Atta (1953) by Francis Rufus Bellamy Read online

  ACErsn

  OOUBLf NOVEL

  BOOKS

  TWO COMPLETE NOVELS 35C

  [ “ One of the most

  [fascinating fantasies

  ^ ever published." |

  — Boston Traveler

  A COMPUTE SCIEtttf-FICTION NOVEL

  by FRANCIS RUFUS BELLAMY

  FRANCIS RUFUS BELLAMY

  “ CARRIES THE READER QUITE IRRE­

  SISTIBLY A LO m . .

  — Joseph Wood Krutch

  This astonishing novel of a man who found himself

  thrust into a nightmarish world of giant insects and

  incredible adventures won the enthusiastic applause

  of reviewers throughout the country. For example,

  Margaret Parton in the New York Herald-Tribune

  wrote:

  “Of the ninety-some books which this reviewer

  has read for these columns since last January, ATTA

  is the only one which we are quite certain is destined to become an authentic classic . . . one of permanent excitement, permanent value.

  “It is, first of all, a spine-chilling narrative, filled

  with battle and suspense. It is a w’ork of extraordinary imaginative power, extending our own awareness of human and of insect life . . . Every

  page sparks off a new idea . . . The story moves to

  a heart-pounding climax.”

  Read the next page for more reader-applause, and

  then go ahead and read this unforgettable science-

  fantasy novel yourself.

  Turn this book over for

  second complete novel.

  More reviews of this unusual book:

  “Great sensitivity and depth, full of excitement

  and meaning.”

  — Providence Jo u rn al

  “Bids fair to take its place among classics of imaginative fiction.”

  — Chicago T ribune

  “A genuinely unusual story . . . quite a tour de

  force in its way.”

  — R oanoke Tim es

  “So delightfully and imaginatively written that it

  will not be forgotten for a long, long time to come.”

  — Nashville M orning

  T ennessean

  “Successfully entertaining throughout.”

  ■—Saturday Review

  “You will enjoy this as much as any novel of suspense you have read in a long time.”

  —Note Haven Register

  “A real item for readers whose palates have been

  jaded by conventional fiction.”

  — P hiladelphia B ulletin

  ATTA

  _4 n * j of»

  y f l o i t d ,x t r a o r d in a r f y _ $ d .v e n lu re

  BY F R A I C I S R UF US B E L L A M Y

  ACE BOOKS, IIC.

  23 West 47th Street

  lew York 36,1. Y.

  Atta

  Copyright, 1953, by Francis Rufus Bellamy

  An Ace Book, by arrangement with A, A. Wyn, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved

  To Walter Brooks, with whom I started

  to write ATTA many years ago, and to

  Ruth, who rescued the unfinished manuscript

  and insisted that I complete it.

  T he RitAi.v-STEAi.ERS

  Copyright, 1954, by Ace Books, Inc.

  Printed in U.S.A,

  Chapter 1

  It i s with a singular bitterness that I begin this memoir

  of rny youth.

  Here at my table, west of the Mississippi, I can turn in

  my chair and gaze out my window at sixty acres of green

  hillside, orchard, and valley. They are the actual scene of

  the greater part of the adventures I am about to relate;

  adventures for which I myself ean vouch.

  Yet even at the outset let me say that I shall experience

  no great surprise if you do not believe me. For I am not a

  professor or a literary pundit. Nor am I a scientist or a

  philosopher. I have no famous friends in Royal Societies

  to attest to my discoveries.

  Also, my proofs—which lie before me as I write—are

  proofs only to the credulous eye: homely items providing

  no real evidence that I actually talked with a creature

  named Atta; that for many months, without hope of escape, I struggled for my life in a strange and hostile world which many men have observed but no man but

  myself has ever entered.

  Yes, ironically enough, although I have studied the

  subject deeply in the last forty years I freely admit that

  even I might hesitate to accept my childish evidence as

  scientific proof, were it offered me by another. So great,

  indeed, are the limitations under which scientists and

  naturalists must labor that to verify my story as fact may

  always remain wholly impossible,

  Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge, my discoveries are definitely {actual. Atta and I did labor together, 5

  6

  A T T A

  I did struggle and conquer in the cities of Fusa and Na-

  tissia, and I did cross the boundary into the world of

  Nature, to find proof of a universe that, for all I know,

  may embrace every living thing in the whole solar system.

  Strangely enough, this universe must always have trembled very close to my perception. I can still remember, indeed—although this was many years ago—how my

  mother used to delight in telling stories of my childhood

  in which she said that even at the age of four I insisted

  that I was able to hold conversations with Dora and Roxy,

  two sorrel mares my father owned. Once, she said, when

  my father ridiculed my claims, I became very sulky and

  retired alone to the horse barn, where I did something

  to the two mares that rendered them wholly unmanageable for the rest of the day. Taken to task, I maintained that I had done nothing untoward to the team; I had

  merely told the two mares of my parents’ disbelief and

  asked them to support my statement—an explanation that

  greatly impressed old Mac, our hired man, since he had

  actually been unable to control the two horses all day.

  The truth of this happening, of course, I cannot vouch

  for now. It belongs among those apocryphal stories that

  are told of a man’s childhood. Nevertheless I must admit

  that from infancy I always felt myself in strong sympathy

  with all kinds of animals and from the beginning recognized a more than physical bond between us.

  Only as regards insects was I in just the opposite camp,

  even carrying my hatred so far as to kill them whenever

  opportunity offered; often, out of pure animosity, going

  many steps out of my way around the farm in order

  meanly to crush the life from some innocent and unsuspecting ant. My subsequent adventures could not have been better planned had they been a judgment from

  Heaven upon me for my conduct in this respect.

  In any event, forty years ago I had a knack with animals and tools that distinguished me even in our countryside, and although I was barely twenty-one I had already acquired, with some assistance from my late uncle, this

  A T T A

  7

  very valuable farm that I still own; one that I intended to

  be a home for myself and my future wife, the young

&nb
sp; woman to whom I was affianced.

  There was no house at that time on the place, a defect

  which I had every intention of remedying as soon as possible. That there had been one once, a rectangle of low, worn stones still attested. These stones had been the

  foundation of some fairly pretentious but vanished dwelling; they were now weatherbeaten and enclosed only what amounted to a rough, rustic sunken garden. Here

  some flowers grew wild, but others had been planted by

  a former owner and needed only care to bring them back

  to their former beauty.

  It was, for that reason, a place that my betrothed and 2

  often visited on Sundays in the three years during which

  I rented the fields to my prospective father-in-law. There

  we met and enjoyed ourselves after the fashion of country lovers. And there, too, Helen often busied herself pruning and weeding the plants and bushes, a sunken

  flower garden being among her dreams of the future—

  a tendency, I thought then, that augured well for the

  beauty of our home itself once we were married and

  gone to housekeeping.

  Indeed, I can still remember clearly all the high hopes

  of that future that bubbled within me on the precise

  afternoon when I hitched Billy to my driving buggy and

  set out for what had in effect become our trysting place.

  It was early June, about the same day of the month

  as this one on which I set writing, and the warm sunlight

  shimmered over the fast-ripening wheat and the sweeping

  fields of rye. The foliage in the woodlots was already dark

  with summer, and up in the sky a faint haze floated,

  brought by a warm breeze that spoke of rain not far off.

  I was well aware of the possibility of this, for my

  mother had gazed rather wistfully after me as I drove

  out of the yard, and for a moment I was moved to delay

  my going a little to sit with her on the side porch, where

  she knitted among the hens. But if it rained, I thought,

  8

  A T T A

  Helen and I would not have much time alone together,

  and with the selfishness of youth I put my own desires

  ahead of all else and drove out of the gate without stopping.

  One reason for this haste was that, although ordinarily Helen and I were in accord, once in a great while we would have a lovers’ disagreement over some trivial

  thing, which my natural disposition would magnify;

  whereupon we would part in a tiff for the time being.

  Rare and soon forgotten, seldom lasting from one meeting to the next, these occurrences were perhaps almost entirely my fault.

  On the preceding Sunday, however, we had had a

  rather more serious disagreement than usual. At least, I

  had thought enough of the affair to go to town and buy

  a box of candy as a peace offering, and this I had on the

  seat beside me as I drove along in the summer sunlight.

  Otherwise I can think of nothing that distinguished this

  particular Sunday afternoon from a dozen others; indeed,

  I remember refusing to be in the least disturbed to find,

  on my arrival at the garden, that Helen herself had not

  yet come. She had a large family, and my only thought

  was that, as usual, she had been detained by doting relatives and would be along in a few minutes across the pasture.

  With this in mind I alighted from the buggy, tied

  young Billy to the large silver birch tree that stood just

  off the road, sauntered into the garden beside some gray

  rocks that afforded a natural bench, and there began to

  turn over in my mind what I should say when at last my

  adorable one arrived. For not the least of Helen’s attractions was the sweet confusion she always exhibited when I asked her forgiveness for my part in our quarrels and

  gave her a making-up present.

  In this instance my box of chocolates was to be the

  present; and it seems odd to me now that I was prompted

  to open it before her arrival, for I was thinking only of

  our coming meeting. And yet I did open the box, select

  A T T A

  9

  carelessly a little bar of chocolate of the finer grade, and

  throw out into the grass the gold and silver tinfoil that-

  had enclosed it.

  Some ten minutes passed then, I believe, before I bethought myself of the spool of thread that Helen had left somewhere upon the low rocks the Sunday previous. She

  had sewed a button on my coat, broken her needle in the

  process, and forgotten to take the spool with her. I

  started idly to search for this along the edge of the

  flowers, without much expectation of success and chiefly

  to pass the time until she should arrive. The open box of

  chocolates interfered a little with this search, and rather

  carelessly, I laid it on the worn rock seat, never thinking

  of the insects as possible plunderers. Instead, I pursued

  my quest for the mislaid spool amid the grass and flowers.

  For some time I passed around the sunken garden in

  this manner until I conceived that nearly a half hour had

  gone, still without sign of Helen. For the first time, then,

  it occurred to me that possibly there might be some reason for her nonappearance other than the presence of unexpected visitors at her house. Perhaps she had taken

  our week-end quarrel more seriously than I had supposed.

  Possibly she was sitting coolly at home with no intention

  of meeting me at all.

  This was a wholly gratuitous assumption on my part,

  but after another half hour had passed and she had still

  not arrived my natural disposition began to take a hand

  and magnify her continued absence into a definite slight,

  a distinct desire on her part to continue our quarrel: an

  idea that did little to quench the flames of my irritation.

  It was in this frame of mind that I approached the spot

  where I had left the open chocolate box at the beginning

  of my search.

  To my disgust it was almost completely covered with

  small red ants, some lying inert already sucking at the

  candy, others climbing the white paper sides to join

  them. In all there must have been fifty, and to my mind

  my whole gift was completely spoiled by their greediness.

  10

  A T T A

  “Why, you dam little pigs!” I said under my breath.

  And with a sudden irritation at my own stupidity and

  a distaste for the small crawling creatures, I seized a large

  flat rock that lay near by and raised it over my head to

  emsh the insects into a pulp with one blow.

  “Darn you, anyhow!” I said aloud.

  And with that I crashed the rock down on the ants and

  the candy with a passionate disgust that was scarcely

  human. Indeed, many times since I have wondered if I

  did not at that instant become something less than human;

  if I did not suffer, as a result of my anger, some form of

  temporary lesion of the brain, even some change in personality pressure.

  For scarcely had my missile left my grasp before I was

  conscious of a hitherto unseen dark mass in the sky above

  me. Even as my own missile left my hand this mass became instantly larger in size and rushed down at me and the earth. It was like being assaulted suddenly by a

  hi
therto unseen Kansas tornado. The grass and innocent

  flowers were suddenly flattened upon the ground. My

  chest felt nearly crushed in by an intolerable pressure.

  And then, amid a blinding shower of dust and an ear-

  splitting crash like exploding dynamite, the whole sunken

  garden went black before me.

  I had but one recognizable thought:

  “God has struck you this time.”

  And then I knew no more.

  Chapter 2

  W h e n I came to myself it was dark and the surrounding landscape was enveloped in a Stygian blackness that pressed down upon me like an almost tangible weight.

  With a start I pushed myself upright, only to groan

  with pain and lie back. Every bone in my body seemed

  to be sore, so intense was the pain. Only by gradually

  rubbing my arms and legs could I manage to move myself into an upright position and finally stand up and look about me. But even so I could see nothing but dense

  blackness.

  Then memory came back to me with a rush, and I

  listened for the sound of Billy cropping the grass by the

  birch tree or pulling at his halter by the road, To my

  dismay I could hear nothing except a strange heavy roar

  as of surf occasionally breaking or a gusty wind sweeping through a great forest after nightfall. Also there was something strange about the ground upon which I stood.

  There were no flowers underfoot, and though I could

  scarcely make out the uneven surface, it seemed devoid

  of vegetation of any kind. Instead it appeared to be composed of great sandstone rocks, each one as big as a hogshead.

  Surely, I thought in confusion, this is not the sunken

  garden. Where am I?

  Then I slowly remembered the ants and the rock and

  the sudden rushing terror from the sky, Evidently Helen

  had not come to meet me after all. Some catastrophe had

  struck me down, and many hours must have elapsed.

  11

  12

  A T T A

  What had happened during their passage? Had I been

  so severely shocked that I had wandered away from the

  garden in a daze? Or had the tornado tom the very earth

  to pieces about me?

  Such was my first thought as I stood upright in the