The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  "That is something we must never overlook, for it is a fact. We cannot run amuck as giants over this world and hope to conquer it. We could conquer it, yes; but only when the last of its inhabitants had been killed; stamped out like ants defending their hill from the attacks of an elephant. Don't you see I am right?"

  "Then Lylda----" began the Doctor, as the Chemist paused.

  "Lylda will fail. Her venture to-day will make matters immeasurably worse."

  "You're right," agreed the Big Business Man. "We should have realized."

  "So you see we cannot make ourselves large and recapture Loto by force. They would anticipate us and kill him."

  "Then what shall we do?" demanded the Doctor. "We must do something."

  "That we must decide carefully, for we must make no more mistakes. But we can do nothing at this moment. The lives of all of us are threatened. We must not allow ourselves to become separated. We must wait here for Lylda. Reoh and Aura must stay with us. Then we can decide how to rescue Loto and what to do after that. But we must keep together."

  "Jack ought to be here by now," said the Big Business Man. "I hope Reoh and Aura come with him."

  For over an hour they waited, and still the Very Young Man did not come. They had just decided to send Oteo to see what had become of him and to bring down Reoh and his daughter, when Lylda unexpectedly returned. It was Eena, standing at one of the side windows, who first saw her mistress. A cry from the girl brought them all to the window. Far away beyond the city they could see the gigantic figure of Lylda, towering several hundred feet in the air.

  As she came closer she seemed to stop, near the outskirts of the city, and then they saw her dwindling in size until she disappeared, hidden from their view by the houses near at hand.

  In perhaps half an hour more she reappeared, picking her way carefully down the deserted street towards them. She was at this time about forty feet tall. At the corner, a hundred yards away from them a little group of people ran out, and, with shouts of anger, threw something at her as she passed.

  She stooped down towards them, and immediately they scurried for safety out of her reach.

  Once inside of her own garden, where the Chemist and his companions were waiting, Lylda lost no time in becoming her normal size again. As she grew smaller, she sat down with her back against a little tree. Her face was white and drawn; her eyes were full of tears as she looked at her husband and his friends.

  When the drug had ceased to act, the Chemist sat beside her. She had started out only a few hours before a crusader, dominant, forceful; she came back now, a tired, discouraged little woman. The Chemist put his arm around her protectingly, drawing her drooping body towards him. "Very bad news, Lylda, we know," he said gently.

  "Oh, my husband," she cried brokenly. "So sorry I am--so very sorry. The best I knew I did. And it was all so very bad--so very bad----" she broke off abruptly, looking at him with her great, sorrowful eyes.

  "Tell us Lylda," he said softly.

  "To many cities I went," she answered. "And I told the people all I meant to say. Some of them believed. But they were not many, and of the others who did not believe, they were afraid, and so kept they silent. Then into Orlog I went, and in the public square I spoke--for very long, because, for some reason I know not, at first they listened.

  "But no one there believed. And then, my husband, at last I knew why I could not hope to gain my way. It is not because they want Targo's rule that they oppose us. It was, but it is so no longer. It is because they have been made to fear these drugs we have. For now, in Orlog, they are shouting death to all the giants. Forgotten are all their cries for land--the things that Targo promised, and we in Arite would not give. It is death to all the giants they are shouting now: death to you, to me, to us all, because we have these drugs."

  "Did they attack you?" asked the Big Business Man.

  "Many things they threw," Lylda answered. "But I was so big," she smiled a little sad, twisted smile. "What they could do was as nothing. And because of that they fear and hate us so; yet never have I seen such fearless things as those they did. Death to the giants was their only cry. And I could have killed them--hundreds, thousands--yet never could I have made them stop while yet they were alive.

  "I told them Targo I would free. And in Orlog they laughed. For they said that he would free himself before I had returned."

  "He did," muttered the Big Business Man.

  "Targo escaped this afternoon," the Chemist explained. "He went to Orlog by boat and took----" He stopped abruptly. "Come into the house, Lylda," he added gently; "there are other things, my wife, of which we must speak." He rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.

  "Where is Jack," she asked, looking at the Big Business Man, who stood watching her gravely. "And where is Loto? Does he not want to see his mother who tried so----" She put her arms around the Chemist's neck. "So very hard I tried," she finished softly. "So very hard, because--I thought----"

  The Chemist led her gently into the house. The Doctor started to follow, but the Big Business Man held him back. "It is better not," he said in an undertone, "don't you think?" Oteo was standing near them, and the Big Business Man motioned to him. "Besides," he added, "I'm worried about Jack. I think we ought to go up after him. I don't think it ought to take us very long."

  "With Oteo--he knows the way," agreed the Doctor. "It's devilish strange what's keeping that boy."

  They found that although Oteo spoke only a few words of English, he understood nearly everything they said, and waiting only a moment more, they started up into the city towards Reoh's home.

  In the living-room of the house, the Chemist sat Lylda gently down on a cushion in front of the hearth. Sitting beside her, he laid his hand on hers that rested on her knee.

  "For twelve years, Lylda, we have lived together," he began slowly. "And no sorrow has come to us; no danger has threatened us or those we loved." He met his wife's questioning gaze unflinchingly and went on:

  "You have proved yourself a wonderful woman, my wife. You never knew--nor those before you--the conflict of human passions. No danger before has ever threatened you or those you loved." He saw her eyes grow wider.

  "Very strange you talk, my husband. There is something----"

  "There is something, Lylda. To-day you have seen strife, anger, hate and--and death. You have met them all calmly; you have fought them all justly, like a woman--a brave, honest Oroid woman, who can wrong no one. There is something now that I must tell you." He saw the growing fear in her eyes and hurried on.

  "Loto, to-day--this afternoon----"

  The woman gave a little, low cry of anguish, instantly repressed. Her hand gripped his tightly.

  "No, no, Lylda, not that," he said quickly, "but this afternoon while we were all away--Loto was here alone with Eena--Targo with his men came. They did not hurt Loto; they took him away in a boat to Orlog." He stopped abruptly. Lylda's eyes never left his face. Her breath came fast; she put a hand to her mouth and stifled the cry that rose to her lips.

  "They will not hurt him, Lylda; that I know. And soon we will have him back."

  For a moment more her searching eyes stared steadily into his. He heard the whispered words, "My little son--with Targo," come slowly from her lips; then with a low, sobbing cry she dropped senseless into his arms.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  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 th
e 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."