding? Their smallness making it possible for them to seek out any lurking tiny enemies which to us in our gigantic size could never be found.

A minute or two only while my thoughts roved and I clung to Drake and stared at Dianne and this strange girl growing large before us; Dianne, every minute as she neared what to me was her normal size, becoming more familiar of aspect.

The same Dianne--our little sister! Yet how different! The long golden robe was of that same strange fabric as the infant dress father had shown us in which she had been found. Her pale-gold hair flowed free to her waist. But it did not come down into a peak on her forehead now. It was drawn back; and there on her forehead was the silver crescent patch. It seemed to glow. Unnatural. Uncanny. Yet it was a thing beautiful. It blended with her beauty. And it made her seem queerly regal.

She said abruptly, "Ahlma--enough!"

The hand of each of the girls went suddenly to their mouths. They reeled, clutching at each other; and Drake and I, with recovered wits, moved to aid them. But they steadied. They smiled. And they had stopped growing. Dianne, about as tall as I had always remembered her; this other girl, whom she had called Ahlma, a trifle taller; and it seemed, perhaps, a year or two older. A girl singularly beautiful in Dianne's own fashion. Golden hair like Dianne's. And a crescent on her forehead. But it seemed a paler crescent than Dianne's.

Drake stammered, "Why, Dianne!"

I think he had said that and nothing else half a dozen times before.

The girls were still furtive, apprehensive. Dianne said hurriedly, "Don't question now, Drake. Frank, dear--stop looking at me like that! Your boat is here?"

I said, "Yes, Dianne."

"This is Ahlma. My servant and my friend. Is father all right, Frank?"

"Yes."

"I want to get to him. Take us to the boat. Have you something you can cover us with?"

Her hand gripped my arm. It strangely reassured me to feel her human grip. Drake reached out hesitantly and touched her. And she laughed and kissed us both. Our same human, beautiful little Dianne.

"Ahlma, these all my life were my brothers."

"We have coats in the boat," I said.

"Is father here? At the house here?"

"Yes," said Drake. "Come."

We started with them for the boat.

"You're afraid," said Drake. "You have enemies here? These giants?"

"But I can't tell you now! Yes, enemies. They know what I am trying to do. They want to stop me. One of them, the leader--we call him Togaro--"

She gazed around us. "He is here, I think. He and a party of his men. Drake, you can't realize the jungle deeps of this vast island when you are small! Deserts of rock--vast caverns--it's so different when you are small! I'm afraid of him--I want to get to father."

We came to the beach. She added, "I would tell you now what I have come for. But he might be here at our feet. He knows, I think, that I have come to join you."

The midnight visitor. Was he this Togaro?

"Get in," said Drake. He stared at the girl in the white robe. He said to her, "This thing is so inconceivably strange to us--we don't know what to say--we--am I to call you Ahlma?"

She met his gaze and smiled; and it seemed that a faint wave of color suffused her neck and face. She said, with a queer accent. "Yes, I am Ahlma. You are Drake--and you are Frank. I have heard very much from Dianne about you."

Her voice gave Drake a startled realization. Her accent was indescribable. But Drake recognized it! Unmistakably the accent of the midnight visitor.

The girls sat in the stern of the dory. We covered them with the oilskins so that any one observing us would see nothing unusual about them.

They had searched and made us search the boat. There was no human thing aboard it save ourselves. No figure even the size of our finger could have lurked there and escaped our search.

But as we rowed from the island, Dianne's fear did not lessen. She said, "We've done the best we could. If they are here--"

She did not finish. She added, "You haven't told any one--no one--I mean the authorities--knows about me?"

"No, Dianne."

"Because, what I want you to do--you and father--it must be secret. And Togaro, he will prevent your doing it if he can."

Strange words! She would not add to them. She sat silent and tense as we rowed across the sunlit channel, and brought her home, where father was waiting for us.

* * * * *

"I'll tell them," said father. "Come in lads. We must be brief, Dianne.

"You're right that haste is necessary."

Father had been with Dianne and her strange girl companion for perhaps half an hour. He called us in at last. He sat with his arm about Dianne. I could see at once that he was tense and grim; and the apprehension characteristic of Dianne lay now upon him also.

His quick glances about the room--as though he were trying to see the unseeable. This thing uncanny--I saw too, that the room's windows were carefully closed; and the heavy shades drawn, so that for all the daylight outside, a lighted lamp was needed. Father told us sharply to close the door after us.

He said, as we sat down:

"I was right to insist upon talking to Dianne alone. There are things I could understand better than you--we have no time for discussion."

I burst out: "Are you going to keep on treating us like children?"

"No. Frank. You have a right to know these strange things Dianne has told me. But we have no time for argument." His voice was low. He spoke swiftly, with what seemed a surreptitious haste.

The girl Ahlma sat apart. Her gaze roved the room, especially the floor.

She said abruptly, "Dianne, can we not close up the bottom of that door?"

There was perhaps a quarter of an inch space between the bottom of the door and the sill. Father got up and kicked a rug against the door. He turned up the wick of the lamp so that the room was brighter.

"Will that do?"

"Yes," said Dianne. "That's better."

Drake and I stared at each other. Drake wet his lips, but did not speak. This thing was ghastly.

Father said abruptly, "Dianne was born, not in this world of ours, but in a world infinitely small. A world within an atom of rock, there on Bird's Nest Island--a world of humans like ourselves.

"Like us? Why, you can see for yourselves! Dianne was born a princess of the civilization on one of the globes whirling in the limitless space within that atom.

"I confuse you, lads? I am talking of infinite smallness. There is no limit to smallness. We know that. But I can't go into such a subject now."

"Afterward, you can tell them," said Dianne with her gentle smile. "All I have told you--time then, father."

"You still call me father?" he said. "So strange, these things."

Drake said, "Dianne was brought here when she was a baby. Why?"

"A princess," father repeated. "And soon after she was born an evil leader came into power in her world. Human life is the same everywhere, lads. She has told me it all--you shall hear every detail. But now--I need tell you only that Dianne's parents, with their throne threatened, had their scientists spirit Dianne away. They have a drug--you can call it that--and a space-flying vehicle, capable of changing size. They brought their little princess out into what to them is infinite largeness. Left her here. To save her life from this conqueror who threatened their throne."

My thoughts reached to grasp what father was saying. I could envisage an atom of rock there on Bird's Nest Island. One atom out of the uncounted billions. It chanced to contain human life. I tried to imagine becoming infinitely small. Space would, by comparison, open up around me. The whirling electrons within the atom would be blazing suns in a firmament of illimitable space. With a space-flying vehicle infinitely small, I could then traverse that starry universe. Land upon a dark star--a planet--an earth. And find there a human civilization.

I knew something of modern physics. I knew that the similarity of atomic structure to our astronomical universe was already recognized. A difference of size only. And all comparative. I could hold a fragment of rock on the palm of my hand. Billions of atoms, clinging together to make what I saw as a tiny rock fragment. Yet each of those atoms held within itself a starry universe of limitless distance--if I were to become small enough to see it from the other viewpoint.

I stared at Dianne. My sister? There suddenly seemed a vast gulf between us. This gentle creature, so strangely beautiful, with the crescent glowing on her forehead. Not my sister. A princess of a different world.

She caught my gaze and smiled. And said, as she had said several times before, "Don't look at me like that, Frank! I'll tell them, father. That day Frank, when you and I and Drake went to the island. You call it five years ago? When you left me, this Togaro suddenly appeared. He took me--into the atom--into smallness--into what soon I learned was my own native world.

"He wanted the throne which some day would have been mine. He--he wanted--he wants me. But the people turned against him. I was rescued--taken from him. I am ruler of that world now. I've told all the details--your father will explain to you."

She was speaking fast, almost breathlessly. And I realized now the regal dominance of her manner, mixed so queerly with the little Dianne we used to know.

She went on: "I've come back here--and Togaro knows it. He learned, some long time ago, our scientists' secret of traveling into largeness--into this world of yours so gigantic. He learned English from me. He learned many things of your Earth and its people.

"He has been here and seen for himself. He is here now--with a few of his men. You have seen some of them. They happened to be a trifle larger than your normal size and so you call them giants."

Drake put in, "Dianne, wait! Can't you answer some questions?"

"I would keep her here with us always," father said. "She knows that. But she is going back at once. Her duty lies in there with her people. But more than that--the menace of Togaro here--she must go back!"

"You don't talk so we can understand you, father," I objected.

The girl Ahlma spoke again. She addressed Dianne, but her gaze was on Drake.

"I think, Dianne, you should tell them at once why we came. What it is they must do for us."

Father said, "Lads, this Togaro and hordes of his followers are planning to come from the atom. Some are already here. That's what Dianne and her people want to stop. For our sake. She wants us to get this atom of rock from Bird's Nest Island. Bring it here. She will go back within it to her world. We are to keep it here. Guard it. You see? Watch it, or have it watched day and night. Then the coming of Togaro's hordes can be checked. We can see them appear--kill them as they come, when still they are tiny."

Dianne interrupted him. "Togaro's plan is to come here--and with his men in a size gigantic even compared to you, he will overrun your Earth! Conquer it! Force your great nations to yield to his giants--"

Giants overrunning our world! I could with shuddering fancy imagine one a thousand feet tall toppling the buildings of New York City with sweeps of his arm! Of what use our battleships, our long-range guns--any of our weapons against a horde of such gigantic antagonists?

Father said, "Our Earth could be devastated so easily! But if we can get the atom here, now before it is too late--"

A cry from Ahlma checked him. There was an instant when all of us sat mute with horror. In a distant corner of the room where a glow of our table light fell upon the floor the small figure of a man was lurking. A man, tall perhaps as the top of my shoe.

An instant while we were mute, frozen into immobility. Then I heard Dianne murmur, "Togaro!"

And Drake cried, "Father--that is the fellow who called on us last night!"

Drake's chair crashed over backward as he leaped to his feet. He stooped. He seized the chair and flung it at the little lurking figure.

I shouted, "You missed him, Drake!" I dashed across the room. I had seen the figure dart into a shadow.

Dianne lifted off the lampshade and tossed it away. The room floor showed more clearly. We hastily moved the furniture. Then I saw the figure again. Far smaller now--an inch high, no more. It had climbed to the baseboard of the wall. Running upon the narrow ledge. It leaped--the shadow of a chair enveloped it.

We ran about the room, searching. Like searching for an insect which every instant was dwindling toward invisibility.

Dianne cried, "Too late! He's too small. But I saw him--right near here."

She gripped me as I passed her. And cried, "Drake, wait! You and Frank, will you come with me? If we get small--follow him into smallness here in this room--we may catch him! Will you come?"