The Girl in the Golden Atom

  CHAPTER XXIX

  ON THE LAKE

  "You're right--we are being followed," the Very Young Man said soberly.He had pulled the girl over close against the wall of a house. "Did yousee that?"

  "Three, they are," Aura answered. "I saw them before--in the streetbelow--Targo's men."

  Evidently the three men had been watching the house from which they hadcome and had followed them from there. If they were Targo's men, asseemed very probable, the Very Young Man could not understand why theyhad not already attacked him. Perhaps they intended to as soon as he andAura had reached a more secluded part of the city. They must know he hadthe drugs, and to gain possession of those certainly was what they werestriving for. The Very Young Man realized he must take no chances; tolose the drugs would be fatal to them all.

  "Are we near the edge of the city?" he asked.

  "Yes, very near."

  "Then we shall get large here. If we make a run for it we will be in thecountry before we are big enough to attract too much attention.Understand, Aura?"

  "I understand."

  "We mustn't stir up the city if we can help it; with giants runningaround, the people would get worked up to a frenzy. You could see thatwith Lylda this afternoon. Not that you can blame them altogether, butwe want to get Loto back before we start anything here in Arite." Hetook the pellets out as he spoke, and they each touched one of them tothe tip of their tongues.

  "Now, then, come on--not too fast, we want to keep going," said the VeryYoung Man, taking the girl by the hand again.

  As they started off, running slowly down the street, the Very Young Manlooked back. The three men were running after them--not fast, seemingcontent merely to keep their distance. The Very Young Man laughed. "Waittill they see us get big. Fine chance they've got."

  Aura, her lithe, young body in perfect condition, ran lightly and easilyas a fawn. She made a pretty picture as she ran, with her long, blackhair streaming out behind her, and the short silk tunic flapping abouther lean, round thighs. She still held the Very Young Man by the hand,running just in advance of him, guiding him through the streets, whichin this part of the city were more broken up and irregular.

  They had not gone more than a hundred yards when the pavement began tomove unsteadily under them, as the deck of a plunging ship feels to onewho runs its length, and the houses they were swiftly passing beganvisibly to decrease in size. The Very Young Man felt the girl falter inher stride. He dropped her hand and slipped his arm about her waist,holding her other hand against it. She smiled up into his eyes, and thusthey ran on, side by side.

  A few moments more and they were in the open country, running on a roadthat wound through the hills, between cultivated fields dotted here andthere with houses. The landscape dwindled beneath them steadily, untilthey seemed to be running along a narrow, curving path, bordered bylittle patches of different-colored ground, like a checkerboard. Thehouses they passed now hardly reached as high as their knees. Sometimespeasants stood in the doorways of these houses watching them in terror.Occasionally they passed a farmer ploughing his field, who stopped hiswork, stricken dumb, and stared at them as they went swiftly by.

  When they were well out into the country, perhaps a quarter of the wayto Orlog--for to beings so huge as they the distance was not great--theVery Young Man slowed down to a walk.

  "How far have we gone?" he asked.

  Aura stopped abruptly and looked around her. They seemed now to be atthe bottom of a huge, circular, shallow bowl. In every direction fromwhere they stood the land curved upward towards the rim of the bowl thatwas the horizon--a line, not sharp and well defined, but dim and hazy,melting away into the blackness of the star-studded sky. Behind them,hardly more than a mile away, according to their present stature--theyhad stopped growing entirely now--lay the city of Arite. They could seecompletely across it and out into the country beyond.

  The lake, with whose shore they had been running parallel, was muchcloser to them. Ahead, up near the rim of the horizon, lay a blacksmudge. Aura pointed. "Orlog is there," she said. "You see it?"

  To the Very Young Man suddenly came the realization that already he wasfacing the problem of how to get into Orlog unheralded. If they remainedin their present size they could easily walk there in an hour or less.But long before that they would be seen and recognized.

  The Very Young Man feared for Loto's safety if he allowed that tohappen. He seemed to be able to make out the city of Orlog now. It wassmaller than Arite, and lay partially behind a hill, with most of itshouses strung along the lake shore. If only they were not so tall theycould not be seen so readily. But if they became smaller it would takethem much longer to get there. And eventually they would have to becomenormal Oroid size, or even smaller, in order to get into the cityunnoticed. The Very Young Man thought of the lake. Perhaps that would bethe best way.

  "Can you swim?" he asked. And Aura, with her ready smile, answered thatshe could. "If we are in the water," she added, seeming to have followedhis thoughts, "they would not see us. I can swim very far--can you?"

  The Very Young Man nodded.

  "If we could get near to Orlog in the water," he said, "we might get aboat. And then when we were small, we could sail up. They wouldn't seeus then."

  "There are many boats," answered the girl in agreement. "Look!"

  There were, indeed, on the lake, within sight of them now, severalboats. "We must get the one nearest Orlog," the Very Young Man said. "Orelse it will beat us in and carry the news."

  In a few minutes more they were at the lake shore. The Very Young Manwore, underneath his robe, a close-fitting knitted garment very muchlike a bathing-suit. He took off his robe now, and rolling it up, tiedit across his back with the cord he had worn around his waist. Aura'stunic was too short to impede her swimming and when the Very Young Manwas ready, they waded out into the water together. They found the lakeno deeper than to Aura's shoulders, but as it was easier to swim than towade, they began swimming--away from shore towards the farthest boatthat evidently was headed for Orlog.

  The Very Young Man thought with satisfaction that, with only their headsvisible, huge as they would appear, they could probably reach this boatwithout being seen by any one in Orlog. The boat was perhaps a quarterof a mile from them--a tiny little toy vessel, it seemed, that theynever would have seen except for its sail.

  They came up to it rapidly, for they were swimming very much faster thanit could sail, passing close to one of the others and nearly swamping itby the waves they made. As they neared the boat they were pursuing--itwas different from any the Very Young Man had seen so far, a single,canoe-shaped hull, with out-riders on both sides--they could see it heldbut a single occupant, a man who sat in its stern--a figure about aslong as one of the Very Young Man's fingers.

  The Very Young Man and Aura were swimming side by side, now. The waterwas perfect in temperature--neither too hot nor too cold; they had notbeen swimming fast, and were not winded.

  "We've got him, what'll we do with him," the Very Young Man wanted toknow in dismay, as the thought occurred to him. He might have been morepuzzled at how to take the drug to make them smaller while they wereswimming, but Aura's answer solved both problems.

  "There is an island," she said flinging an arm up out of the water. "Wecan push the boat to it, and him we can leave there. Is that not thething to do?"

  "You bet your life," the Very Young Man agreed, enthusiastically."That's just the thing to do."

  As they came within reach of the boat the Very Young Man stoppedswimming and found that the water was not much deeper than his waist.The man in the boat appeared now about to throw himself into the lakefrom fright.

  "Tell him, Aura," the Very Young Man said. "We won't hurt him."

  Wading through the water, they pushed the boat with its terrifiedoccupant carefully in front of them towards the island, which was notmore than two or three hundred yards away. The Very Young Man found thisrather slow work; becoming impatient, he seized the boat in his h
and,pinning the man against its seat with his forefinger so he would notfall out. Then raising the boat out of the water over his head he wadedforward much more rapidly.

  The island, which they reached in a few moments more, was circular inshape, and about fifty feet in diameter. It had a beach entirely aroundit; a hill perhaps ten feet high rose near its center, and at one end itwas heavily wooded. There were no houses to be seen.

  The Very Young Man set the boat back on the water, and they pushed it upon the beach. When it grounded the tiny man leaped out and ran swiftlyalong the sand. The Very Young Man and Aura laughed heartily as theystood ankle-deep in the water beside the boat, watching him. For nearlyfive minutes he ran; then suddenly he ducked inland and disappeared inthe woods.

  When they were left alone they lost no time in becoming normal Oroidsize. The boat now appeared about twenty-five feet long--a narrow,canoe-shaped hull hollowed out of a tree-trunk. They climbed into it,and with a long pole they found lying in its bottom, the Very Young Manshoved it off the beach.