The Girl in the Golden Atom Part 51

"Quite so," said the Big Business Man in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone.

"All of us but one will stop growing now; one will go on and get out of the pit. He will immediately stop his growth so that he can wait for the others and help them out. Each of us will follow the same method of procedure."

The Chemist then went on to arrange the exact quant.i.ties of the drugs they were each to take at specified times, so that at the end they would all be nearly the same size again. When he had explained all this to Oteo and Eena in their native language, they were ready to proceed with the plan.

"Who's first?" asked the Very Young Man. "Let me go with Loto."

They selected the Chemist to go first, and all but him took a little of the other drug and checked their growth. The pit at this time was hardly more than fifteen feet across and about thirty feet deep.

The Chemist stood in the centre of the enclosure, while his friends crowded over against its walls to make room for his growing body. It was nearly half an hour before his head was above its top. He waited only a moment more, then he sprang upwards, clambered out of the pit and disappeared beyond the rim. In a few moments they saw his huge head and shoulders hanging out over the side wall; his hand and arm reached down towards them and they heard his great voice roaring.

"Come on--somebody else."

The Very Young Man went next, with Loto. Nothing unusual marked their growth, and without difficulty, helped by the Chemist's hands reaching down to them, they climbed out of the pit.

In an hour more the entire party was in the valley, standing beside the little circular opening out of which they had come.

The Very Young Man found himself beside Aura, a little apart from the others, who gathered to discuss their plan for growing out of the valley.

"It isn't much of a trip, is it, Aura?" the Very Young Man said. "Do you realize, we're nearly there?"

The girl looked around her curiously. The valley of the scratch appeared to them now hardly more than a quarter of a mile in width. Aura stared upwards between its narrow walls to where, several thousand feet above, a narrow strip of gray-blue sky was visible.

"That sky--is that the sky of your world?" she exclaimed. "How pretty it is!"

The Very Young Man laughed.

"No, Aura, that's not our sky. It's only the s.p.a.ce in the room above the ring. When we get the size we are going to be finally, our heads will be right up in there. The real sky with its stars will be even then as far above us as your sky at Arite was above you."

Aura breathed a long sigh. "It's too wonderful--really to understand, isn't it?" she said.

The Very Young Man pulled her down on the ground beside him.

"The most wonderful part, Aura, is going to be having you up there." He spoke gently; somehow whenever he thought of this fragile little girl-woman up in his strange bustling world, he felt himself very big and strong. He wanted to be her protector, and her teacher of all the new and curious things she must learn.

The girl did not reply at once; she simply met his earnest gaze with her frank answering smile of understanding.

The Chemist was calling to them.

"Oh, you Jack. We're about ready to start."

The Very Young Man got to his feet, holding down his hands to help Aura up.

"You're going to make a fine woman, Aura, in this new world. You just wait and see if you don't," he said as they rejoined the others.

The Chemist explained his plans to them. "This valley is several times deeper than its breadth; you can see that. We cannot grow large enough to jump out as we did out of the pit; we would be crushed by the walls before we were sufficiently tall to leap out.

"But we're not going to do as I did, and climb all the way up. Instead we will stay here at the bottom until we are as large as we can conveniently get between the valley walls. Then we will stop growing and climb up the side; it will only be a short distance then."

The Very Young Man nodded his comprehension. "Unless by that time the walls are too smooth to climb up," he remarked.

"If we see them getting too smooth, we'll stop and begin climbing," the Chemist agreed. "We're all ready, aren't we?" He began measuring out the estimated quant.i.ties of the drug, handing it to each of them.

"Say, I'm terrible sorry," began the Very Young Man, apologetically interrupting this procedure. "But you know if it wasn't for me, we'd all starve to death."

It was several hours since they had eaten last, and all of them were hungry, although the excitement of their strange journey had kept them from realizing it. They ate--"the last meal in the ring" as the Big Business Man put it--and in half an hour more they were ready to start.

When they had reached a size where it seemed desirable again to stop growing the valley resembled a narrow canon--hardly more than a deep rift in the ground. They were still standing on its floor; above them, the parallel edges of the rift marked the surface of the ring. The side walls of the canon were smooth, but there were still many places where they could climb out without much difficulty.

They started up a narrow declivity along the canon face. The Chemist led the way; the Very Young Man, with Aura just in front of him, was last.

They had been walking only a moment when the Chemist called back over his shoulder.

"It's getting very narrow. We'd better stop here and take the drug."

The Chemist had reached a rocky shelf--a ledge some twenty feet square that jutted out from the canon wall. They gathered upon it, and took enough of the diminis.h.i.+ng drug to stop their growth. Then the Chemist again started forward; but, very soon after, a cry of alarm from Aura stopped him.

The party turned in confusion and crowded back. Aura, pale and trembling, was standing on the very brink of the ledge looking down. The Very Young Man had disappeared.

The Big Business Man ran to the brink. "Did he fall? Where is he? I don't see him."

They gathered in confusion about the girl. "No," she said. "He--just a moment ago he was here."

"He couldn't have fallen," the Doctor exclaimed. "It isn't far down there--we'd see him."

The truth suddenly dawned on the Doctor. "Don't move!" he commanded sharply. "Don't any of you move! Don't take a step!"

Uncomprehending, they stood motionless. The Doctor's gaze was at the rocky floor under his feet.

"It's size," he added vehemently. "Don't you understand? He's taken too much of the diminis.h.i.+ng drug."

An exclamation from Oteo made them all move towards him, in spite of the Doctor's command. There, close by Oteo's feet, they saw the tiny figure of the Very Young Man, already no more than an inch in height, and rapidly growing smaller.

The Doctor bent down, and the little figure waved its arms in terror.

"Don't get smaller," called the Doctor. But even as he said it, he realized it was a futile command.

The Very Young Man answered, in a voice so minute it seemed coming from an infinite distance.

"I can't stop! I haven't any of the other drug!"

They all remembered then. Targo had stolen the Very Young Man's vial of the enlarging drug. It had never been replaced. Instead the Very Young Man had been borrowing from the others as he went along.

The Big Business Man was seized with sudden panic.

"He'll get lost. We must get smaller with him." He turned sidewise, and stumbling over a rock almost crushed the Very Young Man with the step he took to recover his balance.

Aura, with a cry, pushed several of the others back; Oteo and Eena, frightened, started down the declivity.

"We must get smaller!" the Big Business Man reiterated.