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
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—
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