the sound of a staccato call
from his signal panel.

"Captain Nerado, attention!"

"Nerado," he acknowledged into a microphone.

"The Third City is being attacked by the fishes of the greater deeps.
They have developed new and powerful mobile fortresses mounting
unheard-of weapons and the city reports that it cannot long withstand
their attack. They are asking for all possible help. Your vessel not
only has vast stores of iron, but also mounts weapons of power. You are
requested to proceed to their aid at the earliest possible moment."

Nerado snapped out orders and the liquid iron fell in streams from
wide-open ports, forming a vast, red pool in the bottom of the dock. In
a short time the great vessel was in equilibrium with the water she
displaced, and as soon as she had attained a slight buoyancy the ports
snapped shut and Nerado threw on the power.

"Go back to your own quarters and stay there until I send for you," the
Nevian directed, and as the Terrestrials obeyed the curt orders the
cruiser tore herself from the water and flashed up into the crimson sky.

"What a barefaced liar!" Bradley exclaimed. The three, transformers cut
off, were back in the middle room of their suite. "You can outswim an
otter, and I happen to know that you came up out of the old DZ83 from a
depth of...."

"Maybe I did exaggerate a trifle," Costigan interrupted, "but the more
helpless he thinks we are the better for us. And we want to stay out of
any of their cities as long as we can, because they may be hard places
to get out of. I've got a couple of ideas, but they aren't ripe enough
to pick yet.... Wow! How this bird's been traveling! We're there
already! If he hits the water going like this, he'll split himself,
sure!"

With undiminished velocity they were flashing downward in a long slant
toward the beleaguered Third City, and from the flying vessel there was
launched toward the city's central lagoon a torpedo. No missile this,
but a capsule containing a full ton of allotropic iron, which would be
of more use to the Nevian defenders than millions of men. For the Third
City was sore pressed indeed. Around it was one unbroken ring of
boiling, exploding water--water billowing upward in searing, blinding
bursts of super-heated steam, or being hurled bodily in all directions
in solid masses by the cataclysmic forces being released by the
embattled fishes of the greater deeps. Her outer defenses were already
down, and even as the