The Princess of the Atom by Ray Cummings

There were some forty thousand people on the Togarite ship, adventuring out upon the conquest of the earth. A few hundred men, who were the Togarite leaders. I think there were perhaps six or eight hundred of these in all. They were experienced with the drugs, and constituted Togaro's active army.

Not very many for the conquest of all the nations of our earth. Yet enough! I realized it as I contemplated what they could do. Togaro was planning carefully. There were thousands of other men on this ship -- Mitans who had joined his cause. He could easily have trained them. But he was wise enough to realize that the diabolical power of the drugs needed always to be kept under his close control. He could handle his six or eight hundred trusted men; a larger army might have been awkward.

There were several hundred giants aboard the ship now. The rest of the horde was in a tiny size. They had no drugs. They were men -- but there were women and children also. I could imagine that all the renegades of Togaro's world were assembled here, eager with the lust of conquest of an earth they had never seen.

They swarmed the vehicle now. They were as small as I. Fortunately none came to this cabin where Dianne was closely watched, and where I was lurking. If they had come, being so small, they would doubtless have discovered me.

I did not dare leave the cabin; nor did I find, during all the voyage which lasted what seemed twenty-four hours perhaps, an opportunity of again communicating with Dianne.

I need not detail this outward voyage. I saw many strange things through that cabin window. The reverse of the inward trip. Diminishing, shrinking space. The stars becoming so small that they flared about us like a rain of sparks.

Great voids of distance, always shrinking. Then at last, the gray glowing molecules. Whirling and tumbling. A few at first, very far away. Then many, very close. Then great clouds of them, rolling and swirling. Dark. But sometimes shimmering. And always shrinking -- congealing into solidity.

The transitions from one condition to another -- from celestial space to solid, rocky abyss -- were never apparent, and impossible of close description. I was watching eagerly for solidity. I did not see it come -- I saw only that at last it was there -- out there in the void. A vague, distant rocky wall. It dropped downward, as though we were mounting. Barren cliffs gigantic, but dwindling. Closing in upon us.

Activity became apparent throughout the ship as we neared the voyage end. Dianne, after a few hours, had been given into the charge of several giant women. She had been taken away to another cabin. A wild thought came to me that I should cling to her robe. But the thing had come suddenly, unexpectedly. I was across the cabin. I could not reach her; the chances of discovery would have been too great. I lay in a recess niche of the bottom of the wall, and watched her go.

Later I found upon the floor some crumbs of food which she had dropped for me. They were, to my size, great chunks of a baked dough, like bread. I ate part of them. My hunger was appeased, but I suffered from thirst.

Togaro used this cabin now for consultation with some of his men. I lay, carefully hidden. The room was brighter than before, and the guard was constantly alert. Togaro sat at a table with a few of his men around him.

They talked in their native language; I could not understand a word of it. He seemed to be planning his campaign. He had lived in our world for a year. He doubtless knew a good deal about it. He spread upon the table now what seemed to be maps.

The ship landed in the depths of a stunted forest. Dark, shadowed verdure, with a dim effulgence of light upon far distant mountain ranges. The disembarkation took an hour or more. I could hear the people marching out of the ship, clustering in the forest, setting up their first encampment with the giants helping them. There seemed no need for secrecy. Fires began springing up. Portable houses of animal skins, like tents, were erected. Meals were prepared. A myriad duties necessary to the welfare of forty thousand people were under way.

I climbed through the wire-woven side hull of the ship, and reached the ground safely. I stood beside a tree. The giant ship had mangled a great spread of the forest. I found that I had got out none too soon. The ship began shrinking. Its crew was taking it into a smaller size, to hide it -- or abandon it somewhere -- and then themselves return to rejoin the encampment. It dwindled, and presently was gone. The mashed forest trees lay like broken jackstraws where it had been.

I stood for perhaps an hour there in the darkness, getting my bearings upon these new conditions. I was about normal in size to this forest; this tree was stunted, but its limbs arched out over me for what seemed twenty or thirty feet.

I found, too, that these thousands of people encamped here over several miles of forest territory, were all about my size. And the giants now began dwindling. Evidently they found it dangerous to move about -- difficult to avoid trampling the tiny multitude. They dwindled to the smaller stature.

It was presently almost a normal earthly scene. A forest encampment by night. Camp fires of burning brush; cone-shaped tents; like wigwams; families clustered over their outdoor meal; the Togarite leaders giving orders, directing the activity.

I did not see Togaro himself. Nor Dianne. I would have to move about and locate her. I pondered changing size. It did not seem advisable. With a smaller stature I could not, in days, tramp about this camp and find Dianne. Or if now I got larger, I would be instantly conspicuous. I was conspicuous enough already. My garments were different from all these Mitans -- my knitted bathing suit marked me for a stranger. My whole aspect -- my language -- differed.