Chapter 5: The Other Weapon

Bowman--alive!

Keith Wells let go the torpedo lever. His whole orderly plan of action was crashed in a second.--For an instant he stood gaping at the radio man, forgetful of the peril outside, striving desperately to hit on some way of surmounting this unlooked-for obstacle. The idea of firing on his friend--killing Hemmy Bowman with his own hand--paralyzed his brain.

And in that unguarded instant the octopi struck.

From the bow of the enemy submarine, slanting from another of its peculiar knobs, a narrow beam of violet light poured, cutting a vivid swathe across the teleview. The huddled men stared at it, not comprehending what it was. They felt no shock of electricity, nor could they discern any other harmful effect. The ray held steadily on their bow, not varying in the slightest, for a full thirty seconds. And still none of them could feel or see any damage.

Wells, however, gradually became aware that he was bathed in perspiration, that great streams of sweat were coursing down his face. A quick glance told him that every member of the crew was the same way; and then, suddenly, he was conscious of a wave of intense heat--heat which quickly became terrific. The control room was stifling!

Before he could act, the NX-1 slipped sharply to one side. A sharp hissing sound grew at her bow, climbing steadily to a shriek. Long streamers of white steam crept along the lower deck and seeped up into the control room. And then rose the fatal sound of rushing water--water pouring into the submarine from outside!

For the violet beam was a heat ray--a weapon surface civilizations had not yet developed. While the NX-1’s crew had stared at it in the teleview, it had melted a hole in their bow.

Immediately the submarine lost trim, and the deck tilted ominously. In the face of material danger--danger from a source he understood--the commander became cool and methodical.

“Sea-suits on!” he snapped. “Then forward and break out steel collision-mat and weld it in place! Every man! You, too, Sparks and McKegnie!”

“But--but, sir!” stammered Graham. “Do you want them to get us with their paralyzing ray?”

“You’d rather drown?” Wells flung back. Silenced, the first officer donned his sea-suit, and in thirty seconds the rest of the crew had theirs on and were cluttering clumsily forward.

Alone in the control room, Keith battled with the unbalancing flow of water, maneuvering with all his skill in a futile attempt to keep the NX-1 on even keel. The men forward worked with great speed, spurred on by the realization that they were fighting death itself, but even as they labored the submarine swung in ever increasing rolls and dips; the great weight of water she had shipped slopped back and forth; her bow went steadily down. Keith swept her forward tanks clean of water, always conscious of the immobile, staring octopi submarine in the teleview, watching them, it seemed, curiously, and not driving home their advantage with additional bolts of the violet heat ray.

Despite her commander’s frantic efforts, the NX-1 fluttered down remorselessly; the cavern floor rose, and, sinking with them, came the octopi craft, in slow mockery of a fighting plane pursuing its stricken foe to the very ground...

She struck bottom with a soft, thudding jar, and settled on even keel. At once Wells released the helm, jumped into his own sea-suit and stumbled down to take command.

He found the steel collision-mat in place, and the welding of it nearly completed. A few feathery trickles of water still seeped through on each side, but under his terse directions the pumps were soon draining it out. The weird figures of the crew in their sea-suits looked like creatures from another planet as they rapidly finished the job.

“All right--up to the control room, everybody! Fast!” Wells roared.

The men stumbled aft as rapidly as they could in their cumbersome suits. Several were already on the ladder. A few feet further--

But at that moment the paralyzing ray again stabbed into the ship--and Keith Wells slumped helplessly to the deck. And as he crumpled, he glimpsed the grotesque, falling figures of his men, and saw one come tumbling down the ladder from the control room, where he had almost reached safety...

Peculiar sensations, unendurable thoughts raced through the commander as he lay there limply. He knew his predicament. He wanted desperately to rise, to rush to the control room. Time and time again in those first few moments of impotence he strove mightily to pull his limbs back to life. But his greatest efforts were barren of result, save to leave him feeling still weaker. The fate that he had seen strike down Brown now enmeshed him. He was paralyzed. Helpless. In the midst of his crew.

After a moment all sensation left his body. His limbs might not have existed. Sensation, pain, lived only in his brain--and there it was terrible, because self-created.

He found himself sprawled flat on his back, his eyes directed stiffly upward. He could not move them, but out of the corners he vaguely sensed the other figures around him. Helpless, every one! And who knew if they would ever come out of the spell! Victory had gone to the octopi...

Minutes that seemed like hours passed. And then a well-remembered voice sounded in the radio earphones in his helmet. It was Hemmy Bowman, speaking from the enemy ship.