and
red lights remained constant--and then Keith Wells stared
unbelievingly at the chart, wiped a hand across his eyes and stared
again.

"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 than
thirty under water!" Hemmy Bowman added. "We're hitting a full
forty-one!"

A call came through the communication tube from Sparks. "Report from
Consolidated 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 off
fishing boat by unidentified tentacled monsters. Testimony of
witnesses was discredited, but was later corroborated by the almost
identical testimony of other witnesses at Brighton Beach, England, who
saw man and woman taken by mysterious monsters whilst bathing.'
Perhaps these same creatures destroyed the Newfoundland fishing
fleet." His level voice ceased.

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

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

* * * * *

He turned again to the location chart. The green spot as always was in
the 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 that
both were diving deeper every moment.

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

Here the teleview showed the world to be one of fantasy, one to which
the sun did not exist. It was not an utter, pitchy blackness that
pervaded the water, but rather a peculiar, dark blueness. No fish
schools, Keith noted, scurried from them. They had already left these
waters; 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, strung
like quivering violin strings. Conscious of the terrific walls of
water pressing in on them. And conscious of the men below, their lives
bound implicitly in his will and brain....

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

"Here's more mystery, Hemmy," he muttered. "Look--there'