AURA
The Very Young Man involuntarily took a step backward as he met Targo's
eyes, glaring at him across the old man's body. The girl in the corner
gave another cry--a cry of fright and horror, yet with a note of relief.
The Very Young Man found himself wondering who she was; then he knew.
His first impulse was to leap across the room towards her. He thought of
the chemicals and instinctively his hand went to his armpit. But he knew
there was no time for that. He hesitated one brief instant. As he stood
rigid Targo stooped swiftly and grasped the dagger in his victim's
breast.
The girl screamed again, louder this time, and like a mask the Very
Young Man's indecision fell from him. He stood alert, clear-headed. Here
was an enemy threatening him--an enemy he must fight and overcome.
In the second that Targo bent down the Very Young Man bounded forward,
and with a leap that his football days had taught him so well how to
make, he landed squarely upon the bare, broad back of his antagonist.
The impact of his weight forced Targo down upon the floor, and losing
his balance he fell, with the Very Young Man on top of him. They hit the
leg of the table as they rolled over, and something dropped from it to
the floor, striking the stone surface with a thud.
The knife still stuck in the dead man's body. The Very Young Man thought
he could reach it, but his opponent's great arms were around him now and
held him too tightly. He tried to pull himself loose, but could not.
Then he rolled partly over again, and met Targo's eyes above, leering
triumphantly down at him. He looked away and wrenched his right arm
free. Across the room he could see the girl still crouching in the
corner. His right hand sweeping along the floor struck something heavy
lying there. His fingers closed over it; he raised it up, and hardly
knowing what he did, crashed it against his enemy's head.
He felt the tense muscles of the man relax, and then the weight of his
inert body as it pressed down upon him. He wriggled free, and sprang to
his feet. As he stood weak and trembling, looking down at the
unconscious form of Targo lying upon the floor, the girl suddenly ran
over and stood beside him. Her slim little body came only a little above
his shoulder; instinctively he put his arm about her.
A voice, calling from outside the room, made the girl look up into his
face with new terror.
"Others are coming," she whispered tensely and huddled up against him.
The Very Young Man saw that the room had two doors--the one through
which he had entered, and another in one of its other walls. There were
no windows. He pulled the girl now towards the further door, but she
held him back.
"They come that way," she whispered.
Another voice sounded behind him and the Very Young Man knew that a man
was coming up along the passageway from the front entrance. Targo's men!
He remembered now the skulking figure he had seen outside the house.
There were more than two, for now he heard other voices, and some one
calling Targo's name.
He held the girl closer and stood motionless. Like rats in a trap, he
thought. He felt the fingers of his right hand holding something heavy.
It was a piece of stone--the stone he had looked at through the
microscope--the stone with which he had struck Targo. He smiled to
himself, and slipped it into his pocket.
The girl had slowly pulled him over to the inner wall of the room. The
footsteps came closer. They would be here in a moment. The Very Young
Man wondered how he should fight them all; then he thought of the knife
that was still in the murdered man's body. He thought he ought to get it
now while there was still time. He heard a click and the wall against
which he and the girl were leaning yielded with their weight. A door
swung open--a door the Very Young Man had not seen before. The girl
pulled him through the doorway, and swung the door softly closed behind
them.
The Very Young Man found himself now in a long, narrow room with a very
high ceiling. It had, apparently, no other door, and no windows. It was
evidently a storeroom--piled high with what looked like boxes, and with
bales of silks and other fabrics.
The Very Young Man looked around him hastily. Then he let go of the
girl, and, since locks were unknown in this world, began piling as many
heavy objects as possible against the door. The girl tried to help him,
but he pushed her away. Once he put his ear to the door and listened. He
heard voices outside in the strange Oroid tongue.
The girl stood beside him. "They are lifting Targo up. He speaks; he is
not dead," she whispered.
For several minutes they stood there listening. The voices continued in
a low murmur. "They'll know we are in here," said the Very Young Man
finally, in an undertone. "Is there any other way out of this room?"
The girl shook her head. The Very Young Man forgot the import of her
answer, and suddenly found himself thinking she was the prettiest girl
he had ever seen. She was hardly more than sixteen, with a slender, not
yet matured, yet perfectly rounded little body. She wore, like Lylda, a
short blue silk tunic, with a golden cord crossing her breast and
encircling her waist. Her raven black hair hung in two twisted locks
nearly to her knees. Her skin was very white and, even more than
Lylda's, gleamed with iridescent color.
"Only this one door," said the girl. The words brought the Very Young
Man to himself with a start.
No other way out of the room! He knew that Targo and his men would force
their way in very soon. He could not prevent them. But it would take
time. The Very Young Man remembered that now he had time to take the
chemicals. He put his hand to his armpit and felt the pouch that held
the drug. He wondered which to take. The ceiling was very high; but to
fight in the narrow confines of such a room----
He led the girl over to a pile of cushions and sat down beside her.
"Listen," he said briefly. "We are going to take a medicine; it will
make us very small. Then we will hide from Targo and his men till they
are gone. This is not magic; it is science. Do you understand?"
"I understand," the girl answered readily. "One of the strangers you
are--my brother's friend."
"You will not be afraid to take the drug?"
"No." But though she spoke confidently, she drew closer to him and
shivered a little.
The Very Young Man handed her one of the tiny pellets. "Just touch it to
the tip of your tongue as I do," he said warningly.
They took the drug. When it had ceased to act, they found themselves
standing on the rough uneven stone surface that was the floor of the
room. Far overhead in the dim luminous blackness they could just make
out the great arching ceiling, stretching away out of sight down the
length of the room. Beside them stood a tremendous shaggy pile of
coarsely woven objects that were the silk pillows on which they had been
sitting a moment before--pillows that seemed forty or fifty feet square
now and loomed high above their heads.
The Very Young Man took the frightened girl by the hand and led her
along the tremendous length of a pile of boxes, blocks long it seemed.
These boxes, from their size, might have been rectangular, windowless
houses, jammed closely together, and piled one upon the other up into
the air almost out of sight.
Finally they came to a broad passageway between the boxes--a mere crack
it would have been before. They turned into it, and, a few feet beyond,
came to a larger square space with a box making a roof over it some
twenty feet above their heads.
From this retreat they could see the lower part of the door leading into
the other room and could hear from beyond it a muffled roar--the voices
of Targo and his men. Hardly were they hidden when the door opened a
little. It struck against the bales the Very Young Man had piled against
it. For a moment it held, but with the united efforts of the men pushing
from the other side, it slowly yielded and swung open.
Targo stepped into the room. To the Very Young Man he seemed nearly a
hundred feet high. Only his feet and ankles were visible at first, from
where the Very Young Man was watching. Three other men came with him.
They stamped back and forth for a time, moving some of the bales and
boxes. Luckily they left undisturbed those nearest the fugitives; after
a moment they left, leaving the door open.
The Very Young Man breathed a long sigh of relief. "Gosh, I'm glad
that's over." He spoke in a low tone, although the men in the other room
seemed so far away they would hardly have heard him if he had shouted at
the top of his voice.
Alone with the girl now in this great silent room, the Very Young Man
felt suddenly embarrassed. "I am one of your brother's friends," he
said. "My name's Jack; is yours Aura?"
"Lylda's sister I am," she answered quietly. "My father told me about
you----" Then with a rush came the memory of her father's death, which
the startling experiences of the past half-hour had made her forget. Her
big, soft eyes filled with tears and her lips quivered. Involuntarily
the Very Young Man put his arm about her again and held her close to
him. She was so little and frail--so pathetic and so wholly adorable.
For a long time they sat in silence; then the girl gently drew away.
At the doorway they stood and listened; Targo and his followers were
still in the adjoining room, talking earnestly. "Loto they have
captured," Aura whispered suddenly. "Others of Targo's men have taken
him--in a boat--to Orlog. To-morrow they send a messenger to my brother
to demand he give up these drugs--or Loto they will kill."
The Very Young Man waited, breathless. Suddenly he heard Targo laugh--a
cruel, cynical laugh. Aura shuddered.
"And when he has the drug, all of us will he kill. And all in the land
too who will not do as he bids."
The men were rising, evidently in preparation to leave. Aura continued:
"They go--now--to Orlog--all but Targo. A little way from here, up the
lake shore, a boat is waiting. It will take them there fast."
With a last look around, Targo and his followers disappeared through the
back door of the room. An outer door clanged noisily, and the Very Young
Man and Aura were left alone in the house.
Reoh murdered, Loto stolen! The Very Young Man thought of Lylda and
wondered if anything could have happened to her. "Did they speak of your
sister?" he asked.
"Targo said--he--he would put her to death," Aura answered with a
shudder. "He said--she killed his brother to-day." She turned to the
Very Young Man impulsively, putting her little hands up on his
shoulders. "Oh, my friend," she exclaimed. "You can do something to save
my family? Targo is so strong, so cruel. My father----" She stopped, and
choked back a sob.
"Did they say where Lylda was now?"
"They did not know. She grew very big and went away."
"Where is your brother and my two friends?"
"Targo said they were here when he--he took Loto. Now they have gone
home. He was afraid of them--now--because they have the drugs."
"To-morrow they are going to send a messenger from Orlog to demand the
drugs?"
"He said to-morrow. Oh, you will do something for us? You can save
Loto?"
The Very Young Man was beginning to formulate a plan. "And to-night," he
asked, "from what they said--are you sure they will not hurt Loto?"
"They said no. But he is so little--so----" The girl burst into tears,
and at every sob the Very Young Man's heart leaped in his breast. He
wanted to comfort her, but he could think of no word to say; he wanted
to help her--to do the best thing in what he saw was a grave crisis.
What he should have done was to have taken her back to the Chemist and
his friends, and then with them planned the rescue of Loto. But with the
girl's hands upon his shoulders, and her sorrowful little tear-stained
face looking up to his, he did not think of that. He thought only of her
and her pathetic appeal. "You will do something, my friend? You can save
Loto?" He could save Loto! With the power of the drugs he could do
anything!
The Very Young Man made a sudden decision. "I don't know the way to
Orlog; you do?" he asked abruptly.
"Oh yes, I know it well."
"We will go to Orlog, you and I--now, and rescue Loto. You will not be
afraid?"
The girl's eyes looked into his with a clear, steady gaze. The Very
Young Man stared down into their depths with his heart pounding. "I
shall not be afraid--with you," said the girl softly.
The Very Young Man drew a long breath. He knew he must think it all out
carefully. The drug would make them very large, and in a short time they
could walk to Orlog. No harm could come to them. Once in Orlog they
would find Loto--probably in Targo's palace--and bring him back with
them. The Very Young Man pictured the surprise and gratification of the
Chemist and his friends. Lylda would be back by then; no sooner would
she have heard of Loto's loss than he would bring him back to her. Or
perhaps they would meet Lylda and she would join them.
The Very Young Man produced the drug and was about to give Aura one of
the pellets when another thought occurred to him. Targo would not harm
Loto now because he was valuable as a hostage. But suppose he saw these
two giants coming to the rescue? The Very Young Man knew that probably
the boy would be killed before he could save him. That way would not do.
He would have to get to Orlog unseen--rescue Loto by a sudden rush,
before they could harm him.
But first it would be necessary for him and Aura to get out of Arite
quietly without causing any excitement. Once in the open country they
could grow larger and travel rapidly to Orlog. The Very Young Man
thought it would be best to be normal size while leaving Arite. He
explained his plan to Aura briefly.
It took several successive tastes of the different drugs before this
result was accomplished, but in perhaps half an hour they were ready to
leave the house. To the Very Young Man this change of size was no longer
even startling. Aura, this time, with him beside her, seemed quite
unafraid.
"Now we're ready," said the Very Young Man, in a matter-of-fact tone
that was far from indicating his true feeling. "Take the way where we
are least likely to be noticed--towards Orlog. When we get in the open
country we can get bigger."
He led the girl across Reoh's study. She kept her face averted as they
passed the body lying on the floor, and in a moment they were outside
the house. They walked rapidly, keeping close to the walls of the
houses. The streets were nearly deserted and no one seemed to notice
them.
The Very Young Man was calculating the time. "Probably they are just
getting to Orlog with Loto," he said. "Once we get out of Arite we'll
travel fast; we'll have him back in two or three hours."
Aura said nothing, but walked beside him. Once or twice she looked back
over her shoulder.
They were in the outskirts of the city, when suddenly the girl gripped
her companion by the arm.
"Some one--behind us," she whispered. The Very Young Man resisted an
impulse to look around. They had come to a cross street; the Very Young
Man abruptly turned the corner, and clutching Aura by the hand ran
swiftly forward a short distance. When they had slowed down to a walk
again the Very Young Man looked cautiously back over his shoulder. As he
did so he caught a glimpse of three men who had just reached the corner,
and who darted hastily back out of sight as he turned his head.