_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!