The Princess of the Atom by Ray Cummings

Father sat that night in the War Department at Washington. He had been in constant consultation with the authorities, for he, more than any one in the world, could explain what manner of people were these Togarites. Yet even father knew very little.

"We can't stand up against warfare like this! " exclaimed the war secretary.

There were orders given that night that under no circumstances were the Togarites to be attacked. Reprisal by the enemy was too easy -- too efficacious.

Additional warnings to the public were issued. The enemy was moving slowly southward -- the territory in advance of them was ordered abandoned. No need to enforce such orders! A wave of refugees rolled back, a hundred miles in advance of the slow-moving giant lines.

Indescribable scenes of confusion and terror marked those days toward the close of May. The Togarites moved largely at night; every dawn found them farther south. They crossed Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The 1st of June found their outposts well into Connecticut, following the north shore of Long Island Sound. New Haven was trampled by a single giant, on June 1 -- the city wrecked in an hour.

There were changes now in the enemy tactics. In Maine they had been careful not to demolish the cities unduly. Their own people were settling there. But now, farther south, only the active warring giants advanced. They laid everything waste beneath their monstrous tread. An area a hundred miles wide had been wholly abandoned days before. The advancing giants waded into it; stamping, kicking -- firing it by night with great torches. A blackened, wrecked swath of country stretched down from Maine.

The giants were larger now. As their territory expanded they took a larger size. It was systematically done. Each seemed to have his post -- a few miles over which he paced back and forth -- with one of his fellows coming south at intervals to relieve him. And the reliefs were always larger -- with more miles of country to pace. By June 1 it was estimated that they stood some five hundred feet tall.

On June 1 they had reached Long Island Sound barely a hundred miles from New York City, where millions of people, in all the chaos, were still unable to get away. Giants had already crossed the Hudson. One of them stood in the river and lunged against Bear Mountain Bridge until he tore it loose.

For all that the United States and Canada did not dare attack, there were frantic preparations for war. The battle planes were made ready. The Canadians were massed on the border -- and a great fleet of American planes assembled in New Jersey. Artillery units were mobilized. Infantry would be useless. It was used now to aid the flight of the civilian population. The evacuated areas in advance of the giants were always under martial law, patrolled by soldiers who retreated slowly before the oncoming enemy.

The forts of the Highlands near the Hook -- entrance to the port of New York -- were ready to do what they could; and the forts at Wadsworth, on Staten Island, were ready.

The Atlantic battle-fleet was massed in the Chesapeake. The Pacific fleet was hastening through the Panama Canal.

Resistance seemed so useless! By virtue of size alone, this enemy was irresistible. Monstrous, terrible weapon of size! No one, contemplating it, could even have approximated the terror of the reality.

Yet it seemed horrible to do nothing. Father describes innumerable conferences in Washington, where the harassed government strove to plan what might be done. Nor was our government alone. The world was at stake. Every foreign government was frightened, offering help and advice.

Help was coming. Transport planes, bringing volunteers from Britain, were daily arriving. They flew the far-south route -- landed in the Carolinas, and were rushed North.

A united, civilized earth opposed this enemy of giants. But to realize the desperate futility of it, one had only to envisage it from the giant viewpoint. A little, miniature world, like an anthill, outraged. Why, a single giant -- Togaro alone -- if he made himself large enough, could destroy this anthill activity!

Father recalls how our war secretary gripped him. "But what does he want, Ferrule? This Togaro -- conquer us? God, man, we can't yield up our whole country! Our whole earth! Does he want to exterminate us? Why doesn't he say something, communicate with us, make demands -- an ultimatum -- terms for surrender -- something! Anything, but not this gruesome silence!"

Father was silent. But to him came the wistful thought of Drake, Dianne and me. He wondered where we were -- if only we would come back to him! If we had the drugs, and brought them now, the earth might be saved.

Warfare, with both sides using the drugs, would be terrible indeed. It might, probably would, destroy the world of its own momentum. Then there came to father with a flash of divination, the true aspect of what might happen if our earth forces had the drug. Togaro's giants never wore the drug-belts. Father could guess why. It was a weapon too powerful, so that Togaro did not dare entrust it now even to his own men. One, for instance, might be wounded, and in a frenzy take too much of the drug and run amuck, destroying all his fellows.

But there was another reason. A giant had already been killed. His body was floating in the ocean off Boston. Other giants might be killed. The Earth forces might get possession of the drugs.

Father wondered where the main drug supply was kept. Probably, he concluded, it was all upon Togaro's person. One man, controlling everything.