CHAPTER XXXIII
THE RESCUE OF LOTO
The Very Young Man heard the clang of the closing door with sinkingheart. The two newcomers, passing close to him and Aura as they stoodshrinking up against the wall, joined their friends at the table. TheVery Young Man turned to Aura with a solemn face.
"Are there any other doors?" he asked.
The girl pointed. "One other, there--but see, it, too, is closed."
Far across the room the Very Young Man could make out a heavy metal doorsimilar to that through which they had entered. It was closed--he couldsee that plainly. And to open it--so huge a door that its great goldenhandle hung nearly a hundred feet above them--was an utterimpossibility.
The Very Young Man looked at the windows. There were four of them, allon one side of the room--enormous curtained apertures, two hundred feetin length and half as broad--but none came even within fifty feet of thefloor. The Very Young Man realized with dismay that there was apparentlyno way of escape out of the room.
"We can't get out, Aura," he said, and in spite of him his voicetrembled. "There's no way."
The girl had no answer but a quiet nod of agreement. Her face wasserious, but there was on it no sign of panic. The Very Young Manhesitated a moment; then he started off down the room towards one of thedoors, with Aura close at his side.
They could not get out in their present size, he knew. Nor would theydare make themselves sufficiently large to open the door, or climbthrough one of the windows, even if the room had been nearer the groundthan it actually was. Long before they could escape they would bediscovered and seized.
The Very Young Man tried to think it out clearly. He knew, except for apossible accident, or a miscalculation on his part, that they were in noreal danger. But he did not want to make a false move, and now for thefirst time he realized his responsibility to Aura, and began to regretthe rashness of his undertaking.
They could wait, of course, until the conference was over, and then slipout unnoticed. But the Very Young Man felt that the chances of theirrescuing Loto were greater now than they would be probably at any timein the future. They must get out now, he was convinced of that. But how?
They were at the door in a moment more. Standing so close it seemed,now, a tremendous shaggy walling of shining metal. They walked itslength, and then suddenly the Very Young Man had an idea. He threwhimself face down upon the floor. Underneath the door's lower edge therewas a tiny crack. To one of normal Oroid size it would have beenunnoticeable--a space hardly so great as the thickness of a thin sheetof paper. But the Very Young Man could see it plainly; he gauged itssize by slipping the edge of his robe into it.
This crack was formed by the bottom of the door and the level surface ofthe floor; there was no sill. The door was perfectly hung, for the crackseemed to be of uniform size. The Very Young Man showed it to Aura.
"There's the way out," he whispered. "Through there and then large againon the other side."
He made his calculation of size carefully, and then, crushing one of thepills into powder, divided a portion of it between himself and the girl.Aura seemed tired and the drug made her very dizzy. They both sat uponthe stone floor, close up to the door, and closed their eyes. When, bythe feeling of the floor beneath them, they knew the action of the drugwas over, they stood up unsteadily and looked around them.
They now found themselves standing upon a great stone plain. The groundbeneath their feet was rough, but as far away as they could see, out upto the horizon, it was mathematically level. This great expanse wasempty except in one place; over to the right there appeared a huge,irregular, blurred mass that might have been, by its look, a range ofmountains. But the mass moved as they stared at it, and the Very YoungMan knew it was the nearest one of Targo's men, sitting beside thetable.
In the opposite direction, perhaps a hundred yards away from where theywere standing, they could see the bottom of the door. It hung in the airsome fifty feet above the surface of the ground. They walked over andstood underneath; like a great roof it spread over them--a flat, levelsurface parallel with the floor beneath.
At this extraordinary change in their surroundings Aura seemedfrightened, but seeing the matter-of-fact way in which her companionacted, she maintained her composure and soon was much interested in thisnew aspect of things. The Very Young Man took a last careful look aroundand then, holding Aura by the hand, started to cross under the door in adirection he judged to be at right angles to its length.
They walked swiftly, trying to keep their sense of direction, but havingno means of knowing whether they were doing so or not. For perhaps tenminutes they walked; then they emerged on the other side of the door andagain faced a great level, empty expanse.
"We're under," the Very Young Man remarked with relief. "Do you knowwhere Loto is from here?"
Aura had recovered her self-possession sufficiently to smile.
"I might, perhaps," she answered, with a pretty little shrug. "But it'sa long way, don't you think? A hundred miles, it may be?"
"We get large here," said the Very Young Man, with an answering smile.He was greatly relieved to be outside the audience room; the way seemedeasy before them now.
They took the opposite drug, and after several successive changes ofsize, succeeded in locating the upper room in the palace in which Lotowas held. At this time they were about the same relative size to theirenemies as when they entered the audience chamber on the floor below.
"That must be it," the Very Young Man whispered, as they cautiouslyturned a hallway corner. A short distance beyond, in front of a closeddoor, sat two guards.
"That is the room of which they spoke," Aura answered. "Only one doorthere is, I think."
"That's all right," said the Very Young Man confidently. "We'll do thesame thing--go under the door."
They went close up to the guards, who were sitting upon the floorplaying some sort of a game with little golden balls. This door, likethe other, had a space beneath it, rather wider than the other, and inten minutes more the Very Young Man and Aura were beneath it, and insidethe room.
As they grew larger again the Very Young Man at first thought the roomwas empty. "There he is," cried Aura happily. The Very Young Man lookedand could see across the still huge room, the figure of Loto, standingat a window opening.
"Don't let him see us till we're his size," cautioned the Very YoungMan. "It might frighten him. And if he made any noise----" He looked atthe door behind them significantly.
Aura nodded eagerly; her face was radiant. Steadily larger they grew.Loto did not turn round, but stood quiet, looking out of the window.
They crept up close behind him, and when they were normal size Aurawhispered his name softly. The boy turned in surprise and she faced himwith a warning finger on her lips. He gave a low, happy little cry, andin another instant was in her arms, sobbing as she held him close to herbreast.
The Very Young Man's eyes grew moist as he watched them, and heard thesoft Oroid words of endearment they whispered to each other. He put hisarms around them, too, and all at once he felt very big and very strongbeside these two delicate, graceful little creatures of whom he wasprotector.
A noise in the hallway outside brought the Very Young Man to himself.
"We must get out," he said swiftly. "There's no time to lose." He wentto the window; it faced the city, fifty feet or more above the ground.
The Very Young Man make a quick decision. "If we go out the way we came,it will take a very long time," he explained. "And we might be seen. Ithink we'd better take the quick way; get big here--get right out," hewaved his hands towards the roof, "and make a run for it back to Arite."
He made another calculation. The room in which they were was on the topfloor of the palace; Aura had told him that. It was a room about fiftyfeet in length, triangular in shape, and some thirty feet from floor toceiling. The Very Young Man estimated that when they had grown largeenough to fill the room, they could burst through the palace roof andleap to the gr
ound. Then in a short time they could run over thecountry, back to Arite. He measured out the drug carefully, and withouthesitation his companions took what he gave them.
As they all three started growing--it was Loto's first experience, andhe gave an exclamation of fright at the sensation and threw his armsaround Aura again--the Very Young Man made them sit upon the floor nearthe center of the room. He sat himself beside them, staring up at theceiling that was steadily folding up and coming down towards them. Forsome time he stared, fascinated by its ceaseless movement.
Then suddenly he realized with a start that it was almost down uponthem. He put up his hand and touched it, and a thrill of fear ran overhim. He looked around. Beside him sat Aura and Loto, huddled closetogether. The walls of the room had nearly closed in upon them now; itsfew pieces of furniture had been pushed aside, unnoticed, by the growthof their enormous bodies. It was as though they were crouching in atriangular box, almost entirely filling it.
The Very Young Man laid his hand on Aura's arm, and she met his anxiousglance with her fearless, trusting smile.
"We'll have to break through the roof now," whispered the Very YoungMan, and the girl answered calmly: "What you say to do, we will do."
Their heads were bent down now by the ever-lowering ceiling; the VeryYoung Man pressed his shoulder against it and heaved upwards. He couldfeel the floor under him quiver and the roof give beneath his thrust,but he did not break through. In sudden horror he wondered if he could.If he did not, soon, they would be crushed to death by their own growthwithin the room.
The Very Young Man knew there was still time to take the other drug. Heshoved again, but with the same result. Their bodies were bent doublenow. The ceiling was pressing close upon them; the walls of the roomwere at their elbow. The Very Young Man crooked his arm through thelittle square orifice window that he found at his side, and, with asignal to his companions, all three in unison heaved upwards with alltheir strength. There came one agonizing instant of resistance; thenwith a wrenching of wood, the clatter of falling stones and a suddencrash, they burst through and straightened upright into the open airabove.
The Very Young Man sat still for a moment, breathing hard. Overheadstretched the canopy of stars; around lay the city, shrunken now andstill steadily diminishing. Then he got unsteadily upon his feet,pulling his companions up with him and shaking the bits of stone andbroken wood from him as he did so.
In a moment more the palace roof was down to their knees, and theystepped out of the room. They heard a cry from below and saw the twoguards, standing amidst the debris, looking up at them through the tornroof in fright and astonishment.
There came other shouts from within the palace now, and the sound of thehurrying of many little feet. For some minutes more they grew larger, asthey stood upon the palace roof, clinging to one another and listeningto the spreading cries of excitement within the building and in the citystreets below them.
"Come on," said the Very Young Man finally, and he jumped off the roofinto the street. A group of little figures scattered as he landed, andhe narrowly escaped treading upon them.
So large had they grown that it was hardly more than a step down fromthe roof; Aura and Loto were by the Very Young Man's side in a moment,and immediately they started off, picking their way single file out ofthe city. For a short time longer they continued growing; when they hadstopped the city houses stood hardly above their ankles.
It was difficult walking, for the street was narrow and the frightenedpeople in it were often unable to avoid their tread, but fortunately thepalace stood near the edge of the city, and soon they were past its lasthouses and out into the open country.
"Well, we did it," said the Very Young Man, exulting. Then he pattedLoto affectionately upon the shoulder, adding. "Well, little brother, wegot you back, didn't we?"
Aura stopped suddenly. "Look there--at Arite," she said, pointing up atthe horizon ahead of them.
Far in the distance, at the edge of the lake, and beside a dim smudge heknew to be the houses of Arite, the Very Young Man saw the giant figureof a man, huge as himself, towering up against the background of sky.