Astounding Stories, February, 1931 Part 19

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 bulk loomed on the teleview screen, a band of violet light spearing from one of her jutting k.n.o.bs.

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 to describe somersaults; she tried it the other way, on her stern; she rolled dizzily; she all but looped the loop, and went staggering around the cavern in great erratic bounds that must have made the octopi think she was in the hands of a mad-man--which she practically was. Her designer would have had heart failure.

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

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

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

Things had become nightmarish. The ship was pitted scores of places by the heat ray. The control room had grown stifling. McKegnie was losing pounds of flesh, and literally stood in a pool of his own perspiration. The octopi craft kept doggedly after the _NX-1_, no matter how often and effectually the sweating cook's reckless hands prevented 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 away towards the ceiling as if enjoying it all hugely, abruptly to forsake her course and come zooming down once more. She would weave in romping circles and seem to go utterly crazy as her jumbled navigator pulled his 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 at intervals.

Or, plaintively: "Now, what the h.e.l.l's _this_ thing for?"

CHAPTER IX

_At Bay_

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

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

In a second, his whole plan, which had seemed to be approaching success so rapidly, was smashed by the disappearance of the submarine.

Mechanically he kept his helmet-light playing into the ever-thickening eyes and tentacles around him, while he scanned the sea-floor nearby.

It was filling more closely than ever with the black, writhing forms of the cuttlefish. The rays still held them back, but their great bulk loomed over the small party of humans like a sinister storm cloud.

Soon, in their overwhelming ma.s.s, they would crush down, and the submarine'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, obviously made by the hull of the _NX-1_. Its length and jaggedness seemed to denote that the submarine had tried to bore into the bed of the cavern itself. Wells was mystified. If the octopi-ship had towed her away, she would certainly not have gouged that deep scar on the sea bottom....

But he dismissed the strange disappearance from his mind. He had to work 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 tiny group, centered in the inverted bowl of black, writhing tentacles, lumbered onward.

Then the octopi struck with another weapon, in an effort to dull the spearing beams of white. Here and there from the ma.s.s of black an even blacker cloud began to emerge. It quickly settled over the whole scene, pervading it with a pitchy, clinging darkness that obscured each man from his neighbor.

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

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

They huddled closer. Under the protecting cloud of ink the ma.s.s of octopi pressed nearer. The struggle became fantastic, unreal, as the brilliant beams of white bored through the utter blackness searching for eyes which the men knew were there, yet could not see until their rays chanced upon them. Snaky shadows milled horribly close to the little group of bulging yellow figures. Blacker and blacker grew the water; they could not always see the monsters as they drove them back on each side. Now and then a bold tentacle actually touched one of them for a moment before its owner was thrust, blinded, away.

Suddenly the dark cloud cleared a little as the fight moved into an unseen current. Their range of vision lengthened to ten or twelve feet; they could dimly sense the looming ma.s.s of cuttlefish: and it was less often that one of the monsters darted forward, daring the rays of white, and became altogether visible. When this did happen, half a dozen dazzling beams converged on the octopus' eyes and drove it back in writhing agony.

The men were the hub of a grotesque cartwheel, whose spokes were inter-crossing rays of white. They still forged onward along the groove, but moved more slowly now, and Keith Wells, tired to death, realized the combat could not go on much longer. Their advance was useless; a mere jest. The _NX-1_ had vanished. It would only be a question of time before their batteries gave out, or the swarms of octopi crushed in on the struggling crew. Their overwhelming numbers would tell in the end.... The men were silent, except for the occasional 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 been rescued, and he dreaded coming face to face once more with that huge form. Now, armlets of glittering yellow suddenly flashed in the thick of the besieging tentacles, and two great evil eyes glared for a second at Keith Wells. The commander flung a burst of light at them and laughed crazily as the monster scurried back. For a few moments the king was not visible.

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

The commander did not have long to wonder. The vague wall of tentacles began retreating deeper into the ink. Keith could not imagine the reason for it, but held himself taut and ready. His men, likewise noting the move, unconsciously grouped closer, waiting tensely for they knew not what.

The king of the octopi had indeed hatched a plan of attack. After a moment the ma.s.s of creatures again became slowly visible, but this time when the rays shot out they did not hold them back. Could not--for their eyes were not visible.

"My G.o.d!" Wells cried. "They're coming backwards!"

It was so. The octopi--no doubt under their ruler's orders--had turned themselves around, and now, with eyes directly away from the dazzling shafts 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 pressed in. Death stared the helpless crew of the _NX-1_ in the face. First Officer Graham shrugged his shoulders and said tiredly:

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

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

"The h.e.l.l it's over! We can go _up_!"

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

"Listen," he rapped quickly. "Jam together in one bunch and lock arms tight. When I give the word, flood your suits with air. We'll go up like 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-suits with air. Their weighted feet left the cavern floor at once, and, locked tightly together, the whole fourteen of them shot like a bullet to the living ceiling of unsuspecting cuttlefish above.