floe.
Here he found the water a pale blue-green, increasing, at the limit ofhis vision, to impenetrable black. Nearby was a great dark blur which herecognized as the killer whale that had struck him down. It bobbedlifelessly against the smooth, light ceiling of ice. Slowly, he swamover towards it.
There was no mark of the havoc his last shot must have wreaked inside.He examined the body with interest, fingering the two inch-long teeth,which even the mighty sperm whale fears and flees from.
"Pretty wicked," he said aloud, just for the companionship of his voice."And there's a lot of oil in this brute. Streight'll be glad to get him.Maybe he won't need a third to fill the tanks."
Thought of his captain made him look up and around, hoping to see the_Narwhal's_ light-beams come threading through the distant murk. He didnot see them, but what he did see caused his mouth to drop open, and hisveins to chill with a cold that was not that of the sea nor the iceabove.
"Good Lord!" he whispered. "That thing--again!"
Like a specter from the deep, some hundred feet away was a form,seal-like in appearance, yet not wholly seal. It poised theremotionless, apparently looking straight at him.
Fear came over Ken as he studied it. Its body was perhaps ten feet long,and sleek and fat under a brown-colored hide. But its flippers were notthose of a seal; they were too long and slender, especially the hindones. They unquestionably bore a remote resemblance to human arms andlegs.
"Yet it can't be anything but some kind of seal," Ken whispered tohimself. "It must be!"
But then, too, it did not have the ordinary seal's bullet head, setsquat between smoothly tapering shoulders, but rather something bulbous,half like that of a man, in spite of the layers of fat that stream-linedfrom it to the broad shoulders. It did have, however, two large, staringeyes, and slitted holes inches below them for nostrils--which showedthat it breathed air and was therefore warm-blooded.
Quite motionless, each stared at the other, while minutes passed. Thenthe creature moved slowly up and forward, impelled by a graceful andhardly perceptible roll of its queer flippers. Very gradually it cametowards Kenneth Torrance; and he, peering with fear-tinged curiosity atthe animal's bold advance, saw two creases of fat that must have beenlips slide open in the smooth brown face, baring strong, pointed teeth.
Not knowing whether it was an attack or merely inquisitiveness, heunsheathed his knife. At this the figure stopped and poised motionlessagain, perhaps fifty feet away, and after a moment turned its sleek headfirst to the left and then to the right. Automatically, Ken gazed aroundlikewise. He drew in his breath with a sharp hiss.
Like shadows, additional figures had appeared in the distant murk.Silently they had come; he could see eleven--twelve--even more. He wassurrounded! No longer doubting their purpose, he gripped his knifefirmly. He knew he could never get down to the torpoon in time.
And then the circle began to close.
There was little he could do to resist them, he realized, for what hehad seen of their movements told him that they were swift, effortlessswimmers. But he braced himself as best he could against the dead whale,to protect his back. He would at least go down fighting.
As their spectral shapes slid slowly closer he noted something that hadescaped his eyes before. Four or five of them were holding dim objectsin their arm-like flippers. Spears, he made them out to be, rudelyfashioned from bone. And others held dark-colored loops, which they wereslowly forming into nooses.
"They're intelligent, all right," Ken muttered. "Spears--of whalebone, Iguess. And ropes--probably seaweed. Weapons! Good Lord, what kind ofseals are these?"
Easily, gracefully, the silent circle drew in to perhaps twenty feet ofhim, where they paused again, hanging motionless at regular intervals inthe eery, wavering half-light. Ken licked his lips nervously. Then theone whom he had seen first moved its head slightly, in what wasapparently a signal. And in a concerted movement, so bewilderingly rapidthat his eyes could not hold them, they rushed him.
He had expected speed, but not speed such as this. He had barely swunghis knife-arm up when the wave engulfed him.
Doubling, curving shapes looped around him; blubbery bodies pressedagainst him; eyes flashed by in streaks of brown; he knew that he wasbeing tumbled and tossed and that his knife and hand-flash had fallenunder the shock of the attack. And then there was a sharper sensation.As he struggled to break free, taut cords trussed his legs and arms likeany captive animal's.
The stream of moving bodies slowed in movement and fell back from abreathless, dazed Kenneth Torrance. He then got his first clear viewsince the assault was unleashed.
He was upright, many feet away from the killer whale's carcass, his armsbound strongly to his sides with seaweed-rope, his legs locked closetogether. To one side he glimpsed several of the creatures fasteningother rope strands to the whale's flukes. When they had finished, withsmoothly thrusting flippers they began to haul the carcass forward, andhe felt himself move feet first in the same direction.
He forced a wry smile to his lips. "A swell fight I put up!" he grunted."Hold 'em off! Yeah--I bet I held 'em for a full tenth of a second."
* * * * *
He still could hardly believe what had so rapidly befallen him. It wasdifficult to credit eyes that showed him creatures whose bodies weremainly seal-like, and yet whose weapons and co-ordinated movements spokefor human intelligence. But they were certainly real. At his feet hecould feel the pressure of a guard's flippers against him.
He was towed in this fashion for some distance when the pressure of theflippers suddenly tightened and he was pulled into a deep-angled swooptoward the sea-bottom below. Previously he had seen his captors' amazingspeed, but now he felt it. Down and down he went, and at last, when itseemed he must crash into the sea floor, his momentum was quicklychecked, and he found himself standing in the mud, from which position,lacking support from his guard, he drifted to a horizontal one, face up.And there, lying helpless on the bottom, he saw the reason for thesudden dive. Far to the right, piercing faintly through the murk, weretwo faint interweaving beams of white that preceded a slowly moving darkbulk.
The _Narwhal_! Wild hopes of rescue coursed through him.
Dimly, as he watched the beams, he was aware of the rest of thecreatures dropping down, guiding between them the whale's carcass. Thena firm pressure was applied to his side, and he was rolled over, facedown in the mud. Unable any longer to see his ship, his momentary visionof rescue vanished.
"Hopeless, I guess," he muttered despairingly. The darkness on thesea-floor was too thick, the wavering shadows too deceptive. And hishand-flash and knife were gone--probably knocked from his grasp duringthe struggle, he thought.
He realized that the seal-like animals were lying low until thesubmarine passed, its size having awed them. The color of the bodiesblended perfectly with the gloom, as did that of his own sea-suit. Hisbonds prevented him from making even the slightest movement to attractattention.
Torturing thoughts raced through the torpooner's brain. He saw, in hismind's eye, straight above, a hazy bulk, with shimmering columns ofwhite angling from its nose. His imagination pictured for him the warm,well-lit interior, and the bunks--the coffee steaming on the fire, themen at their posts and Streight's anxious, beefy face. He saw it all asplainly as if he were inside, cracking jokes with one of the engineers.
* * * * *
The minutes passed. The _Narwhal_ must now be gone. Ken's cheek musclesstood out as he pressed his teeth together. "Well, go on!" he explodedin impotent rage. "What are you waiting for? Kill me! Eat me if you'regoing to!" And he cursed the silent forms around him till his ears hurtfrom the reverberation.
After the _Narwhal_ had vanished in the gloom, the torpooner's captorslifted him from the bottom and propelled him leisurely forward again,the slight, graceful roll of their flippers slipping them alongsmoothly.
A dull hopelessness came over him. No longer could he hope that hissubmarine would
find him. Only one thing was certain, and that was thatdeath would soon come. For even if his captors did not kill him at once,he had but thirty-six hours before his air-units would be exhausted.Certainly, having captured him, the seal-creatures would not releasehim. And it was too much to expect them to realize that his sea-unit wasonly an artificial covering which enabled him to live underwater, andnot his own flesh and blood.
And as for the chance of breaking loose--the idea was laughable. Hisspeed was snail-like in comparison with theirs. Even if he did managesomehow to get away, what good would it do? How could he, a puny,helpless mite, ever hope to locate the _Narwhal_ in this vast sweep ofArctic sea? His torpoon was wrecked, and he had no means ofcommunication.
His situation was quite hopeless.
* * * * *
Far ahead, a dark shape grew in the foggy murk, and as they