The Princess of the Atom by Ray Cummings

"Not that way, Frank! Let's get around the back -- I think it's a better chance."

We had clambered down the ten feet of jagged rock. We didn't change size -- we had to risk it as we were, for to have got smaller would have made the descent too great. Somehow we were not discovered. We seemed to be on the floor of a room. A stone floor -- we saw it as a ridged, uneven rocky plain. Off in the distance was what might have been a table, chairs, and the legs of seated men.

Ahead of us, a quarter of a mile away, was a cliff-like precipice. I figured it to be the wall of the room. It seemed darker over there.

We ran. The rock had a small fence around it -- a fence which, compared to the normal room-size, was probably a foot or two high. We darted through its bars. In five minutes, perhaps, we were in the shelter of the bottom of the wall. It was seemingly of rocks and earth, piled and plastered together. It was dank with moisture, but solid to us in this size.

We stood a moment in the shadows here, panting from the run.

"Where do you suppose this is? " Drake demanded. "Can you make anything out of it, Frank?"

We were secure for the moment. It was dark over here. Standing with quiet survey I could imagine that there were three or four men off there in the distance. That this was a room with a single light overhead. No window on this side. The other walls were too far away to be visible.

"The door," said Drake. "That's what we've got to find -- got to get out through it."

But where were we? Certainly this was no room in our home. It looked as though it might be a place hastily, amateurishly built. But it was tight. No crevices -- no cracks or openings. The bottom of this wall was plastered solid with wet mud. The air down here was dank and heavy with moisture.

Dianne murmured, "Listen! That sounds like water."

A strange, muffled reverberating roar sounded from some great distance. A giant sea pounding? It seemed like that. My heart sank. Why this could be a place very far from King's Cove. The wild thought came to me -- was this an earthly sound, this muffled pounding of the sea.

I said something like that to Drake.

"Nonsense! They've stolen the rock, Frank, and built this hiding place -- probably not far from King's Cove. Where could they go?"

Dianne said abruptly, "I think this is all very small -- this place they've built down here."

It was a new idea to us. But it seemed probably true. The Togarites would be in hiding. They had stolen the rock, made it small, and built this tiny housing place.

Our escape was still undiscovered. Not far from us was a long, slanting shadow -- as though a table perhaps were cutting off the light. We walked until the shadow was upon us. And by the wall along here was a neglected pile of caked mud, large as a house to us. We found an opening like a cave-mouth, and squeezed in.

We were momentarily safe. "You stay here with the girls," I suggested to Drake. "I'll get large enough to see what the place looks like and how we can get out."

A discussion in the room interrupted us. The rock was visible a quarter of a mile away. A figure was growing upon it, expanding swiftly. A man. He leaped from the rock. We could see him moving in the opposite direction from us, reaching the little fence, climbing over it.

He had shouted. The distant giant shapes had sprung into action. They seemed bending down. There was surprise, but no turmoil.

"Togaro! " murmured Ahlma.