eal-creatures.

* * * * *

Thirty feet above the lone man in the torpoon was the hole he had
blasted in the ice. He knew that from the cone of light which filtered
down; he did not dare to take his eyes for a second from the creatures
around him, for all now depended on his judging to a fraction just
when the lithe, living wall would leap to overwhelm him.

Now the torpoon was enclosed by what was more a sphere of brown bodies
than a circle. But it was not a solid sphere. It stretched thinly to
within a few feet of the ice ceiling where, in one place, was the hole
Ken had blown in the ice.

He began to play the game. He edged the gears into reverse, gently
angled the diving-planes, and slowly the torpoon tilted in response
and began to sink back to the dark sea-floor.

Motion appeared in the curved facade of sleek brown heads and bodies
in front and to the sides. The creatures behind and below, Ken could
not see; he could only trust to the fear inspired by the damage his
propeller had wreaked on one of them, to hold them back. However, he
could judge the movements of those behind and below by the
synchronized movements of those in front; for the sealmen, in this
tense siege, seemed to move as one--just as they would move as one
when a leader got the courage to charge across the gap to the torpoon.

In reverse, slowly, the torpoon backed downward. Every minute seemed a
separate eternity of time, for Ken dared not move fast at this
juncture, and he needed to retreat not less than fifty feet.

Fifty feet! Would they hold off long enough for him to make it?

Foot by foot the torpoon edged down at her forty-five-degree angle,
and with every foot the watching bodies became visibly bolder. There
was no light inside the torpoon--inner light would decrease the
visibility outside--but Ken knew her controls as does the musician his
instrument. Slowly the propeller whirled over, the torpoon dropped,
slowly the diffused light from the hole above diminished--and slowly
the eager wall of sealmen followed and crept in.

Twenty-five feet down; and then, after a long time, thirty-five feet,
and forty. Seventy feet up, in all, to the hole in the ice....

Ken wanted seventy-five feet, but he could not have it. For the wall
of sleek bodies broke. One or two of the creatures surged forward;
other followed; they were coming!

The slim torpoon leaped under the unleashed power of her
motors--forward.