rounding murk apprehensively, when, of a sudden,
his brain and body tensed.

Off to one side, far to the right, he thought he had glimpsed a figure.
It was hanging motionless, level with him; and at first it looked like a
seal. But the flippers seemed longer than a seal's; moreover, no seal
would be anywhere near a pack of killer whales; nor did they poise in an
upright position. It couldn't be a seal, he told himself. What, then?
Was it only imagination that made it appear faintly human-shaped?

He strove to catch it again with staring eyes, but it was gone, leaving
only a jumbled impression of something fantastic in his mind, and the
next instant the whole thing was forgotten in the movements of the
killer school, now only a few hundred yards ahead.

They suddenly began a great sweeping curve to the right, a typical
maneuver before standing for attack or breaking up. At once Ken swerved
to starboard and drove the torpoon's nose for an advance point on the
circle the fish were describing. His move swallowed the distance between
them; the sleek, thick-blubbered bodies swept close by his vision-plate,
their rush tossing the torp slightly. Twelve of them went past in a
blur, and then came the thirteenth, the invariable straggler of a
school. The thin light-beams pencilled through the darkness, outlining
the rushing black shape; Ken gripped the gun's trigger and jockeyed the
torp up a trifle in the seconds remaining, always keeping the sights
dead set on the vital spot twelve inches behind the whale's little eye.

When only fifteen feet separated them he squeezed the trigger and at
once zoomed up and away to get clear of the killer's start of pain and,
if the shot were true, its following death flurry.

The shell slid deep into the rich outer blubber; and, wheeling, Ken
watched the mighty mammal quiver in its forward rush. This was merely
the reaction from the pain of the shell's entrance; the nitro had not as
yet exploded.

Now it did. The projectiles carried but a small charge, in order not to
rip too much the buoyant lungs and so cause the body to sink, but the
killer trembled like a jelly from the shock. The heart was reached; its
razor-sharp flukes thrashing and tooth-lined jaws clicking, the killer
wheeled with incredible speed in its death flurry. A minute later the
body shuddered a last time, then drifted slowly over, showing the white
belly. It began a gentle rise up toward the ceiling of ice.

"One!" grinn