Читать книгу The Ray Cummings MEGAPACK ®: 25 Golden Age Science Fiction and Mystery Tales - Ray Cummings - Страница 19

CHAPTER 17

THE WELCOME OF THE MASTER

It was nearly twelve hours later, as their watches showed them, that the first of the weary adventurers awoke. The Very Young Man it was who first opened his eyes with a confused sense of feeling that he was in bed at home, and that this was the momentous day he was to start his journey into the ring. He sat up and rubbed his eyes vigorously to see more clearly his surroundings.

Beside him lay his two friends, fast asleep. With returning consciousness came the memory of the events of the day and night before. The Very Young Man sprang to his feet and vigorously awoke his companions.

The action of the drug again had ceased, and at first glance the scene seemed to have changed very little. The incline now was some distance away, although still visible, stretching up in a great arc and fading away into the blackness above. The ground beneath their feet still of its metallic quality, appeared far rougher than before. The Very Young Man bent down and put his hand upon it. There was some form of vegetation there, and, leaning closer, he could see what appeared to be the ruins of a tiny forest, bent and trampled, the tree-trunks no larger than slender twigs that he could have snapped asunder easily between his fingers.

“Look at this,” he exclaimed. “The woods—we’re here.”

The others knelt down with him.

“Be careful,” cautioned the Doctor. “Don’t move around. We must get smaller.” He drew the papers from his pocket.

“Rogers was in doubt about this quantity to take,” he added. “We should be now somewhere at the edge or in the forest he mentions. Yet we may be very far from the point at which he reached the bottom of that incline. I think, too, that we are somewhat larger than he was. Probably the strength of our drug differs from his to some extent.”

“How much should we take next, I wonder?” said the Big Business Man as he looked at his companions.

The Doctor took a pill and crushed it in his hand. “Let us take so much,” he said, indicating a small portion of the powder. The others each crushed one of the pills and endeavored to take as nearly as possible an equal amount.

“I’m hungry,” said the Very Young Man. “Can we eat right after the powder?”

“I don’t think that should make any difference,” the Doctor answered, and so accustomed to the drug were they now that, quite nonchalantly, they sat down and ate.

After a few moments it became evident that in spite of their care the amounts of the drug they had taken were far from equal.

Before they had half finished eating, the Very Young Man was hardly more than a third the size of the Doctor, with the Big Business Man about half-way between. This predicament suddenly struck them as funny, and all three laughed heartily at the effect of the drug.

“Hey, you, hurry up, or you’ll never catch me,” shouted the Very Young Man gleefully. “Gosh, but you’re big!” He reached up and tried to touch the Doctor’s shoulder. Then, seeing the huge piece of chocolate in his friend’s hand and comparing it with the little one in his own, he added: “Trade you chocolate. That’s a regular meal you got there.”

“That’s a real idea,” said the Big Business Man, ceasing his laughter abruptly. “Do you know, if we ever get really low on food, all we have to do is one of us stay big and his food would last the other two a month.”

“Fine; but how about the big one?” asked the Very Young Man, grinning. “He’d starve to death on that plan, wouldn’t he?”

“Well, then he could get much smaller than the other two, and they could feed him. It’s rather involved, I’ll admit, but you know what I mean,” the Big Business Man finished somewhat lamely.

“I’ve got a much better scheme than that,” said the Very Young Man. “You let the food stay large and you get small. How about that?” he added triumphantly. Then he laid carefully on the ground beside him a bit of chocolate and a few of the hard crackers they were eating. “Stay there, little friends, when you grow up, I’ll take you back,” he added in a gleeful tone of voice.

“Strange that should never have occurred to us,” said the Doctor. “It’s a perfect way of replenishing our food supply,” and quite seriously both he and the Big Business Man laid aside some of their food.

“Thank me for that brilliant idea,” said the Very Young Man. Then, as another thought occurred to him, he scratched his head lugubriously. “Wouldn’t work very well if we were getting bigger, would it? Don’t let’s ever get separated from any food coming out.”

The Doctor was gigantic now in proportion to the other two, and both he and the Big Business Man took a very small quantity more of the drug in an effort to equalize their rate of bodily reduction. They evidently hit it about right, for no further change in their relative size occurred.

All this time the vegetation underneath them had been growing steadily larger. From tiny broken twigs it grew to sticks bigger than their fingers, then to the thickness of their arms. They moved slightly from time to time, letting it spread out from under them, or brushing it aside and clearing a space in which they could sit more comfortably. Still larger it grew until the tree-trunks, thick now almost as their bodies, were lying broken and twisted, all about them. Over to one side they could see, half a mile away, a place where the trees were still standing—slender saplings, they seemed, growing densely together.

In half an hour more the Very Young Man announced he had stopped getting smaller. The action of the drug ceased in the others a few minutes later. They were still not quite in their relative sizes, but a few grains of the powder quickly adjusted that.

They now found themselves near the edge of what once was a great forest. Huge trees, whose trunks measured six feet or more in diameter, lay scattered about upon the ground; not a single one was left standing. In the distance they could see, some miles away, where the untrodden forest began.

They had replaced the food in their belts some time before, and now again they were ready to start. Suddenly the Very Young Man spied a huge, round, whitish-brown object lying beside a tree-trunk near by. He went over and stood beside it. Then he called his friends excitedly. It was irregularly spherical in shape and stood higher than his knees—a great jagged ball. The Very Young Man bent down, broke off a piece of the ball, and, stuffing it into his mouth, began chewing with enthusiasm.

“Now, what do you think of that?” he remarked with a grin. “A cracker crumb I must have dropped when we first began lunch!”

They decided now to make for the nearest part of the unbroken forest. It was two hours before they reached it, for among the tangled mass of broken, fallen trees their progress was extremely difficult and slow. Once inside, among the standing trees, they felt more lost than ever. They had followed implicitly the Chemist’s directions, and in general had encountered the sort of country they expected. Nevertheless, they all three realized that it was probable the route they had followed coming in was quite different from that taken by the Chemist; and in what direction lay their destination, and how far, they had not even the vaguest idea, but they were determined to go on.

“If ever we find this city of Arite, it’ll be a miracle sure,” the Very Young Man remarked as they were walking along in silence.

They had gone only a short distance farther when the Big Business Man, who was walking in front, stopped abruptly.

“What’s that?” he asked in a startled undertone.

They followed the direction of his hand, and saw, standing rigid against a tree-trunk ahead, the figure of a man little more than half as tall as themselves, his grayish body very nearly the color of the blue-gray tree behind him.

The three adventurers stood motionless, staring in amazement.

As the Big Business Man spoke, the little figure, which had evidently been watching them for some time, turned irresolutely as though about to run. Then with gathering courage it began walking slowly towards them, holding out its arms with the palm up.

“He’s friendly,” whispered the Very Young Man; and they waited, silent, as the man approached.

As he came closer, they could see he was hardly more than a boy, perhaps twenty years of age. His lean, gray body was nearly naked. Around his waist he wore a drab-colored tunic, of a substance they could not identify. His feet and legs were bare. On his chest were strapped a thin stone plate, slightly convex. His thick, wavy, black hair, cut at the base of his neck, hung close about his ears. His head was uncovered. His features were regular and pleasing; his smile showed an even row of very white teeth.

The three men did not speak or move until, in a moment, more, he stood directly before them, still holding out his hands palm up. Then abruptly he spoke.

“The Master welcomes his friends,” he said in a soft musical voice. He gave the words a most curious accent and inflexion, yet they were quite understandable to his listeners.

“The Master welcomes his friends,” he repeated, dropping his arms to his sides and smiling in a most friendly manner.

The Very Young Man caught his breath. “He’s been sent to meet us; he’s from Rogers. What do you think of that? We’re all right now!” he exclaimed excitedly.

The Doctor held out his hand, and the Oroid, hesitating a moment in doubt, finally reached up and grasped it.

“Are you from Rogers?” asked the Doctor.

The Oroid looked puzzled. Then he turned and flung out his arm in a sweeping gesture towards the deeper woods before them. “Rogers—Master,” he said.

“You were waiting for us?” persisted the Doctor; but the other only shook his head and smiled his lack of comprehension.

“He only knows the first words he said,” the Big Business Man suggested.

“He must be from Rogers,” the Very Young Man put in. “See, he wants us to go with him.”

The Oroid was motioning them forward, holding out his hand as though to lead them.

The Very Young Man started forward, but the Big Business Man held him back.

“Wait a moment,” he said. “I don’t think we ought to go among these people as large as we are. Rogers is evidently alive and waiting for us. Why wouldn’t it be better to be about his size, instead of ten-foot giants as we would look now?”

“How do you know how big Rogers is?” asked the Very Young Man.

“I think that a good idea,” agreed the Doctor. “Rogers described these Oroid men as being some six inches shorter than himself, on the average.”

“This one might be a pygmy, for all we know,” said the Very Young Man.

“We might chance it that he’s of normal size,” said the Doctor, smiling. “I think we should make ourselves smaller.”

The Oroid stood patiently by and watched them with interested eyes as each took a tiny pellet from a vial under his arm and touched it to his tongue. When they began to decrease in size his eyes widened with fright and his legs shook under him. But he stood his ground, evidently assured by their smiles and friendly gestures.

In a few minutes the action of the drug was over, and they found themselves not more than a head taller than the Oroid. In this size he seemed to like them better, or at least he stood in far less awe of them, for now he seized them by the arms and pulled them forward vigorously.

They laughingly yielded, and, led by this strange being of another world, they turned from the open places they had been following and plunged into the depths of the forest.