Astounding Stories, February, 1931, Page 2

  The Tentacles From Below

  A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

  _By Anthony Gilmore_

  CHAPTER I

  "_Machine-Fish_"

  _Bowman hooked it on the hawser arm above._]

  [Sidenote: Down to tremendous ocean depths goes Commander Keith Wellsin his blind duel with the marauding "machine-fish."]

  "Full stop. Rest ready."

  These words glowed in vivid red against the black background of the_NX-1's_ control order-board. A wheel was spun over, a lever pulledback, and in the hull of the submarine descended the peculiar silencefound only in mile-deep waters. Men rested at their posts, eyes alert.

  Above, in the control room, Hemingway Bowman, youthful first officer,glanced at the teleview screen and swore softly.

  "Keith," he said, "between you and me, I'll be damned glad when thismonotonous job's over. I joined the Navy to see the world, but thischarting job's giving me entirely too many close-ups of the deadestparts of it!"

  Commander Keith Wells. U. S. N., grinned broadly. "Well," he remarked,"in a few minutes we can call it a day--or night, rather--and thenit's back to the _Falcon_ while the day shift 'sees the world.'" Heturned again to his dials as Hemmy Bowman, with a sigh, resumed work.

  "Depth, six thousand feet. Visibility poor. Bottom eight thousand," hesaid into the phone hung before his lips, and fifty feet aft, in asmall cubby, a blue-clad figure monotonously repeated the observationsand noted them down in an official geographical survey report.

  * * * * *

  Such had been their routine for two tiring weeks, all part of the_NX-l's_ present work of re-charting the Newfoundland banks.

  As early as 1929 slight cataclysms had begun to tear up the sea-floorof this region, and of late--1935--seismographs and cable companieshad reported titanic upheavals and sinkings of the ocean bed, changinghundreds of miles of underwater territory. Finally Washington decidedto chart the alterations this series of sub-sea earthquakes hadwrought.

  And for this job the _NX-1_ was detailed. A super-submarine fresh fromthe yards, small, but modern to the last degree, she contained suchexclusive features as a sheathing of the tough new glycosteel,automatic air rectifiers, a location chart for showing positions ofnearby submarines, the newly developed Edsel electric motors, andautomatic teleview screen. When below surface she was a sealed tube ofmetal one hundred feet long, and possessed of an enormous cruisingradius. From the flower of the Navy some thirty men were picked, andin company with the mother-ship _Falcon_ she put out to combine anexhaustive trial trip with the practical charting of the newly changedocean floor.

  Now this work was almost over. Keith Wells told himself that he, likeBowman, would be glad to set foot on land again. This surveying wasimportant, of course, but too dry for him--no action. He smiled at thelines of boredom on Hemmy's brow as the younger man stared gloomilyinto the teleview screen.

  And then the smile left his lips. The radio operator, in a cubbyadjoining the control room, had spoken into the communication tube:

  "Urgent call for you, sir! From Captain Knapp!"

  * * * * *

  Wells reached out and clipped a pair of extension phones over hisears. The deep voice of Robert Knapp, captain of the mother-ship_Falcon_, came ringing in. It was strained with an excitement unusualto him.

  "Wells? Knapp speaking. Something damned funny's just happened nearhere. You know the fishing fleet that was near us yesterday morning?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, the whole thing's gone down! Destroyed, absolutely! The sea'sbeen like glass, the weather perfect--yet from the wreckage, whatthere is of it, you'd think a typhoon had struck! I can't begin toexplain it. No survivors, either, so far, though we're hunting forthem."

  "You say the boats are completely destroyed?"

  "Smashed like driftwood. I tell you it's preposterous--and yet it'sthe fact. I think you'd better return at once, old man; you're onlyhalf an hour off. And come on the surface; it's getting light now, andyou might pick up something. God knows what this means, Keith, butit's up to us to find out. It's--it's got me...."

  His tones were oddly disturbed--almost scared--and this from a man whodidn't know what fear was.

  "But Bob," Keith asked, "how did you--"

  "Stand by a minute! The lookout reports survivors!"

  * * * * *

  Wells turned to meet Bowman's inquisitive face. He quickly repeatedthe gist of Knapp's weird story. "We saw them at dusk, lastevening--remember? And now they're gone, destroyed. What can have doneit?"

  For some minutes the two surprised men speculated on the strangeoccurrence. Then Knapp's voice again rang in the headphones.

  "Wells? My God, man, this is getting downright fantastic! We've justtaken two survivors on board; one's barely alive and the other crazy.I can't get an intelligible thing from him; he keeps shrieking aboutwrithing arms and awful eyes--and monsters he calls 'machine-fish'!"

  "You're sure he's insane?"

  Robert Knapp's voice hesitated queerly.

  "Well, he's shrieking about 'machine-fish'--fish with machines overthem!... I--I'm going to broadcast the whole story to the landstations. 'Machine-fish'! I don't know.... I don't know.... You'dbetter hurry back, Wells!"

  He rang off.

  * * * * *

  Keith slipped off the headphones and told Bowman what he had learned.Hardy, staunchly built craft, those fishing boats were; born in theteeth of gales. What horror could have ripped them--all of them--todriftwood, with the weather perfect? And a half-mad survivor, ravingabout "machine-fish"!

  "Such things are preposterous," Bowman commented scornfully.

  "But--the fleet's gone, Hemmy," Keith replied. "Anyway, we'll speedback, and see what it's all about."

  He punched swift commands on the control studs. "Empty Tanks, Zoom toSurface, Full Speed," the crimson words glared down below, and the_NX-1_ at once shoved her snout up, trembling as her great electricmotors began their pulsing whine. The delicate fingers of the masseddials before Keith danced exultantly. The depth-levels tolled out:

  "Seven thousand ... six thousand ... five thousand--"

  "Keith! Look there!"

  Hemmy Bowman was pointing with amazement at the location chart, ablack mesh screen that showed the position of other submarines withina radius of two miles. In one corner, a spot of vivid red was shining.

  "But it can't be a submarine!" Wells objected. "Our reports would havementioned it!"

  The two officers stared at each other.

  "'Machine-fish!'" Bowman whispered softly. "If there were machines,the metal would register on the chart."

  "It must be them!" the commander roared, coming out of his daze. "And,by God, we're going after them!"

  * * * * *

  Rapidly he brought the _NX-1_ out of her zoom to the surface, and lefther at four thousand feet, in perfect trim, while he read theinstruments closely.

  A green spot in the center of the location chart denoted the _NX-1's_exact position. A distance of perhaps forty inches separated it fromthe red light on the meshed screen--which represented, roughly, a mileand a half. Below the chart was a thick dial, over which a black hand,indicating the mysterious submersible's approximate depth, was slowlymoving.

  "He's sinking--whatever he is," Keith muttered to Hemmy. "Hey, Sparks!Get me Captain Knapp."

  A moment later the connection was put through.

  "Bob? This is Wells again. Bob, our location chart shows the presenceof some strange undersea metallic body. It can't be a submarine, formy maritime reports would show its presence. We think it has someconnection with the 'machine-fish' that survivor raved about. At anyrate, I'm going after it. The world has a right to know what destroyedthat fishing fleet, and since the _NX-1_ is right on the spot it's myduty to track it down. Re-broadcast this news to land stations, willyou? I'll keep in touch with you."


  Knapp's voice came soberly back. "I guess you're right, Keith; it's upto you.... So long, old man. Good luck!"

  * * * * *

  In Wells' veins throbbed the lust for action. With control studs athand, location chart and teleview screen before his eyes and fifteenmen waiting below for his commands, he had no fear of any monster theunderseas might spew up. He glanced swiftly at the location chart anddepth indicator again.

  The mysterious red spot was slowly coming across the _NX-1's_ bows ata distance of about one mile. Keith punched a stud, and, as his craftfilled her tank and slipped down further into deep water, he spoke toHemmy Bowman.

  "Take control for a minute. Keep on all speed, and follow 'em like abloodhound. I'm going below."

  He strode down the connecting ramp to the lower deck, where he foundfifteen men standing vigilantly at posts. At once Keith plunged into afull explanation of what he had learned up in the control room. Heconcluded:

  "A great moral burden rests on us--every one of us--as we will sooncome face to face with a possible world menace. Anything may happen. Astate of war exists on this submarine. You will be prepared for anywartime eventuality!"

  Sobered faces greeted this announcement, and perceptibly the menstraightened and held themselves more alertly. Wells at once returnedto the control room. A glance at the location chart and its two tinylights told him that the intervening distance had been decreased toabout half a mile.

  The depth dial showed them both to be two miles below, and steadilydiving lower. Charts showed the sea-floor to be three miles deep inthis position, and that meant--

  "Look there!" exclaimed the first officer suddenly. "It's changingcourse!"

  * * * * *

  The crimson stud had suddenly shifted its course, and now was fleeingdirectly before them. For a moment the distance between the green andred lights remained constant--and then Keith Wells staredunbelievingly at the chart, wiped a hand across his eyes and staredagain.

  "Why--why, the devils are as fast as we!" he exclaimed in amazement."I think they're even gaining on us!"

  "And there's no other submarine in the world that can do more thanthirty under water!" Hemmy Bowman added. "We're hitting a fullforty-one!"

  A call came through the communication tube from Sparks. "Report fromConsolidated Radio News-Broadcasters, sir, aimed especially at us."

  "Well?" asked Keith, motioning Hemmy to listen in. Sparks read it.

  "'A week ago Atlantic City reported that seven men were snatched offfishing boat by unidentified tentacled monsters. Testimony ofwitnesses was discredited, but was later corroborated by the almostidentical testimony of other witnesses at Brighton Beach, England, whosaw man and woman taken by mysterious monsters whilst bathing.'Perhaps these same creatures destroyed the Newfoundland fishingfleet." His level voice ceased.

  "Tentacled monsters ... 'machine-fish,'" Wells murmured slowly."'Machine-fish.'..."

  Their eyes met, the same wonder in each. "Well," Keith rapped atlast, "we're seeing this through!"

  * * * * *

  He turned again to the location chart. The green spot as always was inthe center, and at a constant distance was the red, showing that the_NX-1_ was hot on the other's trail. The depth dials indicated thatboth were diving deeper every moment.

  "Where in hell's it going?" the commander rasped. "We'll be on thefloor in a few minutes!"

  Here the teleview showed the world to be one of fantasy, one to whichthe sun did not exist. It was not an utter, pitchy blackness thatpervaded the water, but rather a peculiar, dark blueness. No fishschools, Keith noted, scurried from them. They had already left thesewaters; aware, perhaps, of the passing Terror....

  They plunged lower yet. Wells was conscious of Hemmy Bowman's quick,uneven breathing. Conscious of the tautness of his own nerves, strunglike quivering violin strings. Conscious of the terrific walls ofwater pressing in on them. And conscious of the men below, their livesbound implicitly in his will and brain....

  A thought came to him, and quickly he reached into a rack for thechart of the local sea-floor. His brow creased with puzzlement as hestudied it.

  "Here's more mystery, Hemmy," he muttered. "Look--there's anunderwater cliff about half a mile dead ahead. It rises to within fourthousand feet of the surface. And that thing out there is chargingstraight into its base!"

  "They must be aware of it," jerked the other. "See?--they've stopped!"

  * * * * *

  It was true. The gulf between the two colored spots was rapidly beingswallowed up. At a pulsing forty-one knots the _NX-1_ was closing inon the motionless mystery craft.

  "They're sinking to the floor itself," observed Wells. "Perhapswaiting to attack."

  The invisible beams from their ultra-violet light-beacons streamedthrough the silent gloom outside, yet still the teleview screen wasempty. Keith punched a stud, and the _NX-1's_ whining motors dulled toa scarcely audible purr.

  "What is the thing?" muttered Hemmy Bowman. "God, Keith, what _is_it?"

  For answer, the commander dropped them the last five hundred feet. Thesea-floor rose like a gray ghost. More control studs were pushed; theorder-board below read: "All Power Off, Rest in Trim." The locationchart told a tale that wrung a gasp from Bowman's throat. The red andgreen lights were practically touching....

  The hands of Petty Officer Brown, the helmsman, were quivering on thehelm. Wells' fists kept tensing and relaxing as he peered for a sightof the enemy in the teleview. Nothing showed but the moving fingers ofspectral kelp. Then both he and Bowman cried out as one:

  "_There!_"

  CHAPTER II

  _The Silent Ray_

  A strange shape had suddenly materialized on the screen--an immense,oval-shaped thing of dull metal, with great curving cuts of glass-likesubstance in its blunt bow, like staring eyes; a lifeless, staringthing, stretching far into the curtain of gloom behind. How long itwas, Keith could not tell; at first his numb brain refused to grasp itand reduce it to definite, sane standards of size and length. The coldweeds of the sea-floor kelp beds swayed eerily over and around it.From its bow, he saw, peculiar knobs jutted, the function of which heguessed with dread.

  Was it waiting with a purpose? Was it waiting--and inviting attack?

  A frightened whisper from Hemmy Bowman broke the hush:

  "Keith, the thing has ports, but shows no lights! What kind ofcreatures can they be?"

  As he spoke, the three men in the control room felt the unmistakable,jarring tingle of an electric shock. And while their nerves stilljumped, it came again; and again. They were conscious of a slightfeeling of drowsiness.

  Keith gaped at Bowman and Brown, and then a flash on the televiewscreen drew his eyes. There, against the blackness of its otherwiseinanimate hulk, one of the jutting knobs on the bow of the mysterioussubmarine was glowing and pulsing with orange life! With it came thetingling shock again. It flicked off as they watched, then returnedand went once more.

  "They're attacking, but thank God the shock was harmless!" Wells saidgrimly. "All right; they've asked for it: I'm going to see how theylike the taste of a torpedo!"

  * * * * *

  The two submarines were resting on the ocean floor with perhaps twohundred feet between them. The _NX-1's_ bow tubes were not exactly inline to score a direct hit; she would have to be maneuvered slightlyto port. The range was short; the explosion from the torpedoes wouldbe titanic.

  Keith punched the control studs, ordering the men below to assumefiring stations. Then, while waiting for the _NX-1_ to shift, hestudied the teleview screen to sight the range exactly. The black dotwhich represented the enemy craft was not directly on the crossedhair-lines of the dial-like range-finder, but shifting the _NX-1_ afew feet would bring it to the perfect firing point.

  But the _NX-1_ did not budge.

  Surprised, her commander swung and looked at Bowman. "What the
devil?"he cried. "Did that shock--?" He left the dread thought unfinished andleaped to the speaking tubes.

  "Craig! Jones! Wetherby!" he yelled. "Men! Don't you hear me? Aren'tyou--"

  He broke off, wordless, waiting for an answer that did not come, thensprang to the connecting ramp and ran to the deck below.

  The scene he found halted him abruptly in his tracks. Every member ofthe crew was sprawled on the deck, in grotesque, limp postures. Theyhad been standing rigidly at posts, he saw, when the thing, whateverit was, had struck. Without a sound, without a single cry of alarm,the _NX-1's_ crew had been laid low!

  * * * * *

  The commander slowly advanced to the deck and stared more closely atthe upturned faces around him. He saw that every man's eyes were open.

  Bending over one still form, he pressed his hand on the heart. It wasbeating! The man was alive! Amazed, he moved to another and another:they were all breathing, slowly and regularly--were all alive! Acurious look in their eyes staggered him for a moment. He could swearthat they recognized him, knew he was staring at them--for everysingle pair was alight with intelligence, and Keith fancied he sawgleams of recognition.

  "It must have been a paralyzing ray!" he gasped. "A thing ourscientists've been trying to develop for years.... And that monsteroutside knows the secret...." He lifted an arm of the inert figure athis feet; when he released the grip, it flopped limply back to thedeck again.

  "_Keith! Come back, quick!_"

  Startled, the commander turned to find Hemingway Bowman at the top ofthe connecting ramp, his face distorted with alarm.

  "For God's sake, come back quick!" he yelled again. "Down there theray might get you!"

  With the words, Wells leaped to the ramp and raced to the controlroom. He had no sooner made it than he felt again the queer tingle ofthe electric charge. He found himself trembling. Bowman's face waswhite. His words came stuttering.

  "One second later and they'd have got you.... They got Sparks in hiscubby.... You see, the ray doesn't affect us in the control roombecause--"

  "Because the Gibson insulation that protects the instruments keeps itout!" Keith finished grimly. "I see!"

  Just then a slight jar ran through the submarine. Coincident with itcame a cry from Brown, the helmsman. His arm was pointed at theteleview.

  There they saw the enemy's mighty dirigible of metal was now withinthirty feet of the _NX-1._ It had crept up silently, without warning.And, spanning the short gulf between them, an arm of webbed metalcraned from the other's huge bow, hooking tightly into the Americansubmarine's forward hawser holes!

  As they took this in, the enemy ship moved away and the arm of metaltightened. The _NX-1_ shuddered. And, at first slowly, but with everincreasing speed, she got under way and slid after her captor. Theywere being towed away. Kidnaped! Men, submarine and all!

  * * * * *

  Keith Wells mopped sweat from a hot brow and rapidly reviewed hisweapons. He was sorely restricted. Through an emergency system the_NX-1_ could be propelled and maneuvered from her control room; butthe torpedo tubes needed local attendance.

  "Hemmy, reverse engines," he jerked, himself spinning over a smallwheel. "Let's see if we can out-pull the devil!"

  At once they felt the shock of the paralyzing ray, and then thesurging whine of the Edsel electrics pulsed up and in the televiewscreen they watched the grim struggle of ship against ship.

  Imperceptibly, almost, as her screws cut in and churned, the forwardprogress of the _NX-1_ was slowing, the speed of the other being cutdown, until finally they but barely forged ahead. Slowly, ever soslowly they were out-pulled; inch by inch they were dragged ahead.Their motors could not hold even.

  "She's more powerful than we!" Wells' bitter voice spoke. "Damn!" Hethought desperately, while Bowman and Brown stared at the fantastictale the teleview spelled out.

  Again the paralyzing shock tingled, an intangible jailer that boundthem, more surely than steel bars, to the control room. To dare thatstreaming barrage meant instant impotence, and perhaps, later,death....

  "Our two bow torpedoes," Keith mused slowly. "We're a bit close, butit's our only chance. The ray comes at intervals of about a minute;the torps are ready for firing. If one of us could dash forward anddischarge 'em.... Brown, that's you!"

  The petty officer met his commander's gaze levelly. He smiled. "Yes,sir, I'm ready!" he said.

  "Good! It'll have to be quick work, though; I'll try and keep the subpointed straight. Wait for the ray, then run like hell!"

  * * * * *

  The first officer took over the helm and Brown stepped to the forwardladder, waiting for the periodic ray to be discharged.

  The odd tingle came and vanished. "Now!" Wells roared, and Brownleaped down the thin steel rungs.

  He staggered at the bottom from the force of his impact, thenstraightened and raced madly forward. Through the drone of the motorsthe two officers could hear the staccato beat of his feet.

  But their eyes were glued to the teleview. Through clutching beds ofseaweed the enemy submarine was ploughing. Her great, smooth bow laystraight ahead, metal hawser arm spanning the thirty feet betweenthem. In another second, Keith thought grimly, two dynamite packedtubes of sudden death would thunderbolt into that hull, and--

  Brown pulled the lever.

  The tubes spat out compressed air; a scream ran through the submarine;and the two steel fish leaped from their sheaths, their tiny propsroaring. Over the narrow gulf they shot; the range was short, theirtarget dead ahead--and yet by bare inches they missed!

  No answering roar bellowed back. Keith had watched their course; hadseen them flash by the enemy's bow, flicking it with their rudders,but nothing more. "Why?" he cried. And, as Bowman moved his hands in ahopeless gesture, he saw in the teleview the reason.

  It was a jagged pinnacle of rock, which, just before Brown had fired,had been straight ahead. The towing monster had seen it and veeredsharply to avoid crashing. The barest change of course, yet sufficientto avoid the torpedoes....

  * * * * *

  Wells and Bowman were cursing savagely when the sound of Brown, racingdesperately aft, jerked the commander to the ladder. He saw the pettyofficer at its foot. "Hurry!" Wells shouted. "The ray!"

  Brown grasped the steel rungs and scrambled upward, but he was toolate. The fatal charge tingled. A peculiar, surprised expressionwashed over his face; his hands loosened their grip. For a second hiseyes looked questioningly at his commander; a faint sigh escaped him;and then his arms flung out, his body relaxed, and he slumped like aslab of meat to the deck below....

  Keith Wells saw red. Blind to everything, he was just about to chargedown the ladder to himself re-load the forward tubes when the grip ofHemmy Bowman's hand stayed him. The thing Hemmy was staring at in theteleview screen sobered him completely.

  The wall of rock to which the enemy submarine had first been charginghad become visible, soaring vastly from the gloom of the sea-floor.And the monster was towing them straight into a dark, jagged cleft atits base.

  "It's a cavern!" Keith breathed. "A split in the rock--the lair ofthat devil. And we're being dragged into it!"

  CHAPTER III

  _Sacrifice_

  At that moment Keith Wells knew fear. Each second they were beinghauled closer to the monster's dim lair. It lay there, dark,mysterious, fingered by gently swaying, clammy kelp. A hushed solitudeseemed to reign over it, aweing all undersea life from thevicinity.... Wells turned his head to meet Bowman's eyes, and read inthem a silent question.

  What now?

  He groaned in the agony of his mind. In a few minutes, all would beover. Once the _NX-1_ was dragged into that dark cavern there'd be nochance of escaping to warn the world above, of saving the submarine.What now? The question brought beads of sweat to his tormented brow.He, Keith Wells, standing impotently by while his ship, the pride ofthe service, was hauled inch by
inch to some strange doom!

  Racked by these thoughts, he murmured tortured, jerky phrases,unconscious he was giving voice to the things that flogged his brain.

  "What can I do? I've got to save my ship--I've got to get back tobreak the news--I've got to tell the world! But how? How--" Hisexpression changed suddenly. "That's it! That hawser arm between usmust be broken!"

  "Yes."

  First Officer Hemingway Bowman's clear voice broke in on the olderman's thoughts with that one crisp word. Keith swung to find theother's eyes fixed levelly on his.

  "You're right, Keith. The hawser arm must be broken; with a depthcharge, of course. It's the only way.

  "To attach a depth charge," he continued evenly, "a man must leave theship. You can't, Keith. It will be me."

  * * * * *

  The commander did not speak. "I'll put on a sea-suit," Hemmy went onquickly, eyes lighting. "You tip the submarine and I'll slide out theconning tower exit port on the lee side, so they can't see me, andworm forward through the kelp. We're almost holding them even; that'llbe easy. I'll be protected from the paralyzing shock until the lastsecond, and it may not get me outside; that'll have to be chanced. Thehawser arm's only some ten feet above the sea-floor; I can reach itwith a hook on the charge." He paused.

  "I'll attach it; and when it bursts I'll try to get back and grab thatring on the midships exit port, and you can let me in when we get tothe surface. But if I take too long, Keith--if I miss--you beat itwithout me. You understand? Beat it!"

  He gazed straight at his friend. "Understand, Keith?"

  Commander Keith Wells bowed his head in acquiescence. He was afraidthat if he met Hemmy Bowman's steady eyes he'd make a fool ofhimself....

  Hemmy glanced at the screen once more, shivering as he saw how nearthe black cavern was. Then he moved rapidly, playing the cardscarefully for his gamble with death. He had to: the trumps were in theother hand.

  From the locker where their sea-suits were stowed he grabbed his own,and with quick fingers ripped the slides and fitted it on. A sheath ofyellow Lestofabrik, its weighted feet and gleaming casque transformedhis slim figure into a giant such as might stalk through a nightmare.Built cunningly into the helmet was a tiny radio transmitter andreceiver, with a range of a quarter-mile; hugging to the shoulders,inside nestled the air-making mechanism, its tiny generators alreadyin motion. Around the helmet was fastened a small removableundersea-light. The wrists of the suit were very flexible, permittingthe freest motion.

  Once in the suit, Hemmy smiled through the still-opened face-shield.

  "Got the depth charge ready, Keith? Make it fast--that cavern'snear!... Good!"

  * * * * *

  Silently the commander fitted the black bomb to his friend'sshoulders. It was timed to fire a minute after being set. A long wirehook craned from its top, and this hook Bowman would fasten on thehawser arm.

  "Without Sparks, I guess I'll have to communicate with you throughportable," Keith said, and quickly donned one of the tiny portablesets.

  "Right. Ready, Keith."

  Bowman started his awkward, crawling progress up the ladder into theconning tower just above, Keith helping from behind. When they stoodbefore the exit port on the lee side, Wells shot back its bolts andthe door swung open, revealing the black emptiness of the waterchamber. The commander gazed for a second into Bowman's eyes. Themoment had come.

  Keith turned his head away, felt a hand grip his. He wrung ittightly....

  Bowman clumped into the chamber.

  The commander closed and locked the door, and he heard the streamingwater pour in as Hemmy turned the valve. Then Wells sped down theladder and tilted the diving and course rudders of the submarine.

  She swayed daintily over to port; held there. A moment later therecurring electric tingle brushed him. Had the enemy seen Bowmanleave? Had the ray struck him down?

  He glared into the teleview. "Thank God!" he breathed. For Hemmy hadalready slid down the _NX-1's_ smooth hull and was safe on thesea-floor beside her.

  "Everything right?" Wells asked, speaking into the microphone of hisportable.

  "All O.K.," came the answer. "Going forward now. Kelp thick as hell."

  * * * * *

  Keith's eyes bored at the screen. This misshapen monster who was hisfriend! Almost obscured by bands of thick-leaved kelp the yellow formmoved, hands clearing a pathway through the weeds. Slowly but surelyhe made for the bow of the submersible.

  "Hard going, Keith. God--the cavern's right ahead!"

  It was ghostly to hear Hemmy's warm voice from the lifeless solitudeoutside. Breath coming quickly, Wells watched the silent scene--thecleft in the wall of rock overshadowing everything now. The diverfought ahead, gaining inch by inch.

  Now, save for occasional clumps of weed, he was exposed to theenemy.... Now the last desperate gauntlet was reached.... Keith felthis blood pound hotly.

  "I'm gaining, Keith. Gaining...."

  Bowman had little breath for speech. His tiny form battled on, nowsinking from sight as he dropped into some masked gully, now wrestlingslowly with great swaying strands of kelp, but always strugglingahead.

  "I'm at the bow, Keith! The hawser arm's right in our mooring holes.I'll go halfway before fastening the charge. Any signs of life fromthe devil?"

  "None yet, Hemmy. But go slow. Hide all you can, old man, for God'ssake!..."

  Right beneath the metal arm, Bowman's dwarfed figure crept doggedlyahead. Forward, inch by breathless inch. Kelp thickened, washed away;the two hulking submersibles, captor and captive, surged onward--butjust a little faster went the valiant figure with the black charge onits back.

  The towing monster had its snout in the cavern. The darknessthickened. Bowman was quarter way!

  He plunged desperately. Half way!

  "I'm there, Keith! Now for it!"

  "Oh, God!" Wells cried. "They see you; they're coming!"

  For he had seen strange shapes leaving the enemy submarine.

  And at that same moment, Bowman saw them, too.

  * * * * *

  They came like the blink of a dark eye from a door that had quicklyslid open in the mysterious ship's bow. As tall as a man they were,and there were two of them, though at first the nature of theirbodies merged with the wreathing kelp made them seem like a dozen.Bowman stared at them, hypnotized with fear. His legs and arms wentdead, and his whole gallant spirit seemed to slump into lifeless clay.Now he knew why the fishermen had shrieked "machine-fish." Each one ofthem had eight tapering arms, eight restless tentacles. These wereoctopi, most hideous scavengers of the ocean floor! And not onlyoctopi--but octopi sheathed in metal-scaled armor!

  As they came closer, he realized this preposterous fact. The darksubstance of their writhing tentacles was not flesh: it was a coat ofmetal scales. And the fat central mass which held their eyes and vitalorgans and beaked jaw--this mass was completely enveloped by a globeof glass. From inside, he could see great eyes staring at him. Themonsters came towards him quite slowly, obviously wary, advancing overthe sea-floor in what was a hideous mockery of walking, their forwardtentacles outstretched.

  With a sob, Hemmy Bowman pulled himself from his trance. He glancedback at the _NX-1_. He still had time to retreat. He might be able toget back inside before these monsters seized him.

  But that meant abandoning his job. And already his own submarine wasnosing into the cavern. The choice between the octopi and retreatstared him in the face. He pulled himself together and jerked his armsback to action.

  * * * * *

  Eyes bulging, Keith Wells peered at the dim teleview screen. He sawthe creatures approaching Hemmy. And then, suddenly, he remembered hisradiophone.

  "Hemmy! Come back, for God's sake!" he cried. "Come back while youcan--it's hopeless!"

  But Bowman had already seized the depth charge from his back andhooked it on the
hawser arm above.

  Immediately, with that action, all caution fled from the approachingmonsters. Their tentacles whipped furiously; and in a great arc theysprang for the tiny figure of the diver.

  With a deep breath, Hemmy staggered forward to meet them. "Keith!" hegasped. "I'll try to hold 'em away from the charge! When it bursts,zoom! Zoom like hell to the surface!" And then the tentacles had him.

  Keith watched, cursing his impotence to help. Hemmy had no weapon; hewas trying to hold them back by the weight of his body; he reached outand grasped a tentacle and hugged it to him, shoving forward with allhis puny strength. But all his effort was as nothing. One of theoctopi writhed past him and darted onto the depth charge. Itstentacles tugged at the bomb; pulled furiously.

  The time charge exploded. The _NX-1_ rocked like a quivering reed;Wells was knocked violently to the floor; a vast roar smote hisear-drums. When he staggered to his feet he found that the octopusthat was pulling at the charge had disappeared--blown into fragmentsof flesh and metal. But the hawser arm was broken! The _NX-1_, free,shot back a full fifty feet under the pull of her reversed screws. Acry echoed in her commander's ears:

  "Go back, Keith! Go like hell!"

  He saw the remaining octopus lift Bowman and whip to the exit port ofits submarine. The lid slid into place, closing on the monster and hisfriend, and the enemy ship vanished into the black cavern....

  * * * * *

  Once clear of the opening, Keith set his motors full forward andbrought the diving rudders up. Quickly the ship sped from the hauntedsea-floor to the sun-warmed surface. A last thin call rang in hisradiophone:

  "They've got me inside, Keith. It's dark, and filled with water. Ican't see anything, but I--I guess we're going through the cavern....Forget about me, old boy. So long! So--"

  The voice was abruptly cut off.

  Keith ripped the instrument from his head. Then, face white and drawn,he ran to the radio cubby. Standing over Sparks' inert body, he putthrough a call to Robert Knapp, on the _Falcon_.

  "Knapp?" he said harshly. "This is Wells. I'll be with you in a fewminutes. Yes--yes--I'll tell you the whole story later. But get thisnow: Have the day shift all ready to take over the submarine by thetime I pull alongside."

  He said no more just then; but rang off, and, looking back, hemuttered savagely:

  "But I'll be back, Hemmy--I'll be back!"

  CHAPTER IV

  _In the Cavern_

  "That's the story, Knapp. They got Bowman, and I had to run away.Their ship disappeared into the cavern. I've got a hunch, though, thatit's not just a cavern, but a tunnel, leading through to someunderwater world. That series of sub-sea earthquakes probably openedit up; and now these devil-octopi are free to pour out. I've _got_ tofind out what's what, and that's why I'm going down again as soon asthe torpedo system's ready!"

  Keith and Robert Knapp were in the _Falcon's_ chart room. On the tablebefore them lay a broad white map with a cross-mark indicating theposition of the mysterious dark cavern.

  Wells was striding up and down like a caged tiger in his impatience tobe off. Every other minute he glared down to where the _NX-1_ layalongside. On her conning tower stood the tall blond-haired figure ofGraham, the first officer of the day shift, supervising the finaldetails of the work of installing a system of jury controls wherebythe submarine's torpedoes could be fired from her control room.

  Keith stopped short and faced Knapp. "It won't be so one-sided thistime, Bob," he promised. "You see: when the location chart shows theenemy ship, I'll rush all men into the control room, where theparalyzing ray can't harm them. I don't know but what they have inother weapons, but I'm gambling on getting my torps in first. They'vekilled Bowman; they've ravaged a whole fishing fleet; they're free toemerge from their hole and maraud every ocean on the globe! They'vegot to be stopped! And since I'm armed and have the only submarine onthe spot, I've got to do it! I know how to fight them now!"

  * * * * *

  Captain Robert Knapp's sense of things was badly disordered. He hadjust heard a story which his common sense told him couldn't be true,but which the evidence of his eyes had grimly authenticated. He hadseen fifteen men slung aboard his ship from the _NX-1's_ silent hull;men stretched in grotesque, limp attitudes; men struck down by aparalyzing ray. Why, no nation on earth had developed rays forwarfare! Yet--a crew of helpless men was even then in the sick bay,receiving attention in the hope that they might recover.

  "You're going right through that cavern, then, Wells?" he askedincredulously. "You're going to investigate what lies beyond?"

  "Nothing else! And I won't come out till I've blown that octopi shipto pieces!"

  "It sounds preposterous," Knapp murmured, shaking his head. "Octopi,you say--and clad in metal suits! Running a submarine more powerfulthan the _NX-1_! Armed with a ray--a paralyzing ray! I can'tbelieve--I can't conceive--"

  "You've seen the men!... Knapp, if I were you I'd swing myeight-inchers out, bring up the plane catapult and keep the decktorpedo tubes loaded and ready. It's best to be prepared; God knowswhat's going on underseas these days!"

  First Officer Graham appeared at the door. "Work finished, sir," hesaid. "Ready to cast off."

  "Thank heaven!" Wells muttered, and stretched out his hand to RobertKnapp. "Broadcast what I've told you, Bob, and say that the _NX-1_won't be back till everything's under control. I'll keep in touch withyou. So long!" And he was gone before the captain could even wish himgood luck.

  * * * * *

  Orders raced from her commander's fingers on the stud board in thecontrol room. "Crash Dive" filled her tanks and put her noseperilously down, so that in thirty seconds only a swirling patch ofwater was left to show where once she'd lain. A brief command to thehelmsman and she pointed straight for the dark cavern marked on thechart.

  When well under way, Keith descended with Graham to inspect the newtorpedo firing system, and found it in good working order. "Graham,"he ordered tersely, "instruct the crew fully about rushing to thecontrol room on one ring of the general alarm. And send the cook up tome in a minute or so. I'll be in Sparks' cubby."

  Above again, he instructed the radio man to rig a remote controlsender and receiver in the insulated control room. The need forcentering the whole crew there during engagements would crowd the roomawkwardly, but at other times, while proceeding on their inspection ofthe cavern lair, they could remain at their regular posts.

  That, at least, was Wells' plan.

  He looked up and found the cook, McKegnie, grinning at him from thedoor of the control room. Keith smiled, running his eyes over theportly magnificence of his gently perspiring figure. "Keg," he saidcheerfully, "I want you to move your hot plate and culinary apparatusup here; you see, we're all likely to be crowded in here for sometime, and your coffee's going to be an absolute necessity." Hecouldn't resist a crack at McKegnie's well-known and passionatecuriosity as to what made the thigmajigs of the control board work:"And besides, it'll give you a chance to observe the instruments andperfect yourself for your future career as a naval officer. Muchbetter than a correspondence course in 'How to Be a SubmarineCommander,' eh?"

  Cook McKegnie grinned sheepishly, and left. He was well used to suchjests, but he never would admit that his extraordinary interest inwatching the ship's wheels go round was accompanied by a miraculousinability to comprehend why they went round....

  * * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later the helmsman's cry, "Cavern showing, sir!" swungthe commander to the teleview screen. The dark, kelp-shrouded openinghe knew so well was already looming on it. And he was prepared.

  "Enter," he said, while his punched studs ordered, "Quarter Speed,Ready at Posts, Tanks in Trim." The _NX-1_ slackened her gait,balanced cautiously, and struck a straight, even course as she creptcloser to the cleft entrance through which, some two hours earlier,the octopi ship had nosed.

  Screws turning s
lowly, she edged through the jagged cavern. Shades ofinky blackness grew on the teleview and danced in fantastic blotches;the screen turned to a welter of black, threatening shadows; became auseless maze of ever-changing forms. Keith mouthed curses as he staredat it; he now had nothing by which to judge his progress, to maneuverthe submarine, save directional instruments and, perhaps, chancescrapings of the tunnel's ragged walls against the outer hull. The_NX-1_ was running a gauntlet of immeasurable danger, her onlyassurance of success being the fact that a larger craft had precededher.

  But how far, Keith wondered, had that ship preceded her? How was he toknow that it had gone straight through? There might be a dozendifferent turnings in this tunnel: the submarine could easily tilthead-on against a jagged rock and puncture her hull. There might bemines planted directly in their course; he might be swimming straightinto some hideous ambuscade.

  He drove these thoughts from his mind. The passage had to be made onthe fickle authority of the senses; and, realizing this, Wells tookthe helm into his own hands. Graham was posted at the location chart,with instructions to report the red light if it showed.

  * * * * *

  Down below, the Edsel electrics were humming very softly; the menstood vigilantly at posts. On their brows were little beads of sweat,and here and there a hand clenched nervously. All knew they were in atight place; otherwise they were ignorant of where their commander wasleading them. Occasionally a long, shivering rasp ran through the shipas her hull nudged the rough tunnel wall. Then the course rudderswould swing gently over; and perhaps, almost immediately, anothergrinding cry of rock and steel would come from the other side. Thenwould come quickly indrawn breaths as the rudders swung again and thehumming silence droned on.

  The scrapings came quite often. Often, too, the motors would go silentaltogether, and the _NX-1_ would rest almost motionless as hercommander felt for an opening. It was a tense, nerve-wringing ordeal.The silence, the waiting, the dainty scrapings were maddening.

  Keith Wells' skin was prickling. He kept only fingertips on the tinyhelm: he was playing that uncanny sixth sense of the submarinecommander. When it misled him, the rasping rock groaned out, scarringthe submarine's smooth skin. Generally, the tunnel was straight; buteach time he heard his ship rub against some exterior obstruction, histeeth went tight--for who knew but what it might be a mine?

  They had penetrated perhaps a half-mile when Graham, eyes steady onthe teleview, reported: "Light growing, sir!"

  * * * * *

  Wells saw that the screen was filling with a soft, faintly glowingbluish color. The walls of the tunnel became visible, and he notedthat they were widening out, funnel-like. He dared to increase speedslightly. Three minutes later he saw that the blue illumination wasseeping from the end of the tunnel. They continued out.

  "Thank God, we're through!" he muttered to Graham. "You see, I wasright! It's an underground sea--and we're at the top of it." For theinstruments indicated a depth beneath them of roughly three miles.They were in, evidently, a large cavern, of vast length and depth.

  The _NX-1_ continued slowly forward, two pairs of eyes intent on herteleview screen. Keith jotted down the tunnel's position, and thefunnel-shaped hole sank away behind their slow screws. And then, uponthe location chart, a faint red dot suddenly glowed!

  It was upon them in a flash. A small tube of metal, shaped somewhat inthe form of the big octopi submarine, had darted up from below,hovered a second close to them, and then, almost before they realizedthey were being surveyed, sped back into the mysterious depths fromwhich it had come.

  "A lookout, I suppose," Keith muttered, breathing more easily."Couldn't have held more than two of those creatures.... Well, thealarm's out, I guess, Graham, but it can't be helped. Let's see whatit's like down below."

  * * * * *

  They plunged steadily down, then ahead. And presently there grew onthe teleview vague forms which widened their eyes and made theirbreath come quicker. Keith had guessed the tunnel led to acivilization of some kind, but he was not prepared for the sight thatloomed hazily through the soft blue water.

  Strange, moundlike shapes appeared far below, mounds grouped inorderly rows and clusters, with streets running between them, throngedwith tiny, spidery dots. Octopi! It was, the commander realized, acity of the monsters--a complete city like those of surface peoples!For several miles in every direction the water-city spread out,farther than the teleview could pierce. Wells marveled at thisseparately developed civilization, this deep-buried realm of octopiwhose unexpected intellectual powers had permitted such development.Perhaps, he pondered, this city was only one of many; perhaps only avillage. He could but vaguely glimpse the queer mound buildings, butsaw that they were of varying height and were filled with dark roundentrance holes, through which the creatures streamed on theirdifferent errands....

  He saw no schools of fish around. "I guess they're been all killedoff, or eaten," he commented to the wonder-struck Graham. "Probablythe octopi have separate hatcheries where they raise them for food."

  "But--good Lord!" the first officer exclaimed. "A city--a city likeours! Down here, filled with octopi!..."

  "Yes," answered Wells grimly, "and this 'city' may only be a smallsettlement; there may be scores of these places. We'd better continueahead now that we're here; for we've got to get all the information wecan. I only hope these monsters haven't more than one big submarine.We can expect an attack any minute...."

  * * * * *

  The _NX-1_ pressed on. The city dropped behind. A breathless tensenesshad settled down over the submarine; she was proceeding with utmostcaution, her anxious officers alert at the location chart. The greatfear that tormented them was that they might be attacked, not by one,but by a fleet of the octopi ships....

  Then, at the rim of the chart, a red dot appeared! It grew rapidly,charging down on them at great speed. The spot was large; this was nosmall sentry boat! At once the alarm bell shrilled its warning; thecrew below left their posts and raced to the control room. With suremechanical fingers the emergency system gripped the valve handles andmotor levers; Keith swung the _NX-1_ onto a level keel, straightenedher out, and decreased speed still more. Giving the rods of the motorand rudder controls to Graham, he moved to the small lever which wouldunleash his bow torpedoes, and fingered it lightly. The _NX-1_ wasready for action.

  Scarcely had the men reached the small control room than the familiarelectric charge tingled. They stared wonderingly at each other, halfafraid. No one seemed hurt. One hand on the torpedo lever, Wellswatched his charts and instruments. He thanked God that there was onlyone of the enemy.

  The ray's shock came again--and stronger. The red dot was practicallyupon them. The screen was still empty. Coolly, Keith slowed thesubmarine to a dead stop. The crimson stud came closer....

  * * * * *

  And then he saw it. It was the same fearsome, hulking form. The samecurving windows, dark and lifeless. The same knobs on its bow, one nowleaping and pulsing with the paralyzing glow. At a distance of a fewhundred feet the octopi ship swerved to a halt, dousing the NX-1 withits ray unceasingly. Again those two underwater craft, so oddlycontrasted, were face to face. And again the weapon that had oncestruck the American ship's crew down at their posts was directed fullonto the _NX-1_.

  But it was harmless! It merely tingled, and did not paralyze! Thecontrol room sheathing held it out stoutly. The men's faces showedoverwhelming relief.

  Keith smiled grimly. Now, at least, he had the devils where he wantedthem; now it was his turn to strike with a--to them--terrible,mysterious weapon. They had attacked; had failed--and now he couldsquare up for Hemmy and send a pair of torpedoes into that ship ofhideous tentacles.

  "Port five!" The ship swerved slightly. "Hold even!" The enemy craftwas very close. The _NX-1's_ bow tubes were sighted in direct line.Her torpedoes could not possibly miss. This
time, destruction for theoctopi ship was inevitable....

  Keith Wells gripped the lever that held the torps in leash.

  "_Wait!_"

  Sparks, a bare foot from him, yelled out the word. Wells, alarmed,released his grip on the knob. The radio operator was listeningintently, a circle of taut faces around his crouched back. He swungexcitedly around.

  "For God's sake, don't fire!" he cried. "Hemingway Bowman's on thatsubmarine! He's alive--and calling for you!"

  CHAPTER V

  _The Other Weapon_

  Bowman--alive!

  Keith Wells let go the torpedo lever. His whole orderly plan of actionwas crashed in a second.--For an instant he stood gaping at the radioman, forgetful of the peril outside, striving desperately to hit onsome way of surmounting this unlooked-for obstacle. The idea of firingon his friend--killing Hemmy Bowman with his own hand--paralyzed hisbrain.

  And in that unguarded instant the octopi struck.

  From the bow of the enemy submarine, slanting from another of itspeculiar knobs, a narrow beam of violet light poured, cutting a vividswathe across the teleview. The huddled men stared at it, notcomprehending what it was. They felt no shock of electricity, norcould they discern any other harmful effect. The ray held steadily ontheir bow, not varying in the slightest, for a full thirty seconds.And still none of them could feel or see any damage.

  Wells, however, gradually became aware that he was bathed inperspiration, that great streams of sweat were coursing down hisface. A quick glance told him that every member of the crew was thesame way; and then, suddenly, he was conscious of a wave of intenseheat--heat which quickly became terrific. The control room wasstifling!

  Before he could act, the _NX-1_ slipped sharply to one side. A sharphissing sound grew at her bow, climbing steadily to a shriek. Longstreamers of white steam crept along the lower deck and seeped up intothe control room. And then rose the fatal sound of rushingwater--water pouring into the submarine from outside!

  For the violet beam was a heat ray--a weapon surface civilizations hadnot yet developed. While the _NX-1's_ crew had stared at it in theteleview, it had melted a hole in their bow.

  Immediately the submarine lost trim, and the deck tilted ominously. Inthe face of material danger--danger from a source he understood--thecommander became cool and methodical.

  "Sea-suits on!" he snapped. "Then forward and break out steelcollision-mat and weld it in place! Every man! You, too, Sparks andMcKegnie!"

  "But--but, sir!" stammered Graham. "Do you want them to get us withtheir paralyzing ray?"

  "You'd rather drown?" Wells flung back. Silenced, the first officerdonned his sea-suit, and in thirty seconds the rest of the crew hadtheirs on and were cluttering clumsily forward.

  * * * * *

  Alone in the control room, Keith battled with the unbalancing flow ofwater, maneuvering with all his skill in a futile attempt to keep the_NX-1_ on even keel. The men forward worked with great speed, spurredon by the realization that they were fighting death itself, but evenas they labored the submarine swung in ever increasing rolls and dips;the great weight of water she had shipped slopped back and forth; herbow went steadily down. Keith swept her forward tanks clean of water,always conscious of the immobile, staring octopi submarine in theteleview, watching them, it seemed, curiously, and not driving hometheir advantage with additional bolts of the violet heat ray.

  Despite her commander's frantic efforts, the _NX-1_ fluttered downremorselessly; the cavern floor rose, and, sinking with them, came theoctopi craft, in slow mockery of a fighting plane pursuing itsstricken foe to the very ground....

  She struck bottom with a soft, thudding jar, and settled on even keel.At once Wells released the helm, jumped into his own sea-suit andstumbled down to take command.

  He found the steel collision-mat in place, and the welding of itnearly completed. A few feathery trickles of water still seepedthrough on each side, but under his terse directions the pumps weresoon draining it out. The weird figures of the crew in their sea-suitslooked like creatures from another planet as they rapidly finished thejob.

  "All right--up to the control room, everybody! Fast!" Wells roared.

  The men stumbled aft as rapidly as they could in their cumbersomesuits. Several were already on the ladder. A few feet further--

  But at that moment the paralyzing ray again stabbed into the ship--andKeith Wells slumped helplessly to the deck. And as he crumpled, heglimpsed the grotesque, falling figures of his men, and saw one cometumbling down the ladder from the control room, where he had almostreached safety....

  * * * * *

  Peculiar sensations, unendurable thoughts raced through the commanderas he lay there limply. He knew his predicament. He wanted desperatelyto rise, to rush to the control room. Time and time again in thosefirst few moments of impotence he strove mightily to pull his limbsback to life. But his greatest efforts were barren of result, save toleave him feeling still weaker. The fate that he had seen strike downBrown now enmeshed him. He was paralyzed. Helpless. In the midst ofhis crew.

  After a moment all sensation left his body. His limbs might not haveexisted. Sensation, pain, lived only in his brain--and there it wasterrible, because self-created.

  He found himself sprawled flat on his back, his eyes directed stifflyupward. He could not move them, but out of the corners he vaguelysensed the other figures around him. Helpless, every one! And who knewif they would ever come out of the spell! Victory had gone to theoctopi....

  Minutes that seemed like hours passed. And then a well-rememberedvoice sounded in the radio earphones in his helmet. It was HemmyBowman, speaking from the enemy ship.

  "Keith! Keith Wells! Are you there?" the voice cried. "Keith! Whathave they done to you?"

  And Keith, he could not answer! He could not answer that troubledvoice of his friend--that voice from a friend he had thought dead.

  Again Bowman spoke. "Keith! Can't you hear me? What are they doing toyou? Oh--" For a moment it stopped, then came once more, thick withanguish. "Oh, God, what's happened?" Then lower: "If only there werelight, so I could see what they're doing...." The voice tapered intosilence. Keith could picture Hemmy, probably bound, giving him up fordead....

  * * * * *

  Then, quite distinctly, he heard a clank at the _NX-1's_ bow! Thesubmarine jerked, her bow tilted up--and with increasing speed shemoved forward, silently as a ghost.

  Keith thought he knew what that meant. The octopi ship had graspedthem with another of its hawser arms, and was pulling them away. Butwhere to? One of those mound cities? His brain was a turmoil as hetried to imagine what was before them. But all he could do was liethere and wait.

  The American craft was towed for perhaps ten minutes--ten ages to hercommander--then coasted slowly to a pause, and with a sharp jarsettled into rest. As she did so, every light in her hull wentsuddenly out.

  It had been bad enough with the lights on, but the darkness was farworse. The submarine was a tomb--as silent as one, and full of men wholived and yet were dead. Hemmy Bowman's voice came no more to Wells.He was alone with his moiling doubts and fears and unanswerablequestions, and he knew that every other man there was alone with them,too....

  As his eyes became partially accustomed to the darkness, he coulddistinguish vaguely the forms of the familiar mechanisms above him. Aslight noise grew suddenly and resolved itself into a prolongedscraping along the outer hull of the submarine. At intervals it pausedand gave way to a series of sharp, definite taps.

  Keith realized what those sounds signified: the octopi were strivingto find some entrance to the _NX-1_! This, he told himself, was theend. The creatures would break through; water would rush in, and everyman would drown. For the face-shields of their sea-suits were open!

  The dull scrapings ran completely around the motionless submarine,punctuated with the same staccato tappings. By the movement of thesound, Wells realized the octopi were
approaching the lower starboardexit port. And as they neared that port, the noise abruptly stopped.

  Then for some minutes silence fell. Next, the commander heard what wasunmistakably the exit port's water chamber being filled--and a momentlater emptied again. The devilish creatures had solved the puzzle ofthe means of entrance!

  * * * * *

  In the awful darkness the inner door of the port swung open. A slow,slithering sound came to Wells' ears. He sensed, though he could notsee, the presence of alien creature. An odor struck his nostrils--thatof fish....

  A deliberate something crawled directly across one outstretched arm,and another across his legs. And above him loomed a monstrous,complicated shadow, which, after a moment, slowly melted from his lineof vision. Panicky, he strove again to bring his limbs back to life,but still could not....

  Keith knew that in the darkness which their huge unblinking eyes couldpenetrate they were inspecting the _NX-1's_ interior, examining themen stretched on its deck, feeling them with their cold metal-scaledtentacles. Another complicated shadow crept back over the commander'sline of sight, and from all around rose the slithering, shufflingtread of the octopi's many tentacles, rasping on the steel flooring.

  Sweat from Wells' forehead trickled down and stung his eyes as he layin that dark agony. There seemed to be countless investigatingtentacles feeling through the entire submarine. One of them,iron-hard, suddenly coiled under his armpit and lifted him lightly asa feather from the deck. Another snaked up and clicked his face-shieldsecurely shut. Keith heard other clicks, and knew that the shields ofhis men were likewise being closed.

  The commander was held straight out from the octopus' revolting body,and as he swung, helpless, he could see that more men were graspedsimilarly in other mighty arms. Dangling in the shadow-filled darknesshe was carried slowly to the exit port, and he heard the inner doorswing open, then close again. Water streamed through the valves; itencompassed him with a feeling of lightness, a feeling of floating, ashe swung at the end of the long metal-sheathed tentacles. A momentlater a soft bluish glow burst on his vision, and he saw that he wasoutside. There was a long wait, and when the current next swung himaround he was dismayed to see that every one of the monstrouscreatures near him was dangling on high two or three men of hishelpless crew. The whole outfit was in the power of the devil-fish!

  And then their captors moved forward with them on a ghastly march oftriumph....

  But Keith Wells did not know that, crouched behind the instrumentpanel in the control room, shivering and sick with fear, was the plumpform of Cook Angus McKegnie, who had just gained it just before theparalyzing ray had struck.

  CHAPTER VI

  _The Monster with the Armlets of Gold_

  Hemingway Bowman's ardent wish, after he was whipped quickly throughthe round exit port of the octopi submarine, was for a quick, cleandeath. The horror and mystery of his situation had left him with oneconscious emotion, that he was afraid. The worst had been when he washauled through the port; when, expecting anything, he had been able tosee nothing in the dark, water-filled mystery ship.

  Deliberate tentacles had stroked over every inch of hisbody--tentacles that were not metal-scaled, as had been the arms ofthe creature that captured him. It was then that he guessed the truepurpose of the metal suits the octopi wore--to protect their bodiesagainst the lesser pressure near the surface of the sea. Inside thesubmarine they did not need them. He decided that the ship was usedfor rapidly transporting large numbers of the octopi to distantregions, and also for a weapon of offense and defense. Theintelligence of the cuttlefish astounded him.

  Keith had got away. At least he knew that, and he thanked God for it.His bold stroke had not been in vain, his sacrifice not useless.

  After the inspection of the tentacles, Hemmy had been shoved to acorner of the octopi submarine. He had felt cords wrapped around hisbody. After being thus secured, he was left to himself. He was utterlyalone, except for strange, vague shadows that floated through thedarkness--shadows that heated his brain as he realized how many ofthe devil-fish there were.

  Hours that seemed like endless days passed.

  Bowman concluded that the submarine had gone straight through thecavern and emerged finally into what seemed to be another sea. Deadsilence filled the ship. What was happening, he could only guess. Thecraft seemed to run on forever. Never once did tentacles brush orinspect him again.

  * * * * *

  Finally the ship stopped, and a great round door opened in one wall.By the soft bluish glow that seeped in Hemmy caught a glimpse of hissurroundings, and his gorge rose at the sight. The ship was literallyfilled with a slowly waving forest of long black tentacles. Weirdinstruments, unlike anything he had ever seen, were grouped around thewalls, and before them attendant octopi poised, their hideous eyesfixed and steady. There were no dividing decks as in the _NX-1_; thecraft was one huge shell.

  Then came furious activity. The door fell shut again, and the shipshot off at great speed. Hemmy felt sure that they were advancing toagain attack the _NX-1_, and at once began to try to reach hiscomrades through radiophone. He knew that Wells would come back.

  Finally he caught a human voice, and heard the _NX-1's_ radio operatorshout to the commander that he, Bowman, was alive and calling. Butwhen he tried to speak further, the American craft's radio was silent.

  And then, in the octopi submarine, had come a soft glow of violet....

  Was it a more deadly weapon than the paralyzing ray? In great suspensethe prisoner waited. Silence--silence! Horrible doubts beset his mind.Was Keith refraining from firing his torpedoes because he, Bowman, wason board the enemy boat? The thought stung him. He tried desperatelyagain to reach Wells; but there was no answer. Were the Americansdead?

  Age-long minutes passed. Then the exit port opened and severalmetal-clad octopi swam out. Hemmy had a glimpse of the _NX-1_ lyingsilent and apparently lifeless on the sea-floor, a gaping hole in herbow!

  As if to taunt him with the sight, the creatures left the round dooropen, and presently Bowman beheld the octopi open the _NX-1's_starboard exit port and enter. Later the port swung open again, and hesaw the monsters emerge, each gripping several men clad in yellowsea-suits! That they were dead, or victims of the ray, was obviousfrom the way they limply dangled.

  The exit port closed, and darkness filled the octopi ship. HemmyBowman panted with the futile effort to break his bonds.

  "You devils!" he yelled in blind rage, exhausted. "Why don't you takeme with them? Take me! Take me, damn your stinking hides!"

  * * * * *

  When Keith Wells was taken from the silent _NX-1_, a host ofastounding impressions swarmed his brain. Swinging lightly at the endof his captor's tentacle, he strove as best he could, with eyesrigidly fixed straight ahead, to grasp his new surroundings. He had,first, one flash of the octopi ship lying quite close to them, itshulk, as always, immobile and apparently lifeless. And inside it, hewas sure, was his friend and first officer, Hemmy Bowman--a captive.

  He saw that the octopi submarine had towed the _NX-1_ into one of theweird mound cities. His own ship was lying in what seemed a kind ofpublic square, and crowds of black octopi were swarming around it ashe and his crew were brought out. Shooting straight off the square ranone of the wide streets he had previously seen from above, and on eachside the brown mound-buildings rose. Their details were hazy, becauseof the cuttlefish inhabitants who swam thickly in front of them.

  His captors started their march down this broad street. Great crowdsof reddish-colored octopi clustered on each side of it; other swarmshung almost motionless--except for their constantly writhingtentacles--above, so that their line of progress was through whatresembled a restless, living tunnel of repulsive black flesh, snakyarms and huge, unblinking eyes. Keith felt faint from the horror ofit. Thousands of the monsters were there, all hanging in the soft,blue-glowing water; and occasionally, as he floated almosthori
zontally in his captor's firm grip, his legs would brush the wallof clammy flesh; or perhaps one of the tentacles would reach out as ifto touch him.

  The octopus that held him swam some five feet off the street beditself; at intervals the thick swarm on either side would part for asecond, and Keith could glimpse the huge mound-buildings, ever growinglarger, with round entrance holes dotted all over their smoothsurface, above as well as the sides.

  The march was ghastly. Their captors were taking them through theheart of the water-metropolis; displaying their human captives as didthe Caesars in Roman triumphs of old!

  * * * * *

  The swarming crowds of tentacled monsters grew thicker as theyprogressed, and their tentacles began to whip more quickly, as ifanger was burning in their loathsome bodies. Keith noted the menace oftheir sharp-beaked jaws, and the sickening sucker-discs on the lividunder-side of the tentacles. As far as he could see, the swarms fellin behind the procession after it had passed. Following them--where?

  Just as Wells felt himself on the verge of fainting, the processionturned to the right and entered the largest mound-building of all, avast dome rising in the very center of the octopi metropolis. Theycontinued through a corridor perhaps twenty feet high, from which atintervals other corridors branched. Held by one arm, and ever andagain turning helplessly over in his horizontal transit, Keith caughtglimpses of walls covered with intricate designs on a basiceight-armed motif--designs of artistic value, that gave evidence ofculture and civilization.

  The passage ended as suddenly as it had begun, and they came into themain body of a gigantic building.

  The commander could hardly credit his eyes. The place resembled astadium, and was so vast that he felt dwarfed to nothingness. Thedomed roof soared far above in misty bluish light. On the floor,exactly beneath the center of the great dome, was a raised platform,and on it a dais resembling a very wide throne. Around the dais ascore or more of octopi--officials, Keith supposed--were grouped.

  Rapidly the creatures following the procession swam into the chamber.Monstrously large as the place was, the floor soon was filled with thethick flood of cuttlefish which swarmed in from many doors. Keith,held with the other captives just to one side of the hole he hadentered by, began to think that they must soon refuse to let any morein--when, to his surprise, he saw the latest arrivals begin to form agallery twenty feet above those on the ground floor, and, when thiswas extended far back and completely filled, start yet another aboveit--and another, and another.... In ten minutes the mighty hall wascrowded with countless layers of the cold-eyed monsters, each layerangling up from the central dais so that all could see.

  "God!" the commander thought. "Nothing but solidly-packed devil-fishall the way to the dome! A slaughter pit! And we, of course, are to bethe cattle!"

  * * * * *

  Minutes passed. The throne was still empty, and the thousands in theamphitheater seemed waiting for an occupant. Keith wished he was ableto close his eyes. The restless, never-ceasing weaving of thecountless tentacles in the levels above made the scene a nightmare.Some waved slowly, others whipped excitedly, but never for an instantdid one pause. The movements were like the never-ceasing shifting andswaying of the trunks and feet of elephants; in the dim glow the hugechamber seemed to be filled with one fantastic, million-tentacledmonster that stared with its thousand eyes down on the forlorn groupof puny human beings....

  As if at a command the arms of the octopi on the platform suddenlybegan to weave in perfect unison in some weird ceremony. First theyswayed out towards the waiting captives, then they swerved slowly tothe empty throne. Then came a few quick, excited whippings; and oncemore the long arms reached out at the small group at the entrance.This went on for some minutes. Then, very suddenly, a creature swam upfrom what must have been an opening in the floor onto the dais-throne.

  Keith saw it well.

  It was an octopus, a giant amongst octopi, and Wells knew at once itwas the ruler of the realm, the lord and master of the swarminggalleries and the cities of mound-buildings.

  It was larger than its fellows by a full three feet. And, encirclingeach great tentacle just where it joined the central mass of flesh,was a broad, glittering band of polished gold--eight thick armletsthat ringed the creature's revolting head-body with a circle ofgleaming pagan splendor. Keith could almost fancy that a certain royalair hung over the monster.

  The huge, unblinking eyes of the king stared at the horror-frozencaptives. One long tentacle lifted slowly upward, and their captors atonce started towards the throne with them. The score of octopi on eachside stilled their weaving arms. A battery of emotionless eyes drilledinto Wells' paralyzed body. He felt faint. Unquestionably the horribleceremony was leading up to some form of cold-blooded sacrifice....

  * * * * *

  The monarch stretched a mighty arm towards Keith, and, as in a dream,he felt himself lifted out of his guard's grasp. The snakeliketentacle gripped him about the waist, and held him dangling like apuppet twenty feet in the water while the two deadly eyes staredsteadily at him. He was brought closer, until the hideous centralmass, with its cruel beaked jaw and ink sac hanging behind, was nomore than a foot away.

  Then another arm stroked slowly along the commander's helpless body.Once or twice it prodded sharply, and Wells felt a surge of fear, forhis sea-suit might break. Deliberately the prying tentacle moved overhim, delicately feeling his helmet, his weighted feet, his legs.

  Keith Wells grew angry. He was being inspected like a trapped monkey!He, commander of the _NX-1_, representative of one of the world'smightiest nations--prodded and stared at by this fish, this octopus! Agreat rage suffused him, and with a terrific effort he tried to jabhis arms into one of those devilish eyes. But try as he might, hisbody would not respond. He could not move a finger.

  For a long time the loathsome inspection continued, until themonstrous king seemed satisfied. Wells was handed back. There followedan interminable period in which nothing whatever was done, as far ashe could see. He was sure that they must be talking, debating, but nosound reached his ears through the tight helmet. All the time theendless motion in the swarming levels above went on. It became hazy,dreamlike, and in spite of himself the commander began to feel drowsy.The weaving and swaying was producing a hypnotic effect. At last thedesire to sleep grew overpowering.

  Wells and his men were more than half unconscious when their originalcaptors finally pulled them back from the royal presence and began ahumble retreat from the throne room. Slowly they backed to theentrance. Keith's last drowsy glimpse was of a grotesque, gold-ringedmonster on a throne, with a score of smaller tentacled creaturesaround him, and a vast haze of weaving tentacles and unblinking eyesabove.

  They passed from the huge chamber. The commander felt delirious, as ina nightmare, but he knew that they were again in the long corridor,and that their captors were taking them further into the mightybuilding, further from the street outside. He glimpsed great roomsbranching off the corridor, and swarms of black octopi inside them.The light became fainter; and at last the procession turned into aseparate, rough-walled chamber, dimly lit and empty.

  Wells felt the grip around his arm loosen, and he floated limply tothe floor among his men. He slept....

  CHAPTER VII

  _The Glass Bell Jar_

  Keith awoke hours later.

  Slowly he became conscious of a cramped, stiff body, of a dull painracking his head. He stretched out his limbs--and, suddenly, realizedhe could move.

  Remembering the paralyzing ray that had struck him down, and halfafraid that his senses were tricking him, he kicked his left leg out.It moved with its old vigor. He quickly found that his strength hadreturned, that he could feel and move. The effect of the ray had wornoff!

  With a glow of new hope he rose to his feet and exercised numbmuscles. Looking around, he saw the other men still stretched out onthe floor of their rough-walled, watery prison.
He called into hisradiophone mouthpiece:

  "Graham! Graham, wake up!" A grotesque figure stirred among itsfellows; turned over. "It's Wells, Graham," Keith continued. "Get up;you can, now!" And he watched the form of his big first officerstretch out and finally rise, while stupid, sleepy sounds came to hisradio receiver.

  "Why--why; the paralysis is gone!" Graham said at length.

  "Yes, but maybe the octopi don't know it. Rouse the other men at once,and we'll see what we can do."

  It was weird, the sight of the lifeless figures of the men stirring tolife in the dim-lit water as Graham shook each one's shoulder. Theradiophones buzzed and clicked with their excited comments andejaculations. Keith felt much better. With his men restored tostrength, and clustered in a determined, hard-fighting mass, he saw ahope of breaking out and regaining the _NX-1_.

  He let them exercise as he had for some minutes, then proceeded to abrisk roll-call. There should be fifteen men and two officers. RapidlyGraham ran over the names, and each time a voice rang back inreply--until he came to the cook.

  "McKegnie?... Cook McKegnie?"

  There was no answer. Wells stared around the group of dim figures andhimself called the name again. But McKegnie was not present. And asthe commander and his men realized it the numbing spell of theirdesperate position settled down on them again like a shroud.

  Keith shook off the mood. "Well," he muttered, "I guess the devils gothim. Poor McKegnie's seen the wheels go round for the last time....All right: take command, Graham. I'm going to do a littlereconnoitering."

  * * * * *

  The round entrance hole was some fifteen feet from him, at the far endof the cell. Keith advanced cautiously to it, the peculiar lightfeeling the water gave him making his steps uncertain. The dim blueillumination made the details of the corridor outside hazy, shadowy,but it seemed to be empty. Peering out, Wells could sight no guardingoctopi. He edged closer and stared down to the left. Twenty feet awaythe vague light tapered into darker gloom, filled with thick, waveringshadows; but it was apparently devoid of tentacles. He wondered ifthe octopi were unaware that the effects of their ray had worn off,and peeped cautiously around the edge to the right.

  Immediately a long arm whipped out, grasped him around the waist andflung him twisting and turning back into the chamber. Grahamlaboriously made his way to the commander and helped him to his feet."Hurt, sir?" he asked anxiously.

  "No," Keith gasped. "But that devil--"

  He stopped short. The first officer turned and followed hiscommander's stare.

  The entrance hole of the cell had filled with a monstrous shape. Ahuge octopus was resting there, its unblinking eyes coldly surveyingthe crew of the _NX-1_. On each of its thick tentacles was a broadband of polished gold. It was the king, the same creature that hadinspected them from the throne-dais a few hours before. And behind himin the corridor the men glimpsed another octopus.

  Slowly the ruler of the octopi swam into the chamber. Its great eyescentered icily on Keith Wells, standing at the head of his coweringmen; and its mighty tentacles waved slowly, gracefully, as if thecreature stood in doubt. One of them tentatively reached out andhovered over their heads, moving uncertainly back and forth. Then,like a monstrous water snake, the tentacle poised, flicked out andplucked a man from his comrades.

  His shriek of terror rasped in their earphones. "Steady, men!" Keithcried. "It's hopeless to try and fight them! The monster just wants tolook him over!"

  * * * * *

  The man--Williams, a petty officer--was dangled by the armpit inmid-water and made to slowly revolve. The tip of another huge armsnaked out and for some seconds stroked his body, probing curiously.He panted with fright, and in their earphones his friends could hearhis every tortured exhalation. Anxiously, Keith watched. Then,without warning, another tentacle darted up, fastened its tip on thebreast of the captive's sea-suit, and deliberately ripped it open.

  The doomed man's last scream rang in their helmets as the water pouredinto his suit. They saw him writhe and struggle desperately in theremorseless grip which held him. The two huge eyes of the cuttlefishsurveyed his death throes minutely; watched his agonized strugglesgradually weaken; watched his legs and arms relax, his head sinklower.... And then the tentacle let a lifeless body float to thefloor.

  Jennerby, a huge engineer, went completely mad. "I'll get him, thedevil!" he yelled, and before Keith could command him to stay back,had flung himself onto the giant king.

  Death came as a mere matter of course. Without apparent effort, themonarch ripped off Jennerby's helmet and sent him spinning back. Theman's body writhed and shuddered, and in a moment another stark whiteface showed where death had struck....

  Trembling, sick at heart, the commander yet had to think of his men."For God's sake," he cautioned them, "keep back. Don't try to fightnow; we've got to wait our chance! Steady. Steady...."

  The king's deliberate tentacle again began its slow weaving. It waschoosing another victim. And this time it darted straight out at KeithWells and gripped him with a mighty clutch about the waist.

  The commander did not cry out. As he was brought close to the staringeyes, and felt their sinister gaze run over him, it flashed throughhim for some obscure reason that the monster knew him for what he was,the leader, from the tiny bars on each shoulder of his sea-suit.... Hewaited for the tentacles to rip it open.

  But they did not. Instead, the creature turned and swiftly swam withhim out through the entrance hole.

  * * * * *

  They went to the left in the corridor, further into the heart of thebuilding. The bluish light became stronger. As Keith twisted in thegiant monarch's grip he glimpsed the other octopus following with thetwo dead men. He saved his strength knowing it was hopeless just thento try and struggle free.

  Quick as was his passage, he noticed that the walls of the corridorwere covered with intricate designs, in bas-relief, and colored. Hepassed row after row of mural paintings of octopi in variousactivities, and guessed that they represented the race's history. Onewas obviously a scene of battle, with a tentacled army locked incombat with another strange horde of fishlike creatures; a secondshowed the construction of the queer mound-buildings on the sea-floor,with scores of monsters hauling great chunks of material into place,and another pictured the huge audience chamber, with a gold-bandedking motionless on his throne.

  As the king drew him rapidly along, he had a glimpse through acircular doorway of a large room, inside which were clustered theblack shapes of thousands of baby octopi, tended by what wereevidently nurses. Other such rooms were passed, and the youngcommander's brain whirled as he tried to measure the size and progressof this undersea civilization. Perhaps the race of octopi was growing,reaching out; needed new room to colonize. That would explain whytheir submarine had been sent through the tunnel....

  A voice sounded in his ears:

  "Keith? Are you all right?" It was Graham, calling from the cellbehind.

  "So far," Wells assured him. "I'll keep in touch, and let you knowwhat happens."

  At that moment, his captor carried him into a large chamber at the endof the corridor. He looked around, and decided it was a laboratory. Hebeheld strange instruments, anatomical charts of octopi on the wallsand, in one corner, a small jar of glass, in which a dull flame wasburning. Many-shaped keen-bladed knives lay on various low tables, andthin, wicked-looking prongs and pincers.

  "I'm in their experimental laboratory, Graham," Wells spoke into themouthpiece of his tiny radio. And then his roving eyes saw somethingthat made him audibly gasp.

  "What's the matter, Keith?" came the first officer's anxious voice.

  After a moment the commander answered. "It's--it's a pile of humanbodies. The bodies of those fishermen. They--they've beenexperimenting on them...."

  * * * * *

  Was he, too, Wells wondered, to be experimented on? The sight of thatstac
ked pile of bodies chilled him with horror. He kept his eyes fromthem, till the octopus with the golden bands swung him through ahinged door in the farther wall.

  He found himself in a side room, smaller than the outer chamber, thewhole center of which was occupied by a huge glass bell jar, somethirty feet in diameter. Inside it was much strange-looking apparatuson tables, and trays of operating instruments--knives like those inthe outer room, and the same thin prongs. The great jar was empty ofwater, and on one side was an entrance port.

  The king tossed Keith into a corner and quickly donned a metal-scaledwater-suit. When he had it all on, and the glass body-containerfastened into place, he picked up his captive again and advancedthrough the bell jar's entrance port into a small water chamber. Amoment later Wells felt his body grow heavy as the water of thecompartment ran out, and then there was a click and he found himselfinside the jar, still held in the merciless grip of a tentacle.

  He twisted around to find the cold eyes of the octopus staring at himonly a foot away. And as he wondered what was going to happen next,the king unfastened the glass face-shield of the commander's sea-suitwith a quick flip of the tip of a tentacle.

  Keith's arms were pinned to his sides; he could not move to try torefasten the face-shield. Fearful, he held his breath; held it untilhis face was purple and his lungs were near to bursting. But at lastthe limit was reached, and with a great wrench he sucked in a fullbreath.

  It was clean, fresh air!

  * * * * *

  The air was like a breath of his own world brought down to this coldrealm of octopi. Once he had caught up with his breathing it pourednew life into his limbs, jaded from the artificial air of thesea-suit. Keith felt his muscles respond, felt his whole body glowwith new strength and life. Twelve inches away the king was watchinghis every reaction closely through the huge helmet of glass. Thethought passed through the commander's mind that he was not only king,but chief scientist of this strange water civilization.

  Then, while his lungs swallowed hungrily the good, fresh air, severaltentacles began to feel around him in an attempt to unfasten the restof his sea-suit.

  Wells blanched at the sudden realization of how helpless he would beif the suit were taken from him. He would then not only be a prisonerof the octopi, but a prisoner of the glass jar, unable ever to leaveit, and more than ever at the mercy of his captor's least whim. Notthat he had any delusion that he would live long in any case: it wasjust the simple strong instinct of self-preservation that made himgrab at every chance for life.

  This thought flashed through his mind, even while the octopus wasfumbling with the catches of his suit. And along with it was born adesperate plan of escape. He was in his own element, air; the octopusout of his. If he could crack the glass of the king's helmet, and letthe water out and air in!... The glass was only twelve inches away.

  The commander stopped his resistance, and at the same time felt aboutwith his legs until he had them well braced against a lower tentacle.He pushed gently, and came a few inches nearer the glass; a littlemore. Then, with a quick, strong jerk of his body he crashed the steelframe of his helmet square against the cuttlefish's sheathing ofglass.

  The creature was taken wholly by surprise. Tentacles whipped out totear the rash human quickly away--but not before Keith had poundedagain, and heard the splinter of smashed glass! He had jabbed a holein the glass body-piece, and already the life-giving water was pouringout!

  Panic seized the king, and he became a nightmare of torturedtentacles. Wells was flung wildly away and fetched up against the sideof the jar with a crash that for a second stunned him. More and morewater poured from the octopus' suit, and air at once rushed in to takeits place. The creature's great eyes became filmy, while the revoltingspidery body slewed here and there across the jar, all the timewhipping and thrashing at the strangling air. Keith scurried from sideto side, trying to keep out of reach of the crazy, writhing tentacles.Once a glancing blow knocked him flat, but the monster was altogetherunconscious of him and he got away.

  Little by little the terrific whipping and coiling of the tentaclesquieted down. The drowning king lay in one place now; its loathsomered body, no longer protected by glass, turned bluish. Keith thrilledwith elation at his victory.

  And then, for the first time, he noticed that there was a full threeinches of water on the floor--far too much to spill from the king'ssuit. A quick look around showed him where it came from. There was along crack in the side of the glass jar, at the place where he hadbeen crashed against it--and water was pouring in!

  Keith flung himself against the crack, jammed his arm into thebroadest part of the leak. But still the water rushed in. The octopuswas in its death throes, weakening steadily--but just as steadily thewater poured in and rose up the sides of its body. In a flash Wellssaw that the liquid would win the race to cover it and allow themonster to resume breathing.

  "Oh, damn it!" he cursed fervently. "Now I've got to run for it!"

  * * * * *

  He stumbled to the port, snapping shut his face-shield as he went. Ina moment he had solved the working of the mechanism and was in thewater chamber, then outside in the room itself. Fortunately hissea-suit was unhurt. He thanked heaven for that as he tore away aboardlike piece of apparatus and jammed it over the leak in the jar.

  Keith paused a moment to plan. The king of the octopi was stillwrithing in ever weakening struggles, but the water was halfway up hisbody. "It'll cover him soon," thought the commander, "and then it's aquestion how long it'll take him to come to. I've got to movefast--slip out into the corridor and run the gauntlet back to themen." His eyes rested on a large knife, and he appropriated it, sincehe saw nothing else he might use.

  For the first time since the beginning of the fight he answered thequestions and exclamations that had constantly sounded in his earsfrom the distant crew. Tersely he told them what had happened, and ofthe gauntlet he had to run.

  "Make ready for a dash to the _NX-1_," he finished. "It's now ornever. Wait three minutes for me, and if I don't make it, go aheadanyway. Remember--three minutes. This is an order. So long, fellows!"

  He shut his ears to the bedlam of comment that followed. His knifeready, he took a few steps to the door and pushed out--right into thetentacles of a waiting octopus.

  * * * * *

  His knife was useless. While locked motionless by three arms of hiscaptor, another streaked out and wrenched it from his hand. Once againKeith was absolutely helpless.

  Great confusion resulted in the laboratory. The commander heard nosound, but the guard must have called, for five more octopi dartedrapidly out of an adjoining room. Their tentacles writhing in greatexcitement, they swam past and into the inner chamber to the rescue oftheir nearly drowned king.

  The devil-fish that held Wells almost crushed him to death in itsexcitement. It was obviously undecided what to do; but finally it spedhim down the passageway and cast him back inside the cell with hismen. Then it quickly retreated.

  The commander staggered to his feet and faced Graham and the others."A miracle!" he gasped; "I'll tell you later. But now we've got tomake our break. The king's out, and we've got to get away before theybring him to. There's nothing to do but rush the door. It means suredeath for half of us, and probably for all--but God help us if theking catches us!"

  He paused and surveyed them keenly. "Everybody with me?" he asked. Andnot one man held back his answer.

  Wells smiled a little. "Good!" he said.

  * * * * *

  There were twelve men and two officers. There were thousands ofoctopi. On the face of it, their chances seemed hopeless. Not for asecond did Keith count on getting many men to the _NX-1._ But he knewwhere the submarine was, and he had to try.

  Tersely he gave them final instructions.

  "This corridor leads to the main entrance. That is, to theright--understand? Then straight down the stre
et outside, to the left,is the square where they towed the _NX-1._ I'd say it was a hundredyards.

  "There's one guard outside. Graham, you and half the men to the rightof the door. I'll take the rest to the left. Our only chance is to tryand destroy the octopus' eyes."

  His mind cast about desperately for some form of weapon. The onlydetachable thing on their sea-suits was the small helmet-light, athing, Keith told himself, without possible offensive use. Still, thebeams would enable them to more clearly see their path and keeptogether, so he ordered them in hand.

  The men were grouped and alert. The moment had come.

  "Remember," he said, "--its eyes. Then stick together and run likehell. All right--good luck--and let's go!"

  Awkwardly, stumbling clumsily in the retarding water, the small groupsurged through the door. Immediately a black shape pounced upon themfrom the clustered shadows--the guarding octopus.

  Its tentacles seemed to be everywhere. In seconds five men wereclutched in its awful grip, their fists rising and falling impotentlyas the hideous arms constricted and crushed them inward. Keith, freeof the clasp, yelled: "The eyes! The eyes! Put out its eyes!"

  * * * * *

  For answer, a yellow arm clutching a helmet-light broke through thegrotesquely milling mass and struck at the cuttlefish's great pools ofeyes. It missed, but the switch flicked on, and there stabbed throughthe gloom a broad, glaringly white ray.

  Its effect was astounding. The beam smote the octopus squarely in itshuge eyes, and immediately the creature shuddered; writhed with pain.The tentacles released the men--and the monster fled back into theprotecting shadows!

  A shout from the men roared in the commander's earphones. "They can'tstand the light!" he cried. "Thank God! Beams on, everyone! Flash 'emin their eyes! Forward!"

  Fourteen shafts of eye-dazzling light forked through the corridor.The tiny company, beating their path with criss-crossing shafts ofwhite, forged ahead. They thrashed the shadows with their beams,probing each inch of water--clearing their way even as a tank hosesmachine-gun bullets before its clumsy body. Their former slenderchance grew; they filled with hope.

  Another swarm of devil-fish, long arms whipping before them, racedfrom branching corridors and bore down on the company of humans. Themen were ready, and fourteen tongues of white met them squarely. Theyfaltered; the weight of their fellows behind shoved them on; but therays steadied, and the front row of octopi broke in panic. The othersat once followed in wild retreat.

  "Keep together, men!" Keith ordered sharply. "One beam to eachoctopus--straight in its eyes till it retreats! Forward!"

  * * * * *

  They pressed on. The octopi, with eyes used only to the soft blue glowof the cavern, could not stand against the brilliant rays. Keithleading, the _NX-1's_ crew stumbled out into the street.

  They faltered a moment when they saw each entrance hole of themound-buildings shooting out streams of octopi. Hundreds were in sightalready. The whole city was evidently alarmed. Wells at once formedhis men in a circle, so their beams would guard them on every side andabove. Apparently the octopi could not approach within thirty feet ofthem, and even at that distance they turned and fled, writhing withpain, whenever a shaft of light struck full in their eyes.

  "The square's just ahead!" the commander roared. "One last rush, now,and we'll reach the submarine! Stick close; keep your arms locked; andwatch out above!"

  The circle of men narrowed. The rays gave their tiny cluster theappearance of a monster even more fantastic than those moiling aroundthem--a monster with long straight tentacles of glaring white. Theystumbled forward through the magically parting ranks of black octopi.The beams kept the creatures back; they were helpless before them.

  Foot by foot under the inverted bowl of threshing tentacles the_NX-1's_ crew lumbered ahead. The street at last ceased; the widesquare opened before them.

  "We're here!" Wells yelled exultantly. "This is the--"

  His voice fell into abrupt silence. He stared around the square, andhis heart went cold indeed. They had reached the right place, but itwas empty.

  The _NX-1_ was not there!

  CHAPTER VIII

  _Cook, the Navigator_

  Through all these hours, one man had remained on the _NX-1_, and thatman was, to put it mildly, scared to death.

  Cook Angus McKegnie had been nearest the connecting ladder when KeithWells roared out the command to retreat above, and his desire toregain a place of safety was so earnest that he made the control roomin record time. At once he had felt the tingle of the paralyzing ray.Struck by a horrible thought, he ventured to peer down the ladder--andgroaned to see the figures of his comrades, all lying limply on thedeck. His portly frame quivered like jelly as realization came to himthat he was the only one who had escaped the ray.

  Heroic ideas of saving the submarine, of rescuing the men below,flashed wildly through his head. But only for a moment. On secondthought, he felt he ought to hide. So, in the tomblike silence thathad fallen, the two-hundred-and-twenty-pound McKegnie wormed a waybehind an instrument panel, effecting the journey by vigorous shovesof his stomach. It was minutes later that he first noticed that somesharp jutting object was jutting deep into his ample paunch, but hecould do nothing to remedy it. He was hidden, anyway, and he was goingto stay hidden!

  The cook felt the _NX-1_ being towed forward. Then, after a dreadfulwait, he heard queer noises down below, and was positive the exitports had opened. The snakelike slithering and shuffling whichfollowed would mean that the enemy was inside the _NX-1._ The thoughtbrought St. Vitus' dance to his limbs, and, try as he might, hecouldn't still them. Then again the ports opened, the gloomy silencereturned, and Angus McKegnie was alone with his reflections.

  * * * * *

  After the first hour he gave voice to them in one simple, bittersentence. "Just why the hell," he muttered, "did I ever join theNavy?" The silence offered no reply, and McKegnie, desperate from hiscramped position, ventured to poke his head around the instrumentpanel. The faint emergency lights showed the control room to be empty.He decided to come out, and did so, worming his way back with greatdifficulty.

  Once out, the first thing his eyes fell on was the teleview screen.Now the cook had never seen one of the octopi, and the screen showedhundreds of monsters clustering around the _NX-1._ So with unusualpromptness he acted, jamming himself once again into his hiding place.Maybe, he thought, they had some way in which they could see into thecontrol room and discover him!

  Hours passed. The cook was sopping with sweat. Finally his thoughtsemerged into words.

  "I got to get out of here!" he said intensely. "I _got_ to! And I gotto run this submarine!"

  The sound of his voice somehow emboldened him. Once more he backed outof his cranny, and with cautious, trembling steps explored the controlroom. He kept his eyes from the teleview, though it had a terriblefascination for him, and surveyed the _NX-1's_ array of controlinstruments. The prospective navigator groaned at the sight.

  There were dozens of mysterious wheels, jutting from every possibleangle, squads of black and red-handled levers, whole armies of queerlittle stud-buttons and dials. His knowledge of cooking helped him notat all in the presence of that maze of devices. Timidly he touched oneof the levers, but immediately snatched his hand away as if afraid itwould bite. His boldly announced purpose of running the craft wentglimmering.

  * * * * *

  An accidental glimpse of the monsters in the teleview suddenly decidedhim that he needed a weapon. He hunted frantically through the lockersand found three service revolvers, which he fastened at his waist,adding his own carving knife to the arsenal. But he didn't feel muchbetter. Then, remembering for the first time his sea-suit radio, heyelled: "Mr. Wells! Mr. Wells! Oh, Mr. Wells, where are you? Can youhear me?" There was, of course, no answer.

  He tried to bring his muddled thoughts and fears to order. "I got
torun this thing," he said doggedly. "_Got_ to! Now, let's see: what thehell's this thing for?... What the--"

  He broke off short, and his eyes went wide. He had heard a noise!

  Yes--there it was again! The same peculiar scraping at one of the exitports! He glanced fearfully at the teleview. "Oh, Lord!" he yelped."They're comin' in to get me!"

  He started to dive back behind the instrument panel, but stopped, drewtwo guns, and in an agonized muddle trotted back and forth for amoment, waving them. Another look at the screen showed that an exitport was open, admitting two metal-scaled octopi. McKegnie couldn'tstand it any longer: he wedged himself behind his panel again. Soonsounds of the metal tentacles on the deck below told him that one ofthe creatures was coming up the ramp--then slithering into the controlroom itself. The cook was a lather of cold perspiration.

  For a few minutes there was silence. The octopus was apparentlysurveying this new part of the submarine. Then, without warning, thetip of a metal-scaled tentacle felt around the panel and crept,exploring, up Angus McKegnie's leg--which leg was again suddenlyafflicted with St. Vitus' dance. The tentacles coiled, pulledhard--and the cook with a yowl was yanked out into the room.

  * * * * *

  Dangling upside down, high in the air, he submitted to the fishy stareof the great eyes under the sheathing of glass. But soon he started tosquirm, and his violent contortions brought a rush of blood to hishead, making him quite dizzy. It was while he was in that state thatthings started to happen.

  First, a great roar rolled through the _NX-1_, and McKegnie foundhimself flat on the floor with his breath knocked out. Then, whilethis was registering on his mind, he discovered himself the center ofa madly milling set of tentacles, and instinctively scrambled out ofthe way. From a distance he saw that the tentacles belonged to theoctopus that had held him, and that their coilings and threshings weregradually dying down, until only a quiver ran through them from timeto time. While McKegnie was trying to figure this all out he noticedthat the monster's glass sheeting was shattered, that it lay in a poolof water, and that the odor of burnt powder was in the air. Lookingdown he found that he had a gun in his hand. A thin wisp of smoke wascurling from the barrel.

  "Gee whiz!" he ejaculated. "Gee _whiz_!"

  As he stood there recovering from his surprise, he heard the otheroctopus crawling up the connecting ramp, coming to see what hadbefallen its fellow. Preceded by two trembling guns, McKegnie tiptoedto the ramp and peered down.

  From the darkness he saw another complicated mass of metal tentaclesand glass advancing up towards him. Fear smote the cook, and almostwithout volition be pointed his guns and pulled the triggers. Asbefore, a bullet crashed into the great dome of glass, and he watcheda short but terrible death struggle. He had, by himself, slain twooctopi!

  A tremendous elation filled McKegnie--until it occurred to him thathis shots might have been heard outside. At once he ran and looked atthe teleview view screen, and what he saw on its silver surface tookall the triumph abruptly out of him. The octopi outside were dartingabout with alarming activity; a whole cluster of them was centered atthe exit port, and, even as the cook stared, the preliminary sounds ofopening it came to his ears.

  "Now I _got_ to run this ship!" he groaned.

  * * * * *

  He peered at the mass of levers and wheels, put out a hand, closed hiseyes, hesitated, and pulled one of them back. Nothing happened.

  He tried another. The noise below grew, but still the _NX-1_ remainedmotionless. Desperate, the cook jerked several other levers. The whineof electric motors surged through the silence; the submarine shudderedand slewed off to the right, as if trying to dig into the sea-floor.

  "I got it started!" he cried. He did something else. The _NX-1_ stuckher bow dizzily up and sped into the misty-blue realm above in agrand, sweeping circle. The sea-floor with its mound-buildings andswarming octopi fell away behind with a rush.

  "There!" muttered the triumphant cook. "But--how did I do it?"

  The submarine was rising like a sky-rocket. McKegnie rememberedsuddenly that Wells had said the cavern was only a few miles high; hemust now be very near the top. He held his breath while he pushed alikely looking lever the other way.

  He was lucky. The _NX-1_ capered like a two-year-old, kicked up herstern and bolted eagerly for the depths once more. Again the floor ofthe cavern rushed up at him, again he pulled the potent lever back,and again the submarine meteored upward.

  This procedure went on for some time. McKegnie was only running anelevator. Was he doomed to dash up and down between floor and ceilingforever? He gave forth pints of sweat, now and then groaning as thesubmarine grazed horribly close to top or bottom. The dead octopus athis feet slithered limply around on the crazy-angling deck.

  "I can't keep this up forever!" the cook said peevishly. "Now, whatthe hell's this thing for?"

  * * * * *

  He turned it, and the _NX-1_ tilted in one of her dives and racedforward, midway between ceiling and floor. Her navigator relaxedslightly. He had found the major controls; at least he had been ableto stop his dizzy game of plunging up and down. Then, just as he wasbeginning to wonder where he could go, a large red spot glowed at theedge of the location chart.

  "Oh, Lord!" he cried. "That's the other submarine--an' it's comin'after me!"

  Evidently it was, for the red spot rapidly approached the green one.The paralyzing ray tingled, and a moment later the enemy's huge bulkloomed on the teleview screen, a band of violet light spearing fromone of her jutting knobs.

  Frantically McKegnie juggled his levers, and then it was that the_NX-1_ really showed what was in her. She emulated, on a grand scale,a bucking bronco: she stood almost on her nose, and threatened todescribe somersaults; she tried it the other way, on her stern; sherolled dizzily; she all but looped the loop, and went staggeringaround the cavern in great erratic bounds that must have made theoctopi think she was in the hands of a mad-man--which she practicallywas. Her designer would have had heart failure.

  In the teleview screen the frantic McKegnie would see the octopisubmarine rush erratically by with a flash of its violet heat ray; thelocation chart showed the red spot zigzagging drunkenly around thegreen one. Each boat made occasional short, crazy darts at the other;sometimes they would stand approximately still. It was a riotous gameof tag, and McKegnie knew too well that he was "it."

  During one brief pause the anguished cook found himself groaningaloud: "Oh, Mr. Wells, where are you? I can't keep this up! I can't! Ican't!"

  * * * * *

  There were still several important-looking controls that weremysteries to him. But what if he should pull one and open all the exitports? He shuddered at the thought.

  Things had become nightmarish. The ship was pitted scores of places bythe heat ray. The control room had grown stifling. McKegnie was losingpounds of flesh, and literally stood in a pool of his ownperspiration. The octopi craft kept doggedly after the _NX-1_, nomatter how often and effectually the sweating cook's reckless handsprevented her getting the heat ray home.

  For a long time the two ships continued to race up and down. The_NX-1_ would plunge, pirouette around the other, and scamper awaytowards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsakeher course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in rompingcircles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled navigator pulledhis levers and turned his wheels in a frantic effort to get somewhere.

  To get somewhere! Yes--but where?

  "Oh, Mr. Wells, where are you?" the harried cook would bleat atintervals.

  Or, plaintively: "Now, what the hell's _this_ thing for?"

  CHAPTER IX

  _At Bay_

  Fourteen humans stood at bay on the cold sea-floor, dazed by theruthless stroke of ill-luck which had taken the _NX-1_ from where theyhad left it.

  "It's gone," whispered Graham over and over in a hopeless to
ne. Keithtried to pull himself together. He had to think of his men.

  In a second, his whole plan, which had seemed to be approachingsuccess so rapidly, was smashed by the disappearance of the submarine.Mechanically he kept his helmet-light playing into the ever-thickeningeyes and tentacles around him, while he scanned the sea-floor nearby.It was filling more closely than ever with the black, writhing formsof the cuttlefish. The rays still held them back, but their great bulkloomed over the small party of humans like a sinister storm cloud.Soon, in their overwhelming mass, they would crush down, and thesubmarine's crew be conquered by sheer force of numbers.

  "Look!" Keith cried. "There's where she was lying!"

  He pointed out on the floor of the square a deep groove, obviouslymade by the hull of the _NX-1_. Its length and jaggedness seemed todenote that the submarine had tried to bore into the bed of the cavernitself. Wells was mystified. If the octopi-ship had towed her away,she would certainly not have gouged that deep scar on the seabottom....

  But he dismissed the strange disappearance from his mind. He had towork out a plan of action.

  "Keep together, men, and follow that scar!" he ordered tersely."There's a chance that the _NX-1's_ somewhere further along!"

  It was a futile hope, he knew--but there was nothing else. The tinygroup, centered in the inverted bowl of black, writhing tentacles,lumbered onward.

  * * * * *

  Then the octopi struck with another weapon, in an effort to dull thespearing beams of white. Here and there from the mass of black an evenblacker cloud began to emerge. It quickly settled over the wholescene, pervading it with a pitchy, clinging darkness that obscuredeach man from his neighbor.

  "Ink!" cried one of them. It was sepia from the cuttlefish's inksacs--the weapon with which these monsters of the underseas blind andconfuse their victims.

  "Faster!" the commander roared in answer. "And for heaven's sake, keeptogether!"

  They huddled closer. Under the protecting cloud of ink the mass ofoctopi pressed nearer. The struggle became fantastic, unreal, as thebrilliant beams of white bored through the utter blackness searchingfor eyes which the men knew were there, yet could not see until theirrays chanced upon them. Snaky shadows milled horribly close to thelittle group of bulging yellow figures. Blacker and blacker grew thewater; they could not always see the monsters as they drove them backon each side. Now and then a bold tentacle actually touched one ofthem for a moment before its owner was thrust, blinded, away.

  Suddenly the dark cloud cleared a little as the fight moved into anunseen current. Their range of vision lengthened to ten or twelvefeet; they could dimly sense the looming mass of cuttlefish: and itwas less often that one of the monsters darted forward, daring therays of white, and became altogether visible. When this did happen,half a dozen dazzling beams converged on the octopus' eyes and droveit back in writhing agony.

  The men were the hub of a grotesque cartwheel, whose spokes wereinter-crossing rays of white. They still forged onward along thegroove, but moved more slowly now, and Keith Wells, tired to death,realized the combat could not go on much longer. Their advance wasuseless; a mere jest. The _NX-1_ had vanished. It would only be aquestion of time before their batteries gave out, or the swarms ofoctopi crushed in on the struggling crew. Their overwhelming numberswould tell in the end.... The men were silent, except for theoccasional gasps which came from their laboring lungs.

  * * * * *

  And then the king of the octopi appeared.

  Keith had been wondering, in the aching turmoil that was his brain,where the gold-banded monarch was. He knew the monster had beenrescued, and he dreaded coming face to face once more with that hugeform. Now, armlets of glittering yellow suddenly flashed in the thickof the besieging tentacles, and two great evil eyes glared for asecond at Keith Wells. The commander flung a burst of light at themand laughed crazily as the monster scurried back. For a few momentsthe king was not visible.

  "Well, fellows," Wells said, "it won't be long now. His Majesty's backon the field." He grinned a little through his weary face. "I wonderwhat he'll hatch up to combat our helmet-lights? Watch close: he'sdamn clever!"

  The commander did not have long to wonder. The vague wall of tentaclesbegan retreating deeper into the ink. Keith could not imagine thereason for it, but held himself taut and ready. His men, likewisenoting the move, unconsciously grouped closer, waiting tensely forthey knew not what.

  The king of the octopi had indeed hatched a plan of attack. After amoment the mass of creatures again became slowly visible, but thistime when the rays shot out they did not hold them back. Couldnot--for their eyes were not visible.

  "My God!" Wells cried. "They're coming backwards!"

  * * * * *

  It was so. The octopi--no doubt under their ruler's orders--had turnedthemselves around, and now, with eyes directly away from the dazzlingshafts of white, were closing slowly in on the humans from all sides.The helmet-lights were useless. They could not reach the creatures'eyes.

  Tentacles coiling, whipping, interweaving, the wall of flesh pressedin. Death stared the helpless crew of the _NX-1_ in the face. FirstOfficer Graham shrugged his shoulders and said tiredly:

  "Well, I guess it's all over.... Unless," he added with a feeblesmile, "somebody figures a way to melt us through the sea-floor...."

  Keith Wells' face suddenly lit up with an idea. He swung around androared:

  "The hell it's over! We can go _up_!"

  His crew understood at once. "What fools we--" Graham began, but Keithcut him short.

  "Listen," he rapped quickly. "Jam together in one bunch and lock armstight. When I give the word, flood your suits with air. We'll go uplike comets; crash right through the devils.... Hurry!... All ready?"

  He saw that they were. "Then, together--go!" he commanded.

  As one man the crew adjusted their air-controls, bulging the sea-suitswith air. Their weighted feet left the cavern floor at once, and,locked tightly together, the whole fourteen of them shot like a bulletto the living ceiling of unsuspecting cuttlefish above.

  They hit with a terrific crash. Keith was momentarily stunned by theforce of impact. He felt himself torn away from his men, felt a dozententacles snake over him, and mechanically stabbed out with hishelmet-light. For a moment he was held; then the air and his lightpulled him through, and he broke out through the top.

  In his rocketing upward progress the extra oxygen rapidly cleared hismind. Glancing below he saw a great, dark, many-fingered clouddropping rapidly away, and was glad to know that the octopi could notfollow him into the lesser pressures above without their suits. Overthe dark cloud he glimpsed a few scattered pin-points of light--thehelmet-beams of the other men. They were rising as swiftly as he.

  "Thank God!" he murmured reverently. "We broke through! We brokethrough!"

  CHAPTER X

  _The Return of the Wanderer_

  Wells watched the several helmet-lights shooting upwards and wonderedif they represented all the men that had got safely through the net oftentacles. Remembering the rocky ceiling they were rapidlyapproaching, he ordered the others to reduce speed by discharging airfrom their sea-suits. He received no articulate answer.

  Although he cut down the rush of his own progress, it was with a jarthat he bounded into the top of the cavern. As he dangled there, hebeheld four light beams hurtling upward; his earphones registeredcrash after crash: and then he saw the beams go spinning down into thegloom again, weaving and crossing fantastically, the shock havingjerked them from their owner's hands. Keith had lost his ownhelmet-light below, but peering around he could make out a few vagueforms, bumping and twisting in the current.

  "Graham!" the commander called. "Graham, you there?" After a momenthis first officer's voice came thickly back.

  "Yes--here. A bit groggy. That crash...." Wells swam clumsily towardshim.

  "I guess only a few of us broke through," the comma
nder said slowly.As the two officers hung at the roof, swinging grotesquely, one by onethe other men came to their senses and reported their presence in theradiophone. Keith ordered them to cluster around him, and soon eightweird figures had grouped nearby. After a while they located twoothers, which brought their total to ten men and two officers. Theylooked a long time, but could not find any more. Two were gone.

  * * * * *

  Deep silence fell over the tiny group. The dark mass of the rockyceiling scraped their helmets; below, the bluish waters tapered into athick gloom, hiding, miles beneath, the mound-buildings and swarmingoctopi.

  One of the men spoke. His words were audible to everyone, and theyvoiced the thought in every brain:

  "What're we going to do now?"

  Keith had no answer. They had escaped the immediate danger, but it wasonly a temporary respite. The commander knew it was hopeless to tryand locate the tunnel leading to the outer sea, for they were verytired, and in their clumsy suits they would be able to swim only a fewrods. Their helmet-lights were gone; they had played their last card.

  "They're goin' to find us after a while," the pessimistic voicecontinued. "They'll send that submarine of theirs after us--or maybethey'll come up in their metal suits...."

  "Well," Keith replied with forced cheerfulness, "then we'll have tofight 'em off."

  "Why not rip our suits an' end it now--" began another, but Graham'svoice cut in sharply.

  "Quiet!" he said. "I heard something!"

  The men stilled abruptly. In tense silence their ears strained at theheadphones. Wells asked: "What did you hear?"

  "Wait!" Graham interrupted, listening intently. "There it is again!Listen! Can't you hear it? Why, it sounded like--like--"

  Keith concentrated his whole mind on listening, but could catchnothing at all. He was just about to give up when he caught a faint,jumbled murmur--the murmur of a human voice.

  "My God!" he whispered. The voice, little by little, grew, and Wellscould distinguish words. They formed into a complete sentence. Keithheard it plainly. It was:

  "Now, what the hell's this thing for?"

  * * * * *

  Unmistakably, it was the voice of Cook Angus McKegnie, whom they allhad thought dead.

  Amazed, the men of the crew started to jabber. "Quiet!" Wells orderedsharply. He listened again. McKegnie's voice was growing quickly andsteadily louder.

  "McKegnie!" the commander cried excitedly. "McKegnie, can you hearme?" There was no answer. Patiently Wells waited a minute, everysecond of which increased the volume of his long-lost cook'sbewildered tones. Again he tried.

  "McKegnie! Can you hear me? This is Commander Wells. McKegnie!"

  The cook's stammering voice came back:

  "Why--why--is that you, Mr. Wells? Did I hear you, Mr. Wells?"

  "Yes!" Keith shouted impatiently. "This is Commander Wells! Forheaven's sake, McKegnie, where are you?"

  "I don't know, sir!" the cook responded. "Where are you?"

  Keith was for the moment perplexed. "But--but, are you a prisoner?" hequestioned. And he could have sworn he heard a distinct note of prideas the invisible McKegnie replied: "Oh, no, sir! Not yet! These devilsbeen tryin' their best to get me, but they couldn't! No, sir!"

  Wells became more and more puzzled. "Then--but--you're not running the_NX-1_, are you?"

  McKegnie's voice was much louder now, and growing every second. Thenote of pride persisted. "Of course, sir!" he confirmed. "It was kindof hard at first, with these octopises botherin' me, but I got onto itpretty quick. That octopis ship chased me with them heat rays for along time, but I ain't seen them lately. I guess I kinda tired themout."

  * * * * *

  His last words grew louder with a rush, and from the dark depthsbeneath a long shape suddenly appeared, hurtling up at the group ofastounded men in a zoom that bade fair to take it straight through theceiling. It was the _NX-1_.

  "Dive, man, dive!" Keith yelled. "Cook, pull that black-handled levertowards you! Yank it back! Yank it back! Quick!" He sighed with reliefas he saw his madly-driven submarine pause, whip its nose downward,and crash back for the depths from which it had come.

  The commander spoke rapidly. "McKegnie, listen: Leave the black leverhalfway, so you'll level out. Straighten your helm. We're only alittle above you; come round in a circle till I tell you to stop."

  The _NX-1_ came out of her dive, and, as the cook evidently shoved herhelm over, went skirting around in a wide, drunken circle, somethousand feet below her regular crew.

  "All right!" Keith shouted. The fear that the octopi submarine woulddart back before he could get aboard his ship was looming in his mind."You're at the helm, Cook; there's a wheel right over your head. Spinit around--oh, my God, there you go again!" He groaned while the_NX-1_ went swooping off on a repetition of her crazy circle.

  "Sorry, sir," the culinary navigator said thickly. "I guess I got thewrong thing."

  "Now!" Wells roared. "Spin that wheel above your head.... That'sright--right--there! Don't touch a thing, Cook! We're coming down."

  The submarine had paused directly beneath them, listing slightly toport. Then began the cautious business of the descent. Under Wells'rapid orders the men linked arms again and discharged more air fromtheir sea-suits. Slowly, thin chains of bubbles rising behind them,they sank towards the dim shape of the _NX-1_ below. Wells' eyes keptprobing the thick gloom far beneath. Every moment he expected to seeit disgorge a swarm of octopi.

  They neared the submarine, and saw numberless pitted spots in herbody, where the heat ray had stabbed for a moment. In their excitementthey missed their level by some feet, but clutching together theyadmitted more air and soon rose even with the starboard exit port.

  "Swim forward," Keith ordered. "Hurry!" The weird figures gropedclumsily, and very slowly neared the port. The commander, in the van,at last reached out and gripped its jutting external controls. Hecould not work them at first: his hands were numb and awkward.

  As he tugged and struggled with them a shout rang in his headphone. Itwas McKegnie, scared to death.

  "Oh, hurry, Mr. Wells!" he yelled. "Quick! Quick, please! The octopisship's comin', sir! The red light's back!"

  CHAPTER XI

  _To the Death_

  The emergency steadied Keith's fingers. He got the door open andmotioned Graham and six men inside the water chamber. The passage tookbut a minute. Then he sent the rest of the crew in, being himself thelast to enter. When the chamber was finally empty, and Wells hadstepped through the inner door onto the lower deck of the _NX-1_, agreat sigh of relief broke from him. Never before had anything lookedso good as that brilliantly lit deck with its familiar maze ofmachinery and bulkheads.

  "Thank God," he said simply, and his joy was shared by the whole crew.A new feeling had come over them. Back home--in their own submarine,their own element--they had at least a fighting chance with theoctopi. But Keith let them waste no time. He knew that a final,desperate duel to the death with their foe still was ahead. "Above tothe control room," he ordered. "Fast!"

  They lumbered up the connecting ramp. A disheveled, wild-eyed form metthem. Keith couldn't help chuckling as he passed the now much thinnerand paler cook, with the arsenal handy at his waist. On the deck ofthe control room lay a huge tentacled body, metal-scaled, with itsdome of glass shattered and its great cold eyes staring unseeinglyaway. "I killed him," stammered McKegnie pridefully; "but Mr.Wells--look at that red light, sir!"

  Keith glanced rapidly at the location chart, ripping off his sea-suitas he did. The fateful red stud was moving swiftly down on themotionless green one. The men had surrounded McKegnie, laughing andslapping him on the back, but the commander's terse orders jerked themabruptly back to action.

  "The rectifiers, Graham: clean out this stale air. Sea-suits off; atemergency posts. Take the helm, Craig; you, Wetherby, trim the ship.No, no, Cook--keep away from the controls!"

 
The _NX-1_ balanced herself; fresh air came rushing in, sweeping outthe stale. Keith stared at the location chart, waiting for thesubmarine to be ready. The red light was almost upon them.

  "Right!" he roared at last. "Diving rudder controls, Graham! Fullspeed for the tunnel!"

  * * * * *

  At that moment the octopi ship swept into view, its full battery ofoffensive weapons flaring forth. The paralyzing ray tingled again andagain over the control room. Someone laughed at its uselessness. Theviolet heat ray leveled full at them, but the commander avoided itwith "Port ten, starboard ten! Maintain zigzag course to the tunnel."He understood the enemy's weapons now; he was throbbing with thefierce thrill of action. This duel was to be the climax of their wholeadventure. "And, by heaven," he promised, "it's going to be a fight!"

  The other craft seemed to realize the _NX-1_ was now in expert hands.She raced along to starboard for some minutes, her heat ray tryingvainly to steady on the American's weaving form. Wells wondered if theking of the octopi was aboard her, in command; he thought perhaps theship had postponed her chase of McKegnie to pick him up. "I hope heis!" the commander breathed, and fingered the torpedo lever. He hadsome debts to pay.

  The _NX-1_, engines working smoothly, proceeded on a desperate dashfor the tunnel that led to the outer sea. But the octopi shipapparently knew what Keith intended, for she abandoned her offensiverays, changed course a few degrees and slowly but steadily pulledahead. "Damn!" Keith exclaimed. "She'll get there before us!"

  The dim shape dwindled on the screen, and before long her bulk haddisappeared entirely. Wells then could watch her swift, straightprogress only on the location chart.

  * * * * *

  Ten minutes later the funnel-like opening of the tunnel loomed on theteleview, and squarely in front, blocking it, was the waiting form ofthe octopi submarine.

  "Quarter speed!" Keith snapped. "Hold her steady, Graham; I'm going totry a bow torpedo. I think we're beyond their ray."

  Sighting his range on the telescopic range-finder, he worked the_NX-1_ slowly into position. He noticed that his first officer wasstaring oddly at him. He was bothered by the queer look. "What'swrong?" he asked impatiently.

  "But--what about Hemmy Bowman?"

  Bowman! In the rush of action and suspense, Keith Wells had completelyforgotten his officer in the enemy submarine. "Oh, God!" he groaned.The cruel situation that had stayed his hand once before had againcome to falter his course of action. The men were watching him; Grahamhad a question in his eyes. They all knew what had to be decided....

  Keith shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. It was his greater duty todestroy the octopi submarine. And yet--

  "Fish for Hemmy, Sparks," he ordered. "Craig, keep present distancefrom enemy. Full stop."

  A moment later the radio operator looked up. "Mr. Bowman on thephones, sir." With a heavy weight on his heart the commander clippedon the extension headphones.

  "Hemmy?"

  "Keith? Keith? Thank God you're alive!" Bowman's voice shook withgladness. "You're all back on the _NX-1_, Keith? The whole crew's withyou? Oh, Lord, it's good to hear you again!"

  "Yes. We got back all right, Hemmy--a miracle. They've still got youprisoner?"

  "Yes.... Keith--you're trying to dodge out of the tunnel, aren't you?"

  * * * * *

  Wells smiled bitterly, and as he paused to frame an answer Bowmanspoke again.

  "I want you to blow up this submarine, Keith," he said quickly. "Afavor to me."

  He cut Wells short when the commander started to interrupt. "Wait! Letme finish," he pleaded. "I want to explain. I'd been hoping--but nevermind that.... Keith, a while ago I managed to work loose. I lost myhead completely and tackled these devils. It was a foolish thing todo; they overcame me, naturally. But, in the struggle, they tore mysea-suit."

  "What!"

  "Oh, just a tiny tear, or I wouldn't have lasted till now. But a leakall the same--in the right leg. Since then I've been gripping theedges of the fabric as tightly as I can--but I couldn't keep the waterinside this ship from seeping through. It came in slowly at first,then faster as my hands grew numb. It's up to my neck now, Keith ...and--it won't be long! I've just a few minutes left...."

  The faint words tapered into silence.

  "No!" roared Keith in a great rush of emotion. But Hemmy's eagervoice came right back:

  "Oh yes, you must! It would be a mercy to kill me, Keith."

  There were tears in the commander's eyes. "Are you sure, Hemmy?" heasked. "Are you sure?"

  "Oh, yes. It would be a mercy."

  Wells' lips formed a straight grim line. His words squeezed through ittightly. "All right, Hemmy. Thanks. Thanks. I--I'll go after them now,old man. I'll try and keep in touch with you through the duel, butI--I can't promise--"

  He could almost see Hemingway Bowman give his old familiar smile as heanswered:

  "Then so long, Keith!"

  * * * * *

  Commander Keith Wells studied the teleview screen. The men were halfafraid to look at his strained blanched face.

  Repeatedly the violet beam speared through the water, reaching for the_NX-1's_ bow.

  "Turn ship. Line up for stern torpedoes," the commander orderedharshly. He realized he could not hold his submarine steady to obtaina perfect sight, for the heat ray needed only thirty seconds to meltthrough their shell. He would have to swing the ship slowly about;and, as the shape of the enemy crossed the hair-lines on therange-finder, unleash his torpedoes and gamble on hitting the movingtarget.

  The _NX-1_ swung around, always maintaining a slight forward motionand zigzagging constantly to nullify the heat beam. Wells watched therange-finder closely. The octopi ship slanted downwards, the deadlyviolet ray stabbing from her bow. Slowly the black dot thatrepresented her appeared on the dial, and slowly it dropped towardsthe crossed lines that showed the perfect firing point.

  Keith grasped the torpedo lever. The _NX-1's_ stern was towards hertarget. Dead silence hung in the control room. The _NX-1_ swungslightly. The octopi craft appeared directly in the middle of thedial.

  Wells pulled back the lever.

  The hiss of compressed air sprang from her stern. He had fired twotubes, his whole stock of stern torpedoes. The pair of dreadfulweapons leaped out and settled on their course. Keith shot his gaze tothe teleview.

  The torpedoes missed. Only by feet, but a miss all the same. Theyraced on past the octopi submarine and, with a tremendous, ear-numbingexplosion, burst on the wall of the cavern beyond. Both ships reeledfrom the shock. Graham swore viciously, but Wells' masklike faceshowed no slightest change of expression....

  A voice rang in Keith's headphones. "Tough, Keith! Better luck nexttime!" Then the commander winced. He simply could not answer HemmyBowman; could not answer that fine, brave voice....

  * * * * *

  The stern torpedoes were gone. The tubes could not be reloaded, forthe paralyzing ray bound the men to the control room. That left themtwo torpedoes in the bow.

  The violet heat ray kept fingering hungrily on their outer hull, andevery man knew that the plates were weakening under the steady strain,which was only lessened by the _NX-1's_ constant zigzagging. Thecontrol room was very hot. Both ships were now a full mile from thetunnel entrance. Keith plunged the _NX-1_ down, swung her around, tobring his bow tubes to bear, and zigzagged upwards.

  It was obvious that the octopi craft had been alarmed by the terrificexplosion. They now adopted tactics similar to the American ship's,and for awhile both submarines circled cautiously, maneuvering for anopening.

  "If only we could keep the ship steady!" Graham muttered. "But thenthat heat ray'd get us!"

  The commander kept his eyes on the teleview. Again and again theviolet shaft pronged at them. The heat grew stifling. Sweat waspouring from all the men's bodies. Every face was strained and taut.

  "S
tarboard full!" Wells said suddenly. "A little up, Graham!" He hadseen a chance; the octopi craft was slightly above, and in a momentwould pass directly in the line of the bow tubes. The _NX-1_ stuck hernose up, swung rapidly to the right. Keith pulled back the firinglever, releasing one torpedo.

  The long messenger of death hurtled straight for the enemy's hull.They watched its course breathlessly....

  "My God!" the first officer groaned. "Could they see it coming?" Forthe octopi submarine had swung to one side, neatly dodging thespeeding tube of dynamite.

  "One left!" he added bitterly. "One left!"

  * * * * *

  A desperate plan formed in Keith Wells' mind. His last torpedo simplyhad to strike the mark; he could take no chances with it. He motionedthe haggard-faced Graham to him.

  "There's only one thing left to do," he said quietly. "We've got todeliberately face that heat ray; chance its puncturing our plates."

  "How do you mean, sir?"

  "Get in very close, so as to make our last torpedo sure to hit. We'vegot to approach the enemy head-on at full speed. We'll corkscrew up tothem until we get within two hundred yards, then go straight forwardfor ten or fifteen seconds, giving us the opportunity to sight theremaining torpedo directly on them. The heat ray may break throughbefore I fire--but when I do fire it's a sure hit."

  The men had heard every word. Quietly Wells ordered:

  "Take the torpedo control, Graham. I'll take the helm."

  The first officer obeyed without a word. Keith grasped the helm. Theplans were made for their last desperate attempt.

  "Right," the commander said shortly. "Here we go."

  * * * * *

  There had been a taut silence before, but now, knowing that they weredeliberately offering themselves a perfect target for the heat ray inorder to get their last torpedo home, the intensity was almostunbearable. The men felt like shrieking, jumping--doing anything tobreak the awful hush. The air was charged with the same unnameablesomething that heralds a typhoon.

  Keith Wells was like a white statue at the helm, save for thebetraying trickles of sweat that coursed down his drawn cheeks. Hishands moved the wheel slowly from port to starboard; his eyes bored atthe screen before him. The ship was in command of a man of steel, aman with but one purpose....

  "Up--up," he ordered. "Hold--in trim--full speed forward!"

  He had brought the _NX-1_ directly in line with the octopi ship. Andnow the craft leaped forward under full power, while he shot the helmback and forth ceaselessly. His ship was describing a corkscrewingmotion, weaving straight at the enemy. Grasping her opportunity, theoctopi submarine remained motionless, steadily dousing the approachingAmerican craft with her silent violet ray and driving the temperaturein the control room to even greater heights.

  The distance between them rapidly lessened. Would the plates stand it?Would the ray melt through the weakened steel before he could fire?With an effort Keith drove these doubts from his mind ... but he couldnot banish a certain dull, steady ache from his consciousness....

  * * * * *

  The range dwindled. The heat became intolerable. Everyone's clothingwas sopping wet. A man ripped off his shirt, gasping for air. Wellskept his eyes on the screen, though half-blinded by smarting sweat.The plates had to give soon, he knew.

  The octopi submarine, beam on and dead ahead, began to move to port atquickly increasing speed. At once Keith stopped swinging the helm, andthe _NX-1's_ corkscrewing motion of protection ceased. And then camethe real test, the gauntlet of seconds.

  Right straight into the retreating violet beam they went, at topspeed. They gained rapidly. The heat was furnace-like. The commander,watching the range-finder, kept moving the helm slightly over. A shaftof violet heat spanned the two shells of metal. For ten seconds it hadheld on the _NX-1_. The black dot of the enemy craft moved slowly toexact center on the dial. Fifteen seconds ... twenty ...twenty-three--

  "Fire!"

  Graham jammed the torpedo lever back.

  "Crash dive!"

  The deck tilted downward. And Wells' white lips formed the words, "Solong, Hemmy!"--and he tore the phones from his head.

  Seconds later a titanic explosion sounded through the cavern; echoedand re-echoed in vasty roars. The American craft's lights wentoff--but not before her men had seen, in the teleview, a fire-shotmaelstrom where a moment before the octopi submarine had been.

  "We got them!" yelled Graham.

  * * * * *

  A roar of exultation burst from every throat. The men flung their armsout, jumped, yelled crazily. Faint emergency lights lit the scene.

  "Below, at regular posts," Wells ordered. "Reload bow and stern tubes.Graham, see to the lights." He himself remained at the helm. In a fewmoments the submarine had climbed back to the level of the tunnel. Atquarter speed she nosed into the wide entrance, and slowly forged intothe dense, deceptive shadows.

  The commander acted mechanically. Again by touch he steered his shipthrough the black, ragged cleft. Fifteen minutes after leaving thecavern of the octopi her bow poked through the weaving kelp into thefree, salty depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

  There was one more task to perform, and Wells lost no time in doingit. When two hundred yards away he halted the _NX-1_, steadied her andsighted the stern tubes just above the dark tunnel hole. Quickly hesent forth two torpedoes.

  A huge roar rumbled through the water, whipping the beds of kelp tomad convulsions. "Turn around," the commander ordered harshly. Hesighted his bow tubes and again let loose a bolt of two torpedoes.Then he sent the submarine forward, and, through the teleview,examined what his four weapons had done.

  Huge chunks of rock had been tumbled down, completely closing thetunnel.

  "Well," said Graham, "it's over! Finished! They'll never get throughthat!"

  * * * * *

  A full-throated cheer burst from the men below, a cheer that rang forminutes as they realized they were free forever of the octopi, of thecold underwater city, of the clutching tentacles. Graham grinnedbroadly.

  "Sound happy--eh?" he chuckled. "Say, Keith, it's good we've got thosetwo octopi our fighting cook killed. Knapp would never believe ourstory without them!"

  He stared curiously at his commander. Wells was standing quite still,facing the teleview screen. A strange, far-away look was in his eyes.

  "What's the matter, old man?" the first officer asked, smilingstraight at him. "Aren't you glad we won through?"

  "Of course," answered Keith with a tired smile in return.

  "But why did you look that way?" Graham persisted. And Keith Wellstold him:

  "I was just wondering if Hemmy told the truth."