at its lifelessness.He discerned no more of the ghostly fish-schools that usually abounded.Some enemy possibly had driven them from the region; but not the whalehe was pursuing, for they scorned such fare.
He was scanning the surrounding 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 aseal. But the flippers seemed longer than a seal's; moreover, no sealwould be anywhere near a pack of killer whales; nor did they poise in anupright 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, leavingonly a jumbled impression of something fantastic in his mind, and thenext instant the whole thing was forgotten in the movements of thekiller school, now only a few hundred yards ahead.
They suddenly began a great sweeping curve to the right, a typicalmaneuver before standing for attack or breaking up. At once Ken swervedto starboard and drove the torpoon's nose for an advance point on thecircle the fish were describing. His move swallowed the distance betweenthem; the sleek, thick-blubbered bodies swept close by his vision-plate,their rush tossing the torp slightly. Twelve of them went past in ablur, and then came the thirteenth, the invariable straggler of aschool. The thin light-beams pencilled through the darkness, outliningthe rushing black shape; Ken gripped the gun's trigger and jockeyed thetorp up a trifle in the seconds remaining, always keeping the sightsdead set on the vital spot twelve inches behind the whale's little eye.
When only fifteen feet separated them he squeezed the trigger and atonce 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, Kenwatched the mighty mammal quiver in its forward rush. This was merelythe reaction from the pain of the shell's entrance; the nitro had not asyet exploded.
Now it did. The projectiles carried but a small charge, in order not torip too much the buoyant lungs and so cause the body to sink, but thekiller trembled like a jelly from the shock. The heart was reached; itsrazor-sharp flukes thrashing and tooth-lined jaws clicking, the killerwheeled with incredible speed in its death flurry. A minute later thebody shuddered a last time, then drifted slowly over, showing the whitebelly. It began a gentle rise up toward the ceiling of ice.
"One!" grinned Ken Torrance. He noted his position on the torpoon'sdials and gave it to the _Narwhal_ by radio. They would then follow andpick up the whale.
"I'll have the second in ten minutes," he promised confidently. "Signingoff!"
Again the torp darted after its prey.
He found it easy, this time, to overhaul them. Not many minutes hadelapsed before he again caught sight of their rhythmically thrustingflukes and the flash of white under-sides. Unaware that one of theirfellows had been left a lifeless carcass by the steel fish again nearingthem, they had reduced their speed somewhat.
Ken angled down a hundred feet into the deeper shadows, not wanting toapprise them of his presence. He continued at that level until the bellyof the rearmost whale rolled white above him; then he veered off to theleft, rising as he did so, in order to bring his assault to beardirectly on the killer's flanks.
He swung back and streaked in for the kill. It looked like an easy one.
But he was never more mistaken in his life. For, as luck had it, he hadchosen a tartar, a fighting fish--literally the "killer" which its kindhad been named.
* * * * *
The torpooner knew what he was in for as soon as he fired his firstshell. Its aim was bad, and instead of sinking into the flesh it merelyripped across the whale's back, leaving a ragged, ugly scar.
An ordinary whale would have been scared into panic by the wound anddoubled its speed in an effort to get away; but Ken Torrance saw thisone wheel its six-foot snout around viciously until its beady littleeyes settled on the torpoon.
"I'll be damned!" he muttered. "He's turning to fight. All right, comeahead!"
He veered about and fired another shot that missed its mark by feet, butcreased the whale's flukes. At once this terrible weapon lashedtitanically up and down, and thirty feet of berserk killer came curvingtowards the lone man inside his shell of steel. Ken tensed himself forcombat. He would have to keep a good distance from the fish and fireuntil he got it, as a square smash from its flukes might crumple thetorp like an egg-shell.
_Thirty feet of berserk killer came curving towards thelone man_.]
But his foe gave him no chance. Crazy with pain and anger, it swept upand nipped his dive for the bottom with a fluke-blow that tumbled thetorpoon over and dazed its pilot. Before he could get straightened outit was on him again, catching him up into a wild whirlpool, butting theshell and flashing round to get its flukes into position. With a wrench,Ken jammed the rudder over, shoved his accelerator flat, and got freejust as the tail thrashed down. He was breathing hard and sweating as hebanked around--to see once more the whale, its wicked jaws wide open,charging directly at him.
For a moment he was unable to move. Such a mode of attack was totallyunexpected, and the sight held him fascinated. He could see the verywrinkles of the monster's skin as it rushed in, with shadowy flukesthrusting behind; could see the lines of dagger-like teeth, thecavernous maw and gullet. And then all vision was blotted out as thejaws closed around the torpoon's nose.
Ken did not wait for those jaws to crunch shut. He gripped thenitro-shell gun's trigger and squeezed it back.
The weapon hissed, flung its shell. He reversed his engines to try andtear free. Seconds dragged by with no result. Then he felt a mightyjolt; his harness broke; and he was pitched into the torp's enginecontrols.
That was all he knew, save for a vague feeling of falling, falling overand over, which was ended when a second bone-shaking shock broughtcomplete oblivion....
* * * * *
It was darkness that met his eyes when they opened, the eery darkness ofthe floor of the Polar Sea.
Darkness! Half-conscious as he was, he started in surprise. He lookedfor the torp's shaded control board-lights, but could not find them.Bewildered, he wondered what had happened, and then remembered thewhale. In its flurry it had smashed him down.
Pain was thumping his forehead where he had struck the control levers;with a groan he twisted his body around and felt for his hand-flash. Atany rate, there was no water inside the body compartment. The seams hadresisted the blow. But why were there no lights?
He found his hand-flash, and its beam showed him the reason. Playing iton the small water-tight door which separated the main compartment fromthat in which the machinery was contained, he looked through its fusedquartz peep-hole. He gaped in consternation.
There was, after all, a leak in the torpoon's shell, and a bad one. Themachinery compartment was full of water.
"Gosh!" he muttered. "That means no light, no radio--no power! Guess I'mstranded!"
He considered the situation. It was not serious, for he had been intouch with the _Narwhal_ after bagging the first whale and had given hisposition. The submarine would proceed to the kill immediately; then,after a while, not hearing from him, they would scour the neighborhood,just as they had hunted for Chan Beddoes when he did not return.
But they'd find him, Ken told himself--and soon. He had no idea how longhe had lain unconscious, but probably by now the mother ship had alreadyhooked onto the first whale; maybe she was already hunting for him.
"Well, I'd better get out and be ready to signal to 'em with the flash,"he reflected. "They may miss me here in the mud."
* * * * *
Taking his sea-suit from a long narrow locker, he drew the stiff-wovenfabric over his body, turned the air-units on, clamped the face-shieldshut, and then, gripping his hand-flash, slowly opened the port in theshell's side
.
A weird figure he was, fit for the mysterious gloom into which he came.With casque of steel and lead-weighted feet, staring face-shield andmetal belt, and equipped with a knife and two or three emergency tools,the sea-suit transformed him into a clumsy, grotesque giant. He sloshedinto the muddy sea bottom, stumbling at first from the heavy waterresistance and hardly able to see anything. The torpoon itself was ahazy blur at a short distance, but up above the light was better, beingalmost bright next to the ice ceiling. He adjusted the air pressureinside his suit, floating his feet off the bottom. A few clumsyarmstrokes and he went drifting gently upward.
Knowing that the "bends"--bubbles of air in a diver's veins--come fromtoo rapidly changing pressures when rising, he made his ascentcarefully. Up twenty feet, then a pause; twenty feet more and anotherpause. So he rose some ninety feet, and finally arrived at the undersideof the ice