The Princess of the Atom by Ray Cummings

I have from Drake his impressions of those last hours on Mita. A wild, chaotic picture his memory holds. Jumbled impressions -- yet as I record them in that fashion, doubtless I will approximate the truth, for they were jumbled, frantic scenes of panic -- millions of people struggling upon a doomed world!

Upon Drake there was a sense of despair; his own futility was so clearly shown, and the futility of his plans! He had sent Alt to have me come into the atom with automatics. He stood before Dianne's palace, gazing at a world gone mad. An automatic was in his hand, as futile as a cap pistol in the hands of a child.

By nature Drake was resourceful; cautious, but reckless too, when he thought reckless daring was necessary. He stood, there as a giant with Ahlma and Alt, and saw in the blood-red dawn Togaro's monstrous vehicle expanding into the sky. It did not need Alt's horrified words to bring realization to Drake; nor the wrecked city -- the turmoil of the panic-stricken throngs -- to make Drake realize that this was the end. He knew it.

A very human sense of utter failure made Drake stand and tell himself bitterly that there was no use trying to do anything. But the feeling passed. It is instinctive to struggle for life against every most desperate circumstance. Drake became aware that in the wrecked city spread there in the dawn before him, thousands of people were struggling for life. Doing nothing with any rational thought -- and yet struggling.

Behind him, in the palace, he heard the shouts of the councilmen; the clatter of footsteps. The government, against all these odds, was striving to do something. Nobody was quitting.

It stung him into action.

"Alt, we must get back to normal size! Help them, Alt. This is death if we stand here."

They took the drug. The scene dwindled. The Togaro ship off there on the water seemed rising to new gigantic proportions. Its huge stern was coming toward the city. Projecting above the water now; Drake could see the space between the bottom of its hull and the lake surface. It came, that giant stern, shoving its way forward. The length of its hull extended like a gray wall off for miles to the horizon where it lay balanced, with other miles on beyond, the shape of it blurred by distance against the red sky of dawn.

Drake attained normal size. Ahlma clung to him.

Alt, too, was struggling to cope with a terror almost overpowering. "Drake -- what -- what can we do?"

They were down in the garden now, at the doorway of the palace. Officials were running in and out. Calling orders, with no one to hear them. Some of the police stood here, inactive, stupefied with terror.

"Come inside," said Drake. He pulled at the confused Alt. "Don't you understand? Our ship may be repaired by now. We've got to get it repaired! Herd the people into it! Make it large enough to take us all -- all these people. Alt, we've got to send messengers -- send them in giant size -- to the other cities! The local airships -- dispatch them to bring the people here -- get them all into our vehicle and get away! You understand? This is the end of the world here! Abandon it! This is -- the end!"

They ran into the turmoil of the palace.

In the chaos of those final hours Drake must have played a leading and a masterful part. He does not tell it so, but I think it is true. Authority -- the routine of any official activity -- was wholly gone. Of them all, it was Drake who held most of his wits, who gave orders and enforced obedience.

The time was very short. There was an hour -- or even less -- while the red dawn faded into full light of day. The monstrous hull of the Togaro ship projected like a black roof over all the scene. The shadow of it lay black upon the city, the palace and lake. It grew until up there in the sky nothing else could be seen.

Then it lifted. It moved up a few miles. It hovered up there. From one horizon to the other it loomed, a solid dark shape like a leaden cloud-bank. Its great pontoons were visible. The rectangles of floor windows showed in its bulging hull.

An expanding dark cloud. It soon was spread so wide that all across the sky was only one small section of its length -- one pontoon, one window.

But during that hour Drake was accomplishing things in all the turmoil of people almost stricken of reason by terror. The space-ship was ready at last. The repairs fortunately had been almost finished before the panic began.

Messengers were sent into the burning city with orders to herd the crowd to the landing field. Local ships were sent to other cities. Some got started, some did not. But a few, at the very last, came back loaded with refugees. The young men of that army which Drake had expected to lead into smallness against Togaro, were now most useful of all. They understood the drugs and could be trusted with them. In the lower room of the palace Drake stood with the main supply of drugs. He dealt them out to this little army. A hundred or more. They stood, white-faced and silent; but alert, eager to obey.

"Alt, tell them -- " Drake cursed his inability to speak with any fluency this native language. But Alt, always at his elbow, was swift to interpret. "Alt, tell these ten to get large, very large, and run to the water city."