Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930, Various [top 100 books to read .txt] 📗

a moment and then pointed straight toward the door.

“A magnetic lock,” he exclaimed. “If we could find the power line it would be easy to force, but finding that line might take us a week. At any rate, we have found out what we were after. This is their base from which they are operating. Mr. Harron, I want you to station a guard armed with rifles at this door day and night until I personally relieve you. Remember, until I relieve you, in person. Verbal or written orders don’t go. Capture or kill anyone who tries to enter or leave the cavern through this entrance. Just now we’ll find that cavern more vulnerable from the sea end, and that is where I mean to attack. We’ll force that door and explore from this end later. Commander Minden, you may stay here with Mr. Harron, if you like, or you may come with Carnes and me. We are going on board the Minneconsin.”

The Mitchell Field plane roared to a take-off and bore south along the coast. Half an hour of flying brought them in view of the battleship steaming at full speed up the coast. Dr. Bird radioed instructions to the ship, and an hour later a launch picked them up from the beach and took them out. As soon as they were on board they resumed their progress, and in two hours the peak that Dr. Bird had marked as a landmark was opposite.

“Steam in as close to the shore as you can safely,” he said, “and then lower us. Once we are down, you will be guided by our telephoned instructions. Come on, Carnes, let’s go.”

The detective followed him into the sphere as the Minneconsin edged up toward the shore. The huge ball was lifted from the deck and lowered gently into two hundred fathoms of water. It was pitch dark at that depth, and Dr. Bird switched on one floodlight and studied the cliff which rose a hundred yards from them.

“We have missed the place, Carnes,” he said. “We’ll have them pull us up a few hundred feet and then steam along the coast.”

He turned to the telephone and the sphere rose while the battleship steamed slowly ahead, the vitrilene ball following in her wake. For a quarter of a mile they continued on their way, and then Dr. Bird halted the ship.

“What depth are we?” he asked. “Eighty fathoms? All right, lower us, please.”

The ball sank until it rested on the sea bottom, and Dr. Bird turned on two additional floodlights and studied the surroundings. The bed of the ocean was literally covered with lobster and crab shell, with the bones of fish scattered here and there among them. A few bones of land animals were mixed with the debris and Carnes gave a gasp as Dr. Bird pointed out to him a diving helmet.

“We are on the right track,” said the scientist grimly. He stepped to the telephone and ordered the sphere raised to one hundred fathoms. The ship moved forward along the coast until Dr. Bird again stepped to the telephone and halted it. Before them yawned the entrance to the underground tunnel. It was about two hundred feet high and three hundred across, and their most powerful beams would not penetrate to the end of it. A pile of debris could be seen on the 350 floor of the tunnel and Carnes fancied that he could see another diving helmet among the litter. Dr. Bird pointed toward the side of the cavern.

“See those floodlights fastened to the cliff so that their beams will sweep across the mouth of the tunnel when they are lighted?” he said. “Apparently the cave is used as a prison and the light beams are the bars. The creature is not at home just now or the bars would be up. My God! Look at that, Carnes!”

Carnes stared and echoed the Doctor’s cry of surprise. Clinging to a shelf of rock which extended out from the wall of the cavern and half hidden among the seaweed was a huge marine creature. It looked like a huge black slug with rudimentary eyes and mouth. The thing was fifty feet in length and fully fifteen feet in diameter. It hung there, moving sluggishly as though breathing, and rudimentary tentacles projecting from one end moved in the water.

“What is it, Doctor?” asked Carnes in a voice of awe.

“It is a typical trochosphere of the giant octopus, the devil fish of Indian Ocean legend, multiplied a thousand times,” he replied. “When the octopus lays its eggs, they hatch out into the larval form. The free swimming larva is known as a trochosphere, and I am positive that that is what we see; but look at the size of the thing! Man alive, if that ever developed, I can’t conceive of its dimensions!”

“I have seen pictures of a huge octopus pulling down a ship,” said Carnes, “but I always fancied they were imaginary.”

“They are. This monstrosity before us is no product of nature. A dozen of them would depopulate the seas in a year. It is a hideous parody of nature conceived in the brain of a madman and produced by some glandular disturbance. Saranoff spent years in glandular experimentation, and no doubt he has managed to stimulate the thyroid of a normal octopus and produce a giant. I fancy that the immediate parent of the thing before us was of normal size, and so, probably, are its brothers and sisters. The phenomenon of giantism of this nature occurs in alternate generations and then only in rare instances. Its grandparent may not be far away, however. I wish it was safe to use a submarine to explore that cavern.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“Any creature powerful enough to pull the Arethusa under water would crush a frail submarine without effort. Anyway, a Navy sub isn’t built for under-water exploration like this ball is. The window space is quite limited and they aren’t equipped with powerful floodlights. I would like to be able to reach that thing and destroy it, but it can wait until later. The best thing we can do is to put out our lights and wait.”

His hand sought the light switch, and the globe became dark. Only a tiny glimmer of light came down to them from the surface, a hundred fathoms above. In the darkness they stared into the depths of the sea.

For an hour they waited and then Dr. Bird grasped Carnes by the shoulder and pointed. Far in the distance could be seen a tiny point of light. It wavered and winked and at times disappeared, but it was gradually approaching them. Dr. Bird stepped to the telephone and the Minneconsin moved a hundred yards further from the shore. The light disappeared again as though hidden by some opaque body. Their eyes had become accustomed to the dim light and they could dimly see a long snake-like body approach the globe and then suddenly withdraw.

The light appeared again only a few hundred yards away. The water swirled and the sphere swayed drunkenly as some gigantic body moved past it with express train speed and entered the mouth of the cavern. The light turned toward them and they could see 351 the dim outlines of a small submarine on which it was mounted. Another rush of water came as the object which had entered the cave started to leave it, and the light swung around. It bore on a huge black body, and was reflected with a red glow from huge eyes, and the creature backed again into the cave. Back and forth across the mouth of the cavern the light played, and the watchers caught a glimpse of a huge parrot beak which could have engulfed a freight car. From the cavern projected twisting tentacles of gargantuan dimensions, and red eyes, thirty feet in diameter, glared balefully at them. For several minutes the light of the submarine played across the mouth of the cave, and then the floodlights on the cliff sprang into full glow and bathed the ball and the mouth of the tunnel in a flood of light.

Before their horrified gaze was an octopus of a size to make them disbelieve their eyes. The submarine had moved up to within a few feet of them, and the light from it played full on the ball. The submarine maneuvered in the vicinity, keeping the ball full in the beam of its light, and then drew back. As it did so, the floodlights on the cliff died out and the beam of the submarine’s light was directed away from them. Dr. Bird jumped to the telephone.

“Head straight out to sea and full speed ahead!” he shouted. “Don’t try to pull us in; tow us!”

The ball swayed as the Minneconsin’s mighty engines responded to his orders and the cliff wall disappeared.

“As long as they know we’re here, we might as well announce our presence in good style,” said the doctor grimly as he closed a switch and threw all of the sphere’s huge lights into action. He had turned on the lights just in time, for even as he did so a mighty tentacle shot out of the darkness and wrapped itself around the ball. For a moment it clung there and then was withdrawn.

“The thing can’t stand light,” remarked the doctor as he threw off the switch. “That sub was herding it like a cow by the use of a light beam. As long as we are lighted up we are safe from attack.”

“Then for God’s sake turn on the lights!” cried Carnes.

“I want it to attack us,” replied the doctor calmly. “We have no offensive weapons and only by meeting an attack can we harm the thing.”

As he spoke there came a soft whisper of sound from the vitrilene walls and they were thrown from their feet by a sudden jerk. Dr. Bird stumbled to the switch and closed it, and the ball was flooded with light. Two arms were now on them but they were slowly withdrawn as the lights glared forth. The huge outlines of the beast could be seen as it followed them toward the surface. Its great eyes glared at them hungrily. The submarine was visible only as a speck of light in the distance.

The Minneconsin’s speed was picking up under the urge of her huge steam turbines, and the ball was nearing the surface. The sea was light enough now that they could see for quite a distance. The telephone bell jangled and Dr. Bird picked the receiver from its hook.

“Hello,” he said. “What’s that? You can? By all means, fire. Yes, indeed, we’re well out of danger; we must be thirty or forty feet down. Watch the fun now,” he went on to Carnes as he replaced the receiver. “The beast is showing above the surface and they’re going to shell it.”

They watched the surface and suddenly there came a flash of light followed by a dull boom of sound. The huge octopus suddenly sank below them, thrashing its arms about wildly.

“A hit!” shouted Dr. Bird into the telephone. “Get it again if it shows up. I want it to get good and mad.”

He turned off the lights in the ball and the octopus attacked again. The shell had taught it caution and it kept 352 well down, but three huge arms came up from the depths of the sea and wrapped themselves about the ball. The forward motion stopped for a moment, and then came a jerk that threw them down. The ball started to sink.

“Our cable has parted!” cried the doctor. “Turn on the lights!”

Carnes closed the switch. The ball was so covered with the huge tentacles that they could see nothing, but the light had its usual effect and they were released. The ball sank toward the bottom and they could see the huge cephalopod lying below watching them. Blood was flowing from a wound near one of its eyes where the Minneconsin’s shell had found its mark.

Toward the huge monster they sank until they lay on the bottom of the ocean and a few yards from it. In an instant the sea became opaque and they could see nothing.

“He has shot his ink!” cried the doctor. “Here comes the real attack. Strap yourself to the wall where you can reach one of the motor switches.”

Through the darkness huge arms came out and wrapped themselves around the ball. The heavy vitrilene groaned under the enormous pressure which was applied, but it held. The ink was clearing slightly and they could see that the sphere was covered by the arms. The mass moved and the huge maw opened before them. The pipes projecting from the sides of the ball were buried in the creature’s flesh.

“Good Lord, he’s going to swallow us!” gasped the doctor. “Quick, Carnes, the motor switch.”

He closed one of them as he spoke, and the powerful little electric motors began to hum, forcing forward the piston attached to the tank connected to the hollow rods. Steadily the little motors hummed, and the tank emptied through the rods into the body of the giant cephalopod.

“I hope the stuff works fast,” groaned the doctor as they approached closer to the giant maw. “I never tried giving an octopus a hypodermic injection of prussic acid before, but it ought to do the business. There’s enough acid there to kill half New York City.”

Carnes blanched as the ball approached the mouth. One by one the arms unwound until only one was holding them and the jaws opened wider. They were almost in them when the motion stopped.