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  THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM

  by

  RAY CUMMINGS

  TOMY FRIEND AND MENTORROBERT H. DAVISWITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OFHIS ENCOURAGEMENT AND PRACTICALASSISTANCE TO WHICH I OWE MYINITIAL SUCCESS

  CONTENTS

  I. A Universe in an Atom

  II. Into the Ring

  III. After Forty-eight Hours

  IV. Lylda

  V. The World in the Ring

  VI. Strategy and Kisses

  VII. A Modern Gulliver

  VIII. "I Must Go Back"

  IX. After Five Years

  X. Testing the Drugs

  XI. The Escape of the Drug

  XII. The Start

  XIII. Perilous Ways

  XIV. Strange Experiences

  XV. The Valley of the Scratch

  XVI. The Pit of Darkness

  XVII. The Welcome of the Master

  XVIII. The Chemist and His Son

  XIX. The City of Arite

  XX. The World of the Ring

  XXI. A Life Worth Living

  XXII. The Trial

  XXIII. Lylda's Plan

  XXIV. Lylda Acts

  XXV. The Escape of Targo

  XXVI. The Abduction

  XXVII. Aura

  XXVIII. The Attack on the Palace

  XXIX. On the Lake

  XXX. Word Music

  XXXI. The Palace of Orlog

  XXXII. An Ant-hill Outraged

  XXXIII. The Rescue of Loto

  XXXIV. The Decision

  XXXV. Good-bye to Arite

  XXXVI. The Fight in the Tunnels

  XXXVII. A Combat of Titans

  XXXVIII. Lost in Size

  XXXIX. A Modern Dinosaur

  XL. The Adventurers' Return

  XLI. The First Christmas

  THE GIRL IN THE GOLDEN ATOM

  CHAPTER I

  A UNIVERSE IN AN ATOM

  "Then you mean to say there is no such thing as the _smallest_ particleof matter?" asked the Doctor.

  "You can put it that way if you like," the Chemist replied. "In otherwords, what I believe is that things can be infinitely small just aswell as they can be infinitely large. Astronomers tell us of theimmensity of space. I have tried to imagine space as finite. It isimpossible. How can you conceive the edge of space? Something must bebeyond--something or nothing, and even that would be more space,wouldn't it?"

  "Gosh," said the Very Young Man, and lighted another cigarette.

  The Chemist resumed, smiling a little. "Now, if it seems probable thatthere is no limit to the immensity of space, why should we make itssmallness finite? How can you say that the atom cannot be divided? As amatter of fact, it already has been. The most powerful microscope willshow you realms of smallness to which you can penetrate no other way.Multiply that power a thousand times, or ten thousand times, and whoshall say what you will see?"

  The Chemist paused, and looked at the intent little group around him.

  He was a youngish man, with large features and horn-rimmed glasses, hisrough English-cut clothes hanging loosely over his broad, spare frame.The Banker drained his glass and rang for the waiter.

  "Very interesting," he remarked.

  "Don't be an ass, George," said the Big Business Man. "Just because youdon't understand, doesn't mean there is no sense to it."

  "What I don't get clearly"--began the Doctor.

  "None of it's clear to me," said the Very Young Man.

  The Doctor crossed under the light and took an easier chair. "Youintimated you had discovered something unusual in these realms of theinfinitely small," he suggested, sinking back luxuriously. "Will youtell us about it?"

  "Yes, if you like," said the Chemist, turning from one to the other. Anod of assent followed his glance, as each settled himself morecomfortably.

  "Well, gentlemen, when you say I have discovered something unusual inanother world--in the world of the infinitely small--you are right in away. I have seen something and lost it. You won't believe me probably,"he glanced at the Banker an instant, "but that is not important. I amgoing to tell you the facts, just as they happened."

  The Big Business Man filled up the glasses all around, and the Chemistresumed:

  "It was in 1910, this problem first came to interest me. I had nevergone in for microscopic work very much, but now I let it absorb all myattention. I secured larger, more powerful instruments--I spent most ofmy money," he smiled ruefully, "but never could I come to the end of thespace into which I was looking. Something was always hiddenbeyond--something I could almost, but not quite, distinguish.

  "Then I realized that I was on the wrong track. My instrument was notmerely of insufficient power, it was not one-thousandth the power Ineeded.

  "So I began to study the laws of optics and lenses. In 1913 I wentabroad, and with one of the most famous lens-makers of Europe I produceda lens of an entirely different quality, a lens that I hoped would giveme what I wanted. So I returned here and fitted up my microscope that Iknew would prove vastly more powerful than any yet constructed.

  "It was finally completed and set up in my laboratory, and one night Iwent in alone to look through it for the first time. It was in the fallof 1914, I remember, just after the first declaration of war.

  "I can recall now my feelings at that moment. I was about to see intoanother world, to behold what no man had ever looked on before. Whatwould I see? What new realms was I, first of all our human race, toenter? With furiously beating heart, I sat down before the hugeinstrument and adjusted the eyepiece.

  "Then I glanced around for some object to examine. On my finger I had aring, my mother's wedding-ring, and I decided to use that. I have ithere." He took a plain gold band from his little finger and laid it onthe table.

  "You will see a slight mark on the outside. That is the place into whichI looked."

  His friends crowded around the table and examined a scratch on one sideof the band.

  "What did you see?" asked the Very Young Man eagerly.

  "Gentlemen," resumed the Chemist, "what I saw staggered even my ownimagination. With trembling hands I put the ring in place, lookingdirectly down into that scratch. For a moment I saw nothing. I was likea person coming suddenly out of the sunlight into a darkened room. Iknew there was something visible in my view, but my eyes did not seemable to receive the impressions. I realize now they were not yetadjusted to the new form of light. Gradually, as I looked, objects ofdefinite shape began to emerge from the blackness.

  "Gentlemen, I want to make clear to you now--as clear as I can--thepeculiar aspect of everything that I saw under this microscope. I seemedto be inside an immense cave. One side, near at hand, I could now makeout quite clearly. The walls were extraordinarily rough and indented,with a peculiar phosphorescent light on the projections and blackness inthe hollows. I say phosphorescent light, for that is the nearest word Ican find to describe it--a curious radiation, quite different from thereflected light to which we are accustomed.

  "I said that the hollows inside of the cave were blackness. But notblackness--the absence of light--as we know it. It was a blackness thatseemed also to radiate light, if you can imagine such a condition; ablackness that seemed not empty, but merely withholding its contentsjust beyond my vision.

  "Except for a dim suggestion of roof over t
he cave, and its floor, Icould distinguish nothing. After a moment this floor became clearer. Itseemed to be--well, perhaps I might call it black marble--smooth,glossy, yet somewhat translucent. In the foreground the floor wasapparently liquid. In no way did it differ in appearance from the solidpart, except that its surface seemed to be in motion.

  "Another curious thing was the outlines of all the shapes in view. Inoticed that no outline held steady when I looked at it directly; itseemed to quiver. You see something like it when looking at an objectthrough water--only, of course, there was no distortion. It was alsolike looking at something with the radiation of heat between.

  "Of the back and other side of the cave, I could see nothing, except inone place, where a narrow effulgence of light drifted out into theimmensity of the distance behind.

  "I do not know how long I sat looking at this scene; it may have beenseveral hours. Although I was obviously in a cave, I never felt shutin--never got the impression of being in a narrow, confined space.

  "On the contrary, after a time I seemed to feel the vast immensity ofthe blackness before me. I think perhaps it may have been that path oflight stretching out into the distance. As I looked it seemed like thereversed tail of a comet, or the dim glow of the Milky Way, andpenetrating to equally remote realms of space.

  "Perhaps I fell asleep, or at least there was an interval of time duringwhich I was so absorbed in my own thoughts I was hardly conscious of thescene before me.

  "Then I became aware of a dim shape in the foreground--a shape mergedwith the outlines surrounding it. And as I looked, it gradually assumedform, and I saw it was the figure of a young girl, sitting beside theliquid pool. Except for the same waviness of outline and phosphorescentglow, she had quite the normal aspect of a human being of our own world.She was beautiful, according to our own standards of beauty; her longbraided hair a glowing black, her face, delicate of feature and winsomein expression. Her lips were a deep red, although I felt rather than sawthe colour.

  "She was dressed only in a short tunic of a substance I might describeas gray opaque glass, and the pearly whiteness of her skin gleamed withiridescence.

  "She seemed to be singing, although I heard no sound. Once she bent overthe pool and plunged her hand into it, laughing gaily.

  "Gentlemen, I cannot make you appreciate my emotions, when all at once Iremembered I was looking through a microscope. I had forgotten entirelymy situation, absorbed in the scene before me. And then, abruptly, agreat realization came upon me--the realization that everything I sawwas inside that ring. I was unnerved for the moment at the importance ofmy discovery.

  "When I looked again, after the few moments my eye took to becomeaccustomed to the new form of light, the scene showed itself as before,except that the girl had gone.

  "For over a week, each night at the same time I watched that cave. Thegirl came always, and sat by the pool as I had first seen her. Once shedanced with the wild grace of a wood nymph, whirling in and out theshadows, and falling at last in a little heap beside the pool.

  "It was on the tenth night after I had first seen her that the accidenthappened. I had been watching, I remember, an unusually long time beforeshe appeared, gliding out of the shadows. She seemed in a differentmood, pensive and sad, as she bent down over the pool, staring into itintently. Suddenly there was a tremendous cracking sound, sharp as anexplosion, and I was thrown backward upon the floor.

  "When I recovered consciousness--I must have struck my head onsomething--I found the microscope in ruins. Upon examination I saw thatits larger lens had exploded--flown into fragments scattered around theroom. Why I was not killed I do not understand. The ring I picked upfrom the floor; it was unharmed and unchanged.

  "Can I make you understand how I felt at this loss? Because of the warin Europe I knew I could never replace my lens--for many years, at anyrate. And then, gentlemen, came the most terrible feeling of all; I knewat last that the scientific achievement I had made and lost counted forlittle with me. It was the girl. I realized then that the only being Iever could care for was living out her life with her world, and, indeed,her whole universe, in an atom of that ring."

  The Chemist stopped talking and looked from one to the other of thetense faces of his companions.

  "It's almost too big an idea to grasp," murmured the Doctor.

  "What caused the explosion?" asked the Very Young Man.

  "I do not know." The Chemist addressed his reply to the Doctor, as themost understanding of the group. "I can appreciate, though, that throughthat lens I was magnifying tremendously those peculiar light-radiationsthat I have described. I believe the molecules of the lens wereshattered by them--I had exposed it longer to them that evening than anyof the others."

  The Doctor nodded his comprehension of this theory.

  Impressed in spite of himself, the Banker took another drink and leanedforward in his chair. "Then you really think that there is a girl nowinside the gold of that ring?" he asked.

  "He didn't say that necessarily," interrupted the Big Business Man.

  "Yes, he did."

  "As a matter of fact, I do believe that to be the case," said theChemist earnestly. "I believe that every particle of matter in ouruniverse contains within it an equally complex and complete a universe,which to its inhabitants seems as large as ours. I think, also that thewhole realm of our interplanetary space, our solar system and all theremote stars of the heavens are contained within the atom of some otheruniverse as gigantic to us as we are to the universe in that ring."

  "Gosh!" said the Very Young Man.

  "It doesn't make one feel very important in the scheme of things, doesit?" remarked the Big Business Man dryly.

  The Chemist smiled. "The existence of no individual, no nation, noworld, nor any one universe is of the least importance."

  "Then it would be possible," said the Doctor, "for this giganticuniverse that contains us in one of its atoms, to be itself containedwithin the atom of another universe, still more gigantic, and so on."

  "That is my theory," said the Chemist.

  "And in each of the atoms of the rocks of that cave there may be otherworlds proportionately minute?"

  "I can see no reason to doubt it."

  "Well, there is no proof, anyway," said the Banker. "We might as wellbelieve it."

  "I intend to get proof," said the Chemist.

  "Do you believe all these innumerable universes, both larger and smallerthan ours, are inhabited?" asked the Doctor.

  "I should think probably most of them are. The existence of life, Ibelieve, is as fundamental as the existence of matter without life."

  "How do you suppose that girl got in there?" asked the Very Young Man,coming out of a brown study.

  "What puzzled me," resumed the Chemist, ignoring the question, "is whythe girl should so resemble our own race. I have thought about it a gooddeal, and I have reached the conclusion that the inhabitants of anyuniverse in the next smaller or larger plane to ours probably resembleus fairly closely. That ring, you see, is in the same--shall wesay--environment as ourselves. The same forces control it that controlus. Now, if the ring had been created on Mars, for instance, I believethat the universes within its atoms would be inhabited by beings likethe Martians--if Mars has any inhabitants. Of course, in planes beyondthose next to ours, either smaller or larger, changes would probablyoccur, becoming greater as you go in or out from our own universe."

  "Good Lord! It makes one dizzy to think of it," said the Big BusinessMan.

  "I wish I knew how that girl got in there," sighed the Very Young Man,looking at the ring.

  "She probably didn't," retorted the Doctor. "Very likely she was createdthere, the same as you were here."

  "I think that is probably so," said the Chemist. "And yet, sometimes Iam not at all sure. She was very human." The Very Young Man looked athim sympathetically.

  "How are you going to prove your theories?" asked the Banker, in hismost irritatingly practical way.

  The Chemist picked
up the ring and put it on his finger. "Gentlemen," hesaid. "I have tried to tell you facts, not theories. What I saw throughthat ultramicroscope was not an unproven theory, but a fact. My theoriesyou have brought out by your questions."

  "You are quite right," said the Doctor; "but you did mention yourselfthat you hoped to provide proof."

  The Chemist hesitated a moment, then made his decision. "I will tell youthe rest," he said.

  "After the destruction of the microscope, I was quite at a loss how toproceed. I thought about the problem for many weeks. Finally I decidedto work along another altogether different line--a theory about which Iam surprised you have not already questioned me."

  He paused, but no one spoke.

  "I am hardly ready with proof to-night," he resumed after a moment."Will you all take dinner with me here at the club one week fromto-night?" He read affirmation in the glance of each.

  "Good. That's settled," he said, rising. "At seven, then."

  "But what was the theory you expected us to question you about?" askedthe Very Young Man.

  The Chemist leaned on the back of his chair.

  "The only solution I could see to the problem," he said slowly, "was tofind some way of making myself sufficiently small to be able to enterthat other universe. I have found such a way and one week from to-night,gentlemen, with your assistance, I am going to enter the surface of thatring at the point where it is scratched!"