Creatures of the Abyss

by Murray Leinster

  _Eight_

  Echoes of the outboard's roaring motor came back from the trunks of palmtrees that lined the lagoon's shore as the tiny boat raced across thewater. Deirdre was ashen-white. She turned her eyes from the water, andthey fell on the round raw places on Terry's leg where the sucker-diskshad bruised it horribly. She shuddered. She still had the sensation ofbeing pursued by the monster. Back where Deirdre's spear had finallyliberated Terry, startled and convulsive motions continued, followed bya final gigantic splash. Terry drove the boat on at top speed.

  The monster sank again in the spot where the lagoon was deepest. It hadcome from depths where there was no light; from an abyss where blacknesswas absolute. Now, having lost its victim, it returned peevishly to suchdarkness as it could secure.

  Terry said curtly, as the small boat raced for the _Esperance_ and thewharf, "That creature was driven up from the Luzon Deep into the lagoonto replace the gadget-carrying fish we speared!"

  Deirdre stammered a little.

  "Your l-leg.... You're bleeding...."

  "I'm pretty well skinned in a couple of places," he said shortly."That's all."

  "Could it be poisonous?"

  "Poison," said Terry, "is a weapon for the weak. This thing's not weak!I'm all right. And I'm lucky!"

  "I'd have jumped over with my spear, if ..."

  "Idiot!" said Terry gently. "Never think of such a thing! Never! Never!"

  "I wouldn't want to l-live--"

  A new reverberating quality came into the echoes from the shore. Thepilings of the wharf were nearby, now. They multiplied the sounds theyreturned. The _Esperance_ loomed up. Terry cut off the motor, the littleboat drifted to contact, and Deirdre scrambled to the yacht's deck, andthen took the bow line and fastened it. This was absurdly commonplace.It was exactly what would have been done on the return from any usualride.

  "Go tell the others what we found," said Terry. "I'm going to see ifthere's more than one of those things around."

  "Not ..."

  "No," he assured her. "I'm only going to use the fish-driving horn."

  Deirdre looked at him in distress.

  "Be careful! Please!" She kissed him suddenly, scrambled to the wharf,and set off at a run toward the shore. Terry stared hungrily after her.They'd come to a highly personal decision the night before on the_Esperance_, but it still seemed unbelievable to him that Deirdre feltabout him the way he felt about her.

  He went forward to set up the fish-driving combination. One part of himthought vividly of Deirdre. The other faced the consequences that mightfollow if the bolides were not bolides, and if the plastic gadgets andthe nasty-sounding underwater hums were products of an intelligencewhich could make bolides change their velocity in space; which made themfall in the Luzon Deep in the China Sea and nowhere else.

  He set up the recorder with its loop of fish-driving hum. He put thehorn overboard, carefully oriented to spread its sound through all theenclosed shallow water of the lagoon. He turned the extra amplifier tomaximum output, to increase the effectiveness of the noise, and turnedon the apparatus.

  The glassy look of the lagoon-water vanished immediately. Fish leapedcrazily everywhere, from half-inch midgets to lean-flanked predators ayard and more in length. There was no square foot in all the shallowswhere a creature didn't struggle to escape the sensation of pins andneedles all over its body. And these pins and needles pricked deep.

  Flying-fish soared crazily, and they were the most fortunate because solong as they flew, the tormenting water-sound did not reach them. Butmany of them landed on the beach, and even among the palms.

  In the spot where blind and snakelike arms had tried to destroy Terryand Deirdre, the lashing and swirling was of a different kind. Somethingthere used enormous strength to offer battle to a noise. The water waswhipped to froth. Twice Terry saw those rope-like arms rise above thewater and flail it.

  This particular sort of tumult, however, appeared only in one spot. Sothere was only one such creature in the lagoon.

  When Davis and the others came down from the tracking station, Terryturned off the horn. He was applying soothing ointment to the raw fleshof his leg.

  "There's a monstrous creature out there," he said evenly when awhite-faced Davis demanded information. "Heaven knows how big it is, butit's something like a huge squid. It may be the kind that sperm whalesfeed on, down in the depths."

  Others from the tracking station arrived, panting.

  "Oh! I'm tired of being conservative!" added Terry fiercely. "I'm goingto say what all of us think! There's something intelligent down at thebottom of the sea, five miles down!"

  He glared challengingly around him.

  "Who doesn't believe that?" he demanded. "Well, the reporting gadgetsdon't report any more. We killed the fish that carried them. So thatwhatever-it-is down on the sea-bed has very cleverly sent up somethingwe ignorant savages wouldn't dare to meddle with! We would be terrified.But we'll show _it_ what men are like!"

  Dr. Morton said gently, "Perhaps we should notify the _Pelorus_. Thebiologists on board there...."

  "No!" said Terry grimly. "I have a private quarrel with this monster. Itmight have killed Deirdre! And Davis already tried to tell thosebiologists something! Tell them about this, and they'll want proofs theywouldn't look at anyhow. We'll handle this ourselves! It's too importantfor them!"

  "Much too important," said Deirdre firmly. "The shooting stars aren'tshooting stars and there's something down in the depths just like Terrysays. He's right that we can't consider sharing our world with--beingsthat come down from the sky, even if they only want our oceans and don'tcare about the land. He says that we wouldn't get along with creaturesthat know more than we do, and we would especially resent any spaceships coming uninvited to start colonies on our world while we're notadvanced enough to stop them! If that's what they're doing, they have tobe fought from the very first instant to the very last moment there'sone of them hiding in our seas! Terry's right!"

  "I haven't heard him say any of those things, young lady," said Mortondrily, "but they're true. And I don't like the idea of a sea monsterbeing in the lagoon anyhow. Especially one that tries to kill people.Still, fighting it...."

  "There are a couple of bazookas on the _Esperance_," said Terry sharply.He looked at Davis. "If you're willing to risk the yacht, we can drivethe beast aground, or at least to shallow water, with the submarinehorn. Then the bazookas should be able to destroy it. Will you take therisk?"

  "Of course you'll use the _Esperance_," said Davis. "Of course!"

  "Then I'll want," said Terry, unconsciously taking command, "somebody atthe engine and somebody at the wheel. I'll run the horn. But, frankly,if that monster lays one sucker-arm on the _Esperance_, it may begood-bye. Any volunteers?"

  In minutes the _Esperance_, her engine rumbling, pulled away from thedock. She had on board all her original company except Deirdre--firmlyleft ashore by her father and Terry--and in addition she carried Dr.Morton and the most enthusiastic amateur photographer of the trackingstation staff. He was shaky but resolute, and was hanging about with animposing array of cameras, for both still and motion pictures. The_Esperance's_ sails were furled and she went into battle under barepoles. Davis was busy manufacturing improvised hand grenades for himselfand Morton.

  The sun was nearly overhead. Terry asked Morton questions about thelagoon. They finally chose a minor inlet as the place to which thecreature must be driven, if possible. There it could be immobilized bythe intolerable sound from the recorder. There it could be destroyed.

  "I wonder," said Morton wryly, "if I can present a dead giant squid aspart of the explanation for my computed orbits for the last twobolides!"

  The _Esperance_ moved steadily toward the place where Terry had nearlybeen killed.

  The enterprise was risky. The _Esperance_ was sixty-five feet long. Thecreature it was to attack was much larger, and if one of its kind hadcrushed the bathyscaphe, it had sufficient strength and ferocity to makea battle cruiser a mu
ch more suitable antagonist. But the true folly ofthe effort was its purpose.

  It all started when a fishing boat--_La Rubia_--went to sea and caughtremarkable quantities of fish, of which four specimens had had plasticartefacts fastened to them. Then Terry began checking on certain noiseshe heard in the sea which provoked an incomprehensible crowding ofmillions of fish into a small area, from which they swam down to depthswhere they could not survive. Now the killing of this squid was supposedto cast a light on the mystery of the nine bolides which had fallen intoa particular part of the ocean.

  Terry had the undersea horn turned vertically so that it would transmita blade of sound wherever he aimed it, instead of spreading all throughthe lagoon. He turned it on.

  The water before the _Esperance_ suddenly speckled and splashed from themaddened leaps of fish of every possible size. He turned it off. Heaimed it where the ripples showed the presence of something huge beneaththe surface. He turned it on again.

  There were convulsive writhings. A long tentacle emerged briefly andthen splashed under again. The writhings continued. Terry adjusted hisaim. Crazy leapings of smaller creatures showed the line of thesound-beam, as tracer-bullets show the paths of bullets from a machinegun. He cut off the sound for an instant and turned it on again at fullvolume, pointed where the monster must be. There was explosive tumultunderwater. Huge arms flailed above the surface. But once again thecreature fled.

  The _Esperance_ followed slowly, now. The monster had reacted to thestinging sound-beam as if cowed. But it was a deep-sea creature. It didnot know how to move when squeezed into a shallow water which hamperedits movements. It seemed frightened to discover itself trapped betweenthe lagoon-bottom and the surface. And it was dazzled by the brightnessto which it had been driven. Left unattacked, even for an instant, ittried to burrow away from the light, and again it made a dense cloud ofmud from the bottom. Then it became quiet, as if hiding.

  Grimly, Terry lanced it with the painful noise. The water frothed.Monstrous tentacles appeared and disappeared, and once part of thecreature's body itself emerged. It was cornered into a minor inlet, andthere the water grew more shallow and the monster did not want to go towhere its motions would be even more confined.

  It seemed to flow into the deepest part of the miniature bay. It was asif it felt certain of a haven there. When the tormenting noise-beamstruck again, the abyssal monster flung itself about crazily. Aterrible, frustrated rage filled it. Its arms fumbled here and there,above water and below. It hauled itself upright so that a part of itstorpedo-shaped body broke through the surface. The monster was mad withfury. It plunged toward the _Esperance_, not swimming now, but crawlingwith all its eight legs in water too shallow to submerge it. Its effortwas desperate. It lifted everything from the water, and splashedeverything down again, all the while crawling toward its enemy.

  Terry saw Nick and Jug steady the aim of their bazookas. Davis rantoward the bow with hand grenades. The huge squid came crawling, andwith every foot of advance the pain-noise grew more unendurable.Suddenly the creature uttered a mooing cry and retreated. The cry waslike the mooing noise Terry had picked up from the depths.

  It went aground. It struggled to climb ashore, to do anything to escapeits tormentors. It foamed and splashed....

  Despairing, it turned to face its tormentors. Its body reared almostentirely out of the water, now. It sagged flabbily. It reeled as itsarms strained. Its eyes rose above the surface, blinded by the light.They were huge eyes. Squids alone, among the invertebrates, have eyeslike those of land beasts. They flamed demoniac hatred. A beak appeared,not unlike a parrot's, but capable of rending steel plates. The beakopened and closed with clicking sounds that were singularly horrifying.It snapped at the yacht, which was beyond reach. One of the tentacleswrenched violently at something. It gave. The arm rose above the water.A thorny mass of branched coral flew through the air and splashed closebeside the _Esperance_.

  "Shoot!" said Terry, somehow sickened. "Dammit, shoot!"

  Nick and Tony aimed closely. The bazookas made their peculiar,inadequate sounds. The bazooka-shells, like small rocket-missiles, spedthrough the short distance. They struck. Their shaped charges detonated,again with inadequate loudness. They did not explode in a fashion totear the creature to bits. Instead, they sent lancing flames a thousandtimes more deadly than bullets into the squid's flesh.

  It fought insanely. It uttered shrill cries. Its arms tore at its ownwounds, at the water, at the lagoon-bed as if it would rend and shatterall the universe in its rage.

  The bazookas fired again and again.

  It was the eighth missile from the bazooka which ended the battle. Thenthe enormous body went limp. Its horny beak ceased to try to crush allcreation. But the long, thick, sucker-disked arms thrashed aimlessly fora long time. Even when they ceased to throw themselves about, theyquivered and rippled for a considerable period more. And when it seemedthat all life had left the gigantic beast, and the men from thesatellite-tracking station stepped on the monstrous body, it suddenlyjerked once more, in a last attempt to murder.

  The squid's body, without the tentacles, was thirty-five feet long. Thelargest squid, the Atlantic variety, captured before had a mantle nolonger than twenty feet. That relatively familiar creature,_Architeuthis princeps_, came to a maximum total length of fifty-twofeet. Counting the two longest arms of this one, it reached eighty. Itcould not possibly swim in water less than six yards deep. It did notbelong in a coral lagoon, but it was there.

  It was close to sunset when the last tremors of the great mass of fleshwere stilled. Terry was in no mood for eating, afterward. He skipped theevening meal altogether, and paced up and down the veranda of the dininghall, at the satellite-tracking station. Inside, there was a clatter ofdishes and a humming of voices. Outside, there was a soft, warm, starlitnight. The surf boomed on the reef outside the lagoon.

  Deirdre came out and walked quickly into Terry's arms. She kissed himand then drew back.

  "Darling!" she said softly. Her voice changed. "How is your leg? Does itstill hurt?"

  "It's nothing to worry about," said Terry. "I'm worried about somethingelse. Two things, in fact."

  "Name one!" said Deirdre, smiling.

  "I'd like to get married soon," said Terry ruefully.

  "To whom?" she asked, jokingly.

  "But I have to have a business or an income first. I think, though, thatwith a little hard work I can start up my _especialidades electronicas yfisicas_ again, and if you don't mind skimping a little ..."

  "I'll adore it," said Deirdre enthusiastically. "What else would Iwant? What's the other thing you worry about?"

  "That monster," said Terry with some grimness.

  "Pouf!" said Deirdre. "You've killed it!"

  "I don't mean that one," said Terry more grimly. "I mean the one thatsent it. I wish I knew what it is and what it intends to do!"

  "You've already found out more than anybody else even dared to guess!"she protested.

  "But not enough. We've stirred it up. It sent small fish in the lagoonhere and elsewhere to report back to it. We can't guess what the fishreported, but we know some of it was about human beings. Whatever isdown at the bottom of the sea must be interested in men. Remember? Itmade a patch of foam that swallowed up one ship and all its crew. It'sinterested in men, all right!"

  "True, but...."

  "We dropped the dredge, which implied that we were interested in it. Thebathyscaphe indicated more interest on our part. To discourage thatinterest--or perhaps in self-defense--it wrecked the bathyscaphe."

  "It, Terry?" asked Deirdre. "Or _ellos_, they?"

  "They," he corrected himself coldly. "We killed the fish that werereporting men's doings from here. That was insolence on our part. So thehum at the lagoon entrance went off and, after two nights, startedagain--and then this huge squid was found in the lagoon. It should havebeen able to defend itself against us. It was sent up here because itwas capable of defending itself! But we've killed it just the same. Sonow
what will come up out of the depths? And what will it do?"

  Deirdre said firmly, "You'll be ready for it when it comes!"

  "Maybe," said Terry. "Your father once mentioned an instrument he'd liketo have to take a relief map of the ocean bottom. Changed around alittle, it might be something we need very badly indeed. The horn we'vegot is good, but not good enough. I'll talk to the electronics menhere."

  There was a noise of scraping chairs, inside the dining hall. Peoplecame out, talking cheerfully. There was much to talk about on ThrawnIsland today. The killing of a giant squid had been preceded by aspecific guess that linked it to meteoric falls in the Luzon Deep.Logically, the excitement had grown.

  Terry found his electronics specialists, and explained to them the typeof apparatus he was interested in. He asked if it was included in theisland's technical stores. He wanted to assemble something capable ofemitting underwater noises of special quality and unprecedented power.There is not much power involved in sound through the air. A cornetplayer manages with much effort to convert four-tenths of a watt ofpower into music. A public-address system for a large area may give outfifteen watts of noise. Terry described a device which could use a smallamount of power, serving as a sonar or a depth-finding unit, and then,with the throw of a switch, turn kilowatts into vibrations underneaththe sea. If powerful and shrill enough, such vibrations could be lethal.

  A technical argument ensued. Terry's demands were toned down to fit theequipment at hand. Then three men went with him to the island'sworkshop. They took off their coats and set to work.

  Three hours later someone noticed an unknown vessel making its way intothe lagoon. She was stubby and small, and had short thick masts withheavy booms tilted up at steep angles. Her Diesel engines boomedhollowly, louder than the surf. As she entered the lagoon, a searchlightwinked on and flicked here and there. It finally found the wharf wherethe _Esperance_ was moored.

  Men of the tracking station staff went down to the wharf to meet thesmall row boat that was now coming ashore.

  A short, stout, irate fishing boat skipper waved his arms and shoutedangrily. What had _los americanos_ done to keep _La Rubia_ from catchingfish? Why had they changed the arrangement by which the starving wivesand children of _La Rubia's_ crew were fed? He would protest to thePhilippine Government! He would expose the villainy of _los americanos_to the world! He demanded that now, instantly, the original state ofaffairs be restored!

  A fish leaped out of the water nearby. Where it leaped, and where itfell back, bright specks of luminosity appeared. Even the ripples of thesplashes glowed faintly as they spread outward. The skipper of _LaRubia_ stared. And now the people of the island realized that the lookof the water was not altogether commonplace. Little bluish flames underthe surface showed that many fish darted there. There were more fishthan usual in the lagoon. Many more. The lagoon had suddenly become afine place to catch fish. Some care would be needed, of course. Therewere doubtless coral heads in plenty. But still ...

  The skipper of _La Rubia_ abruptly returned to his fury and hisprotests. _La Rubia_ had gone to the place where she always found fish.Always! There was a humming in the water there, and fish were to befound in quantity. But yesterday the American ship had been there, andalso this very yacht! _La Rubia_ stayed out of sight lest the_americanos_ learn her fishing secrets. But it was useless. When the twoAmerican ships were gone, there was no longer a humming in the sea andno more fish for the crew of _La Rubia_ to capture for their hungrywives and children. And therefore he, Capitan Saavedra, demanded thatthe _americanos_ restore the previous state of affairs.

  Davis would have intervened, but the chubby skipper erupted into wilderand more theatrical accusations still.

  Let them not deny what they had done! Fish were always to be found wherethere was a humming in the sea that _las orejas de ellos_ heard andreported to him. But that humming was not in its former place. It washere! At the entrance of the lagoon! The fish were here, also! _Losamericanos_ had moved the fish so the crewmen of _La Rubia_ could notfeed their wives and children. _Los americanos_ wished to take all thefish for themselves! But fish were the property of all men, especiallyfishermen with starving wives and children. So he, Capitan Saavedra,would fish in this lagoon, and he defied anyone to stop him.

  "Certainly," said Terry. "_Seguramente!_" He added in Spanish: "We'lllend you a short-wave contact with Manila to make any complaints youplease. I'm sure all the other fishing boats will be glad to hear whereyou've been catching fish, and where you've found the fish have movedto! Calm yourself, Capitan, and help yourself to the fish of the lagoon,and any time you want to call Manila we'll arrange it!"

  He moved away. He went back to the electronics shop, while Morton andDavis and the others talked encouragingly to Capitan Saavedra. Presentlythey suggested that he accept their hospitality, and the Capitan and hisoarsmen went up to the dining hall, where they were served dinner, and amore friendly mood developed. In time the Capitan said happily that hewould wait till sunrise to lower his nets, because he didn't want torisk losing them on the coral heads. A few drinks later the Capitanboasted about his own system of fishing, as practised by _La Rubia_. Thestarving condition of his crew's wives and children ceased to bementioned.

  In the presence of so accomplished a liar, nobody of the trackingstation staff mentioned a giant squid hauled partly, but only partly,out of the water. They suspected that he would not believe it. They weresure that he would top their real feat by an imaginary one. So the fourcrew-cuts listened politely, and fed him more drinks, and learned much.

  In the workshop the most unlikely device Terry'd described took form. Ineffect, it was an underwater horn which was much more powerful than itlooked. Submerged, and with power from a group of amplifiers inparallel, it would create a tremendous volume of underwater noise. Thatsound would run through a tube shaped like a gun-barrel. It would travelin a straight line, spreading only a little.

  The same projection tube could also send out the tentativebeep-beep-beep of sonar gear, or the peculiar noise a depth-findermakes. So the instrument could search out a distance or find a target,and then fling at it a beam of humming torment equal to bullets from amachine gun.

  It would have taken Terry, alone, a long time to build. But he hadthree assistants, two of whom were very competent. By dawn, they had itready to be mounted upon the _Esperance_. It was placed hanging from thebow, mounted on gimbals, so that it could point in any direction. It wasfirmly fixed to the yacht's planking.

  There was plenty of activity on _La Rubia_, too, at daybreak. That squatand capable fishing boat prepared to harvest the fish in the lagoon. Shegot her nets over. She essayed to haul them. Some got caught on thecoral heads rising from the lagoon's bottom toward the surface. CapitanSaavedra swore, and untangled them. He tried again. Again coral headsbaulked the enterprise. The nets tore.

  A helicopter came rattling into view from the south. It grew in size andloudness, and presently hovered over the tracking station. Then it madea wide, deliberate circuit of the lagoon. At the inlet where the squidlay almost entirely in the water--but fastened by ropes lest it driftaway--above that spot, the helicopter hovered for a long time. It musthave been taking photographs. Presently, it lowered one man by a line tothe ground. Obviously, the man could not endure any delay in getting atso desirable a biological specimen. Then the helicopter went droning andrattling to the tracking station, and landed with an air of weariness.

  _La Rubia_ continued to try to catch fish. They were here in plenty. Butthe coral heads were everywhere. Nets tore. Ropes parted. CapitanSaavedra waved his arms and swore.

  The _Esperance_ rumbled and circled away from the wharf, and headed forthe lagoon entrance. The singular contrivance built during the night wasin place at her bow. She passed _La Rubia_, on whose deck menfrantically mended nets.

  The _Esperance_ passed between the small capes and the first of theocean swells raised her bow and rocked her. She proceeded beyond thereef. The bottom of the sea dropped out of
sight. Terry switched on thesubmarine ear and listened. The humming sound was to be expected here.

  It had stopped. It was present yesterday, and even during the night,when _La Rubia_ came into the lagoon. But now the sea held no soundother than the multitudinous random noises of fish and the washing,roaring, booming of the surf.

  Deirdre was aboard, of course. She watched Terry's face. He turned tothe new instrument, and then dropped his hand.

  "I think," he said carefully to Davis, "that I'd like to make a sort ofsweep out to sea. It's just possible we'll find the hum farther out."

  Deirdre said quickly, "I think I know what you're up to. You want tosurvey a large area of the ocean while something comes up. Then you candirect that "something" to the lagoon mouth by using your sound device,so the ... whatever-it-is has to take refuge in the lagoon. Since we'vekilled the squid...."

  "That's it," said Terry. "Something like that happened when we spearedthe fish. The squid took their place. Now we've killed the squid. Justpossibly...."

  They found the humming sound in the water four miles off-shore. Theytraced it through part of a circle. If something were being drivenupward, it could not pass through that wall of humming sound.

  "That proves your point," Davis said. "Now what?"

  Without realizing it, he'd yielded direction of the enterprise to Terry,who had unconsciously assumed it.

  "Let's go back to the island," said Terry thoughtfully. "I've got acrazy idea--really crazy! I want to be where we can duck into shallowwater when we try the new projector."

  The _Esperance_ swung about and headed back toward the island. The seaand the distant island looked comfortingly normal and beautiful in thesunshine. Under so blue a sky it did not seem reasonable to worry aboutanything. Events or schemes at the bottom of the sea seemed certainlythe last things to be likely to matter to anyone.

  Terry had the _Esperance_ almost between the reefs before he tried thenew contrivance. If it worked, it should be possible to make a reliefmap of the ocean bottom with every height and depth on the sea-bedplotted with precision.

  He started to operate the new instrument. First he traced the steepdescent from the flanks of the submarine mountain whose tip was ThrawnIsland. He traced them down to the abyss which was the Luzon Deep. Thenhe began to trace the ocean bottom at its extreme depth, on what shouldhave been submarine plains at the foot of the submerged mountain. Theinstrument began to give extraordinary readings. The bottom, in acertain spot, read forty-five hundred fathoms down. But suddenly therewas a reading of twenty-five hundred. There was a huge obstruction,twelve thousand feet above the bottom of the sea, more than twentythousand feet below the surface. The instrument scanned the area.Something else was found eighteen hundred fathoms up. These were objectsof enormous size, floating, or perhaps swimming in the blackness. Theywere not whales. Whales are air-breathers. They cannot stay too long indeep waters, motionless between the top and the bottom of the sea.

  The instrument picked up more and more such objects. Some weretwenty-five hundred fathoms from the bottom, and two thousand from thesurface. Some were twenty-two hundred up, and twenty-three hundred down.There were eighteen hundred-fathom readings, and twenty-one, andtwenty-four, and nineteen. The readings were of objects bigger thanwhales. They rose very slowly, and appeared to rest, then rose somemore, and rested....

  Blank faces turned to Terry. He licked his lips and looked for Deirdre.Then he said evenly, "We go into the lagoon. And if we come outagain--if!--we leave Deirdre ashore, unless these readings have beencleared up. There are chances I'm not willing to take."

  The _Esperance_ headed in. It was not possible for the new instrument totell what the large objects were. They could be monstrous livingcreatures, perhaps squids, and one could only guess that their errandwas to deal with the surface-creatures--men--who speared fish and giantsquids and set off explosions in the Luzon Deep.

  Or the rising objects could be, say, bolides which had dived into theDeep from outer space and were now coming to the surface to make surethat the natives of the earth did not again disturb the depths takenover by beings from another planet.