by Various
Over the great, globular head was set an oval glass shell. This was filled with water. A flexible metal tube hung down from the rear. Evidently it carried a constant stream of fresh water. As we gazed we saw intermittent trickles emerging from the bottom of the crystalline case.
Point for point the creature's equipment was the same as diving equipment used by men, only it was exactly opposite in function. A helmet that enabled a fish to breathe in air, instead of a helmet to allow a man to breathe in water!
Stanley was the first of us to recover from the shock of this spectacle. He faced about and raised his voice in shouts of warning to the resting Zyobites. For other glass encased monsters had appeared beside the first, now.
One by one, in single file like a line of enormous marching insects, they crawled down the wall and humped along on their tentacles--around the ditch and toward us!
* * * * *
The deadly infallibility of that second attack!
The Quabos advanced on us like armored tanks bearing down on defenceless savages. Their glass helmets, in addition to containing water for their breathing, protected them from our knives and axes. We were utterly helpless against them.
They marched in ranks about twenty yards apart, each rank helping the one in front to carry the cumbersome water-hoses which trailed back to the central water supply in the tunnel.
Their movements were slow, weighted down as they were by the great glass helmets, but they were appallingly sure.
We could not even retard their advance, let alone stop it. Here were no suffocating, faltering creatures. Here were beings possessed of their full vigor, each one equal to three of us even as the Professor had conjectured. Their only weak points were their tentacles which trailed outside the glass cases. But these they kept coiled close, so that to reach them and hack at them we had to step within range of their terrific clutches.
The Zyobites fought with the valor of despair added to their inherent noble bravery. Man after man closed with the monstrous, armored Things--only to be seized and crushed by the weaving tentacles.
Occasionally a terrific blow with an ax would crack one of the glass helmets. Then the denuded Quabo would flounder convulsively in the air till it drowned. But there were all too few of these individual victories. The main body of the Quabos, rank on rank, dragging their water-hose behind them, came on with the steadiness of a machine.
* * * * *
Slowly we were driven back down the broad street and toward the palace. As we retreated, old people and children came from the houses and went with us, leaving their dwellings to the mercy of the monsters.
A block from the palace we bunched together and, by sheer mass and ferocity, actually stopped the machinelike advance for a few moments. Miscellaneous weapons had been brought from the houses--sledges, stone benches, anything that might break the Quabos' helmets--and handed to us in silence by the noncombatants.
Somebody tugged at my sleeve. Looking down I saw a little girl. She had dragged a heavy metal bar out to the fray and was trying to get some fighter's attention and give it to him.
I seized the formidable weapon and jumped at the nearest Quabo, a ten-foot giant whose eyes were glinting gigantically at me through the distorting curve of the glass.
Disregarding the clutching tentacles entirely, I swung the bar against the helmet. It cracked. I swung again and it fell in fragments, spilling the gallons of water it had contained.
The tentacles wound vengefully around me, but in a few seconds they relaxed as the thing gasped out its life in the air.
* * * * *
I turned to repeat the process on another if I could, and found myself facing the Queen. Her head was held bravely high, though the violet of her eyes had gone almost black with fear and repulsion of the terrible things we fought.
"Aga!" I cried. "Why art thou here! Go back to the palace at once!"
"I came to fight beside thee," she answered composedly, though her delicate lips quivered. "All is lost, it seems. So shall I die beside thee."
I started to reply, to urge her again to seek the safety of the palace. But by now the deadly advance of the tentacled demons had begun once more.
Fighting vainly, the population of Zyobor was swept into the palace grounds, then into the building itself.
Men, women and children huddled shoulder to shoulder in the cramping quarters. An ironic picture came to me of the crowding masses of Quabos stuffed into the protection of the outer cave, waiting the outcome of the fight being waged by their warriors. Here were we in a similar circumstance, waiting for the battle to be decided. Though there was little doubt in the minds of any of us as to what the outcome would be.
Guards, the strongest men of the city, were stationed with sledges at the doors and windows. The Quabos, able only to enter one at a time, halted a moment and there was a badly needed breathing spell.
* * * * *
"We've got to find some drastic means of defence," said the Professor, "or we won't last another three hours."
"If you asked me, I'd say we couldn't last another three hours anyway," replied Stanley with a shrug. "These fish have out-thought us!"
"Nonsense! There may still be a way--"
"A brace of machine-guns...." I murmured hopefully.
"You might as well wish for a dozen light cannon!" snapped the Professor. "Please try to concentrate, and see if any effective weapon suggests itself to you--something more available at the moment than machine-guns."
In silence the three of us racked our brains for a means of defence. Aga, leaving for a time the task of soothing her more hysterical subjects, came quietly over to us and sat on the bench beside me.
Frankly I could think of nothing. To my mind we were surely doomed. What arms could possibly be contrived at such short notice? What weapon could be called forth to be effective against the thick glass helmets?
But as I glanced at Stanley I saw his face set in a new expression as his thoughts took a turn that suggested possible salvation.
"Glass," he muttered. "Glass. What destroys it? Sharp blows ... certain acids ... variation in temperature ... heat and cold.... That's it! That's it!"
He turned excitedly to the Queen.
"I think we have it! At least it's worth trying. If there is any tubing around...." He stopped as he realized he was talking in English, and resumed stiltedly in Aga's own language.
"Hast thou, in the palace, any lengths of pipe like to that which the Quabos drag behind them?"
"No ..." Aga began, her eyes round and wondering. Then she interrupted herself. "Ah, yes! There is! In a vault near that of Kilor's there is a great spool of it. He had it fashioned to carry air for one of his experiments--"
"Come along!" cried Stanley. "I'll explain what I have in mind while we dig up this coil of hose."
* * * * *
A score of Zyobite workmen were gathered at once. The length of hose--made of some linen-like fabric of tough, shredded sea-weed and covered with a flexible metal sheath--was cut into three pieces each about fifty yards long. These were connected to three of the largest gas vents of the palace.
Stanley, the Professor and I each took an end. And we prepared to fight, with fire, the creatures of water.
"It ought to work," Stanley, repeated several times as though trying to reassure himself as well as us. "It's simple enough: the water in those helmets is ice cold: if fire is suddenly squirted against them they'll crack with the uneven expansion."
"Unless," retorted the Professor, "their glass has some special heat and cold resisting quality."
Stanley shrugged.
"It may well have some such properties. How such creatures can make glass at all is beyond me!"
Dragging our hose to the big front entrance of the palace, and warning the crowded people to keep their feet clear of it, we prepared to test out the efficiency of this, our last resource against the enemy.
* * * * *
For an instant we paused just inside the doorway, l
ooking out at the ugly, glassed-in Things that were massing to attack us again.
The ranks of Quabos had closed in now, till they extended down the street for several hundred yards in close formation--a forest of great pulpy heads with huge eyes that glared unblinkingly at the glittering, pink building that was their objective.
"Light up!" ordered Stanley, setting an example by touching his hose nozzle to the nearest wall jet. A spurt of fire belched from his hose, streaming out for four or five feet in a solid red cone. The Professor and I touched off our torches; and we moved slowly out the door toward the ranks of Quabos.
"Don't try to save yourselves from their tentacles," advised Stanley. "Walk right up to them, direct the fire against their helmets, and damn the consequences. If they grip too hard you can always play the torch on their tentacles till they think better of it."
The Quabos' front line humped grimly toward us, unblinking eyes glaring, tentacles writhing warily, little spurts of used water trickling from their helmets.
"Keep together," warned Stanley, "so that if any one of us loses his light he can get it from the hose of one of the other two. And--Here they come!"
There was no more time for commands. The Quabos in front, supplied with slack in their hoses by those behind, leaped at us with incredible agility. We fell back a step so that none should get at our backs.
The last stand was begun.
* * * * *
It was not a battle so much as a series of fierce duels. The Quabos realized their new danger instantly, and devoted all their efforts to extinguishing our torches. We parried and thrust with the flaming hoses in an equally desperate effort to prevent it.
One of them scuttled toward me like a great crab. A tentacle darted toward my right arm. Another was pressed against the nozzle. There was a sickening smell--and the tentacle was jerked spasmodically away.
I caught the hose in my left hand and turned the fiery jet against the water-filled helmet.
A shout of savage exultation broke from my lips. Hardly, had the flame touched the glass before it cracked! There was a report like a pistol shot--and a miniature Niagara of water and splintered glass poured at my feet!
The tentacle around my arm tightened, then relaxed. The monster shuddered in a convulsive heap on the ground.
I went toward the next one, swinging the flaring hose in a slow arc as I advanced. The creature lunged at me and threshed at the burning jet with all four of its feelers. But it had been exposed to the air for a long time now. The ghastly tentacles were dry; withered and soft. A touch of the fire seared them unmercifully.
Nevertheless with a swift move it slapped a tentacle squarely down over the hose nozzle. The flame was extinguished as the flame of a candle is pinched out between thumb and forefinger. I retreated.
"Catch!" came a voice behind me.
* * * * *
The Professor swung his four-foot jet my way. I held my hose to it, and the flame burst out again. A touch at my grisly antagonist's helmet--a sharp crack--the welcome rush of water over the cream-colored grass--and another monster was writhing in the death throes!
Keeping close together, the three of us faced the massed Quabos in the palace grounds. Again and again the fiery weapon of one or the other of us was dashed out--to be re-lighted from the nearest hose. Again and again loud detonations heralded the collapse of more of the invaders.
But it seemed as though their flailing tentacles were as myriad as the stars they had never seen. It seemed as though their numbers would never appreciably diminish. We thrust and parried till our arms grew numb. And still there appeared to be hundreds of the Quabos left.
By order of the Queen three stout Zyobites stepped up to us and relieved us of our exhausting labor. Gladly we handed the hoses to them and went to the palace for a much needed rest.
* * * * *
Two more shifts of fighters took the flaming jets before the monsters began the retreat slowly back toward their tunnel. And here the Professor took command again.
"We mustn't let them get away to try some new scheme!" he snapped. "Martin, take fifty men and beat them back to the break in the wall. Go around a side street. They move so slowly that you can easily cut off their retreat."
"There isn't any more hose--" began Stanley.
"There's plenty of it. The Quabos brought it with them." The Professor turned to me again. "Take metal-saws with you. Cut sections of the Quabos water-hose and connect them to the nearest wall jets. Run!"
I ran, with fifty of the men of Zyobor close behind me. We dodged out the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the Quabos, ducking between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition of powerful but slow-moving tanks. Four of our number were caught, but the rest got through unscathed.
Down a side street we raced, and along a parallel avenue toward the tunnel. As we went I prayed that all the Quabos had centered their attention on the palace and left their vulnerable water-hoses unguarded.
They had! When we stole up the last block toward the break we found the nearest Quabo was a hundred yards down the street--and working further away with every move.
At once we set to work on the scores of hoses that quivered over the floor with each move of the distant monsters.
* * * * *
A Zyobite with the muscles of a Hercules swung his ax mightily down on a hose. The metal was soft enough to be sheered through by the stroke. The cut ends were smashed so that they could not be crammed down over the tapering jets; but we could use our metal-saws for cleaner severances at the other ends.
The giant with the ax stepped from hose to hose. Lengths were completed with the saws. A man was placed at each jet to hold the connections in position. Before the Quabos had reached us we had rigged six fire-hoses and had cut through forty or fifty more water-lines.
The end was certain and not long in coming.
We sprayed the monsters with fire as workmen spray fruit trees with insect poison. Stanley, the Professor and a Zyobite came up in the rear with their three hoses.
Caught between the two forces, the beaten fish milled in hopeless confusion and indecision.
In half an hour they were all reduced to huddles of slimy wet flesh that dotted the pavement from the break back to the palace grounds. The invaders were completely annihilated--and the city of Zyobor was saved!
"Now," said the Professor triumphantly, "we have only to knock out the bottom half of the tunnel wall, empty the tunnel and make sure there are no more Quabos lurking there. After that we can fill it in with solid cement. The Queen can order her fish-servants to guard the outer cave and see that no food gets in to the starving monsters there. The war is over, gentlemen. The Quabos are as good as exterminated at this moment. And I can get back to my zoological work...."
Stanley and I looked at each other. We knew each others thoughts well enough.
He could resume his companionship with the beautiful Mayis. And I--I had Aga....
* * * * *
With the menace of the Quabos banished forever, the city of Zyobor resumed its normal way.
The citizens lowered their dead into the great well we had cut, with appropriate rites performed by the Queen. The daily tasks and pleasures were picked up where they had been dropped. The haunting fear died from the eyes of the people.
Shortly afterward, with great ceremony and celebration, I was made King of Zyobor, to rule by Aga's side. Stanley took Mayis for his wife. He is second to me in power. The Professor is the official wise man of the city.
Life flows smoothly for us in this pink lighted community. We are more than content with our lot here. Our only concern has been the grief that must have been occasioned our relatives and friends when the Rosa sailed home without us.
Now we have thought of a way in which, with luck, we may communicate with the upper world. By relays of my Queen's fish-servants we believe we can send up the Professor's invaluable notes[A] and this informal account of what has happened since we left San Fran
cisco that....
(Editor's note: There was no trace of any "notes." The yacht, Rosa, was reported lost with all hands in a hurricane off New Zealand. Aboard her were a Professor George Berry and the owner, Stanley Browne. There is no record, however, of any passenger by the name of Martin Grey. To date no one has taken this document seriously enough to consider financing an expedition of investigation to Penguin Deep.)
* * *
Contents
THE GIFT BEARER
By CHARLES L. FONTENAY
This could well have been Montcalm's greatest opportunity; a chance to bring mankind priceless gifts from worlds beyond. But Montcalm was a solid family man--and what about that nude statue in the park?
It was one of those rare strokes of poetic something-or-other that the whole business occurred the morning after the stormy meeting of the Traskmore censorship board.
Like the good general he was, Richard J. Montcalm had foreseen trouble at this meeting, for it was the boldest invasion yet into the territory of evil and laxity. His forces were marshaled. Several of the town's ministers who had been with him on other issues had balked on this one, but he had three of them present, as well as heads of several women's clubs.
As he had anticipated, the irresponsible liberals were present to do battle, headed by red-haired Patrick Levitt.
"This board," said Levitt in his strong, sarcastic voice, "has gone too far. It was all right to get rid of the actual filth ... and everyone will agree there was some. But when you banned the sale of some magazines and books because they had racy covers or because the contents were a little too sophisticated to suit the taste of members of this board ... well, you can carry protection of our youth to the point of insulting the intelligence of adults who have a right to read what they want to."
"You're talking about something that's already in the past, Mr. Levitt," said Montcalm mildly. "Let's keep to the issue at hand. You won't deny that children see this indecent statue every day?"