Creatures of the Abyss, Murray Leinster [read after .txt] 📗

led the smaller boat astern and tethered it.

"We're safe enough here," Terry said bitterly, "and since you've come, we can stay and watch if anything happens. If only she keeps on going...."

But La Rubia did not. Her lights showed that she had changed course. She changed course again. Her masthead light began to waver from side to side. She wallowed in such a way that it was clear she was neither on course nor in motion any longer.

Nobody gave orders, but the Esperance's engine roared. The action from this point on became an automatic and quick response to an emergency.

The schooner-yacht plunged ahead at top speed. Terry switched on the recorder and the ultrapowerful sound projector. Davis bent over the searchlight. Two of the crew-cuts readied the bazookas.

Suddenly, a flare went off on La Rubia's deck. Her stubby masts and spars became startlingly bright. Screams came across the waves, even above the growling of the surf and above the noise of the Esperance's engine.

The flare shot through the air. It arched in a high parabola, bright in the sky, and fell into the sea. Another flare was ignited.

The Esperance's searchlight flicked on. A long pencil of light reached across the waves as she raced on. More screamings were heard. Another flare burned. It arched overside. The Esperance plunged on, shouldering aside the heavier waves of open water.

A half-mile. A quarter-mile. La Rubia wallowed crazily, and more shrieks came from her deck. Then the fishing boat seemed to swing. Beyond her, a conical, glistening and utterly horrifying monster emerged, a mere few yards from her rail. Enormous eyes glittered in the searchlight rays. A monstrous tentacle with a row of innumerable sucker-disks reached over the stern of La Rubia.

Another flare swept from the fishing boat's deck in the direction of the giant squid. It fell upon wetted, shining flesh. The monster jerked, and La Rubia was shaken from stem to stern. Hurriedly, Terry pressed the power-feed button, and the sound projector was on. Its effect was instantaneous. The monster began to writhe convulsively. It was gigantic. It was twice, three times the size of the squid captured in the lagoon. Terry heard his own voice cry out, "Bazookas! Use 'em! Use 'em!"

Flaring rocket missiles sped toward the giant. Davis flung one of the hand grenades he'd manufactured. The yacht plunged on toward the clutched, half-sunk fishing boat. The hand grenade exploded against the monster's flesh. Simultaneously, the bazooka-missiles hit their target and flung living, incandescent flame deep into the creature's body. Those flames would melt steel. They bored deeply into the squid, and they were infinitely more damaging than bullets.

The creature leaped from the water, as chunks of its flesh exploded. It was a mountainous horror risen from the sea. As it leaped, it had squirted the inky substance which is the squid's ultimate weapon of defense. But, unlike small squid, this beast of the depths squirted phosphorescent ink.

The beast splashed back into the sea, and the wave of its descent swept over the deck of La Rubia. The fishing boat nearly capsized. But the monster had not escaped the anguish of its wounds. It fought the injured spots as though an enemy still gnawed there. It was a struggling madness in the sea.

The Esperance swung to approach the half-sunken trawler, and Terry kept the searchlight on the turmoil. The beast knew panic. It was wounded, and the abyss is not a place where the weak or wounded can long survive. Its fellows would be coming....

They did. Something enormous moved swiftly under the sea toward the wounded monster. It could be seen by the phosphorescence its motion created, as it approached the surface. There was a jar, a jolt. Some part of it actually touched the Esperance's keel. The huge monster moved ahead, but a trailing tentacle flicked up to what it had touched a moment before.

The ugly tentacle trailed over the yacht's rail. The rail shattered. The forecastle hatch was wiped out. The bowsprit became mere debris which dangled foolishly from the standing rigging.

The Esperance bucked wildly at this fleeting contact. Nick fired a bazooka-shell, but it missed. Holding fast, Davis flung a grenade. It detonated uselessly. It was then that Deirdre screamed.

Terry froze for an instant. There had simply been no time for him to think that Deirdre might be aboard. It was inexcusable, but nothing could be done now.

Tony had been knocked overside by the shock of the contact with the giant, and was swimming desperately trying to follow the yacht and climb back on board. Terry flashed the searchlight about. He found Tony, splashing. The Esperance swung in her own length while Terry kept the searchlight beam focused. More shrieks came from La Rubia. Davis threw a rope and Tony caught it. They hauled him aboard, and the Esperance turned again to pluck away the trawler's crewmen.

There were unbelievable splashings off to port. Terry flung the lightbeam in that direction. It fell upon unimaginable conflict. The monster that had passed under the yacht now battled the wounded squid. They fought on the surface, horribly. A maze of intertwining tentacles glistened in the light, and their revolting bodies appeared now and again as the battered creature fought to protect itself, and the other to devour. Other enormous squids came hurrying to the scene. They flung themselves into the gruesome fight, tearing at the dying monster and at each other. There were still others on the way....

The sea resounded with desperate mooing sounds.

The Esperance bumped against La Rubia. Frantic, hysterically frightened men clambered up from the deck of the sinking trawler to the yacht. As soon as they were aboard they implored their rescuers to head for land, immediately.

"Get 'em all off!" bellowed Terry, in command by simple virtue of having clear ideas of what had to be done. "Get 'em all off!"

The stout skipper of La Rubia jumped over the yacht's rail. Without orders, the yacht's engine bellowed. The Esperance turned toward the shore, which now seemed very far away.

Something splashed to starboard. The sea glowed all around it. Terry poured the pain-sound exactly in that direction. The monster went into convulsions. The yacht swerved away to keep its distance. She raced on, past the spot where the giant flailed its tentacles insanely about. It mooed.

The Esperance raced at full speed toward the island. About a mile ahead, the surf roared and foamed on the coral reef almost awash.

Back at the scene of the battle of monsters, there was a sudden break in the conflict. One of the wounded giants broke free. It may have been the one the Esperance had first attacked; perhaps it was another, which might have been partly devoured while still fighting.

In any case, one of them broke loose and fled, with the hellish pack after it. It is the instinct of squids, if injured, to try to find some submarine cavern in which to hide. The monster dived, and the others pursued it. There was no opening in the reef barrier—not underwater. But there was an opening on the surface. The crippled beast had to find a refuge, or be torn to bits. It may have been guided by instinct, or perhaps the current flowing into or out of the lagoon furnished the clue. In any case, the fleeing creature darted crazily into the channel used by the Esperance for passage. For a little way, it proceeded underwater. Then it grounded itself. Hopelessly.

And the pursuing pack arrived.

The sight from the Esperance's deck was straight out of the worst possible nightmare. Glistening serpentine tentacles writhed and flailed the seas. They tore the swells to froth. The pursuers had flung themselves savagely upon the helpless one. The gap in the reef was closed by the battling giants. They slavered. They gripped. They tore. They rent each other....

Terry saw a tentacle as thick as a barrel which had been haggled half through and dangled futilely as its stump still tried to fight.

And more giants came. Terry shouted, and the Esperance turned. He could see large patches of phosphorescence under the surface. And suddenly, he noticed that a few of them had swerved toward the Esperance. As they approached the sound-horn stung them. They went into convulsive struggling, as the sound played upon them, and they passed the Esperance by.

Davis found Terry beside the sound-weapon's controls watching the sea with desperate intensity.

"Listen," said Davis fiercely, "we're out at sea and we can't get back into the lagoon! We'd better get away from here!"

"Across deep water?" demanded Terry. "That dangerous foam can come up from deep water, but maybe not from shallow water. We've got to stay close to the reef until the flattop comes and bombs these creatures—if it will ever come!"

Davis made a helpless gesture. Terry said crisply, "Get the 'copter to hang over the reef and report on the fighting there. Tell it to report to the flattop. They may not believe us, but they may send a plane anyway. And if the ships come, they'll have to believe about the foam! Tell them to listen for it underwater. They've got sonar gear."

Davis stumbled away. Presently, the dark figure of Nick lowered himself through what had been the forecastle hatch. Davis followed him.

Deirdre came over to Terry.

"Terry ..."

"I'm going to beat in the heads," said Terry, "of those idiots who came after your father and me without throwing you on the wharf first!"

"They'd have wasted precious time," said Deirdre calmly. "I wouldn't have let them. Do you think I want to be ashore when you ..."

There was the faintest of palings of the horizon to the east. Terry said grimly, "I'm going to try to find a passage through the surf, to get you ashore. I'm keeping the Esperance in shallow water—inside the hundred-fathom line—but I don't trust it. Certainly I don't trust a ship to make you safer!"

"It's going to be daybreak soon," she protested. "Then...."

"Then we won't be able to see what goes on underwater," he told her. "Those ... creatures down below are smart!"

There was a racketing, rumbling roar from the island. A light rose above the tree-tops. Presently a parachute-flare lit up. Then there was another, as if the men in the helicopter did not believe what they saw the first time.

"Terry," said Deirdre shakily, "I'm ... glad we found each other, no matter what happens...."

Davis came up from below.

"The flattop's only a few miles away. They're now proceeding at top speed. The mine layer's following. They'll be here by sunrise."

Far away to the east, some brightness entered into the paling of the sky. A drab, colorless light spread over the sea. The ocean was a dark, slate blue. Swells flattened abruptly about a quarter-mile away. Terry aimed the sound-weapon and pressed the button. Something gigantic started up, and the top of a huge squid's mantle pierced the surface. The giant leaped convulsively, high above the water, save for trailing tentacles. It was larger than a whale. It fell back into the sea with a loud splash, and moved away quickly.

Color came into the sky. The sun's upper rim appeared. Flecks of gold spread upon the sea.

Far, far away at the horizon a dark speck appeared. As the sun climbed up over the edge of the world, the speck turned golden. There was a mist of smoke above it. A plane took off from the ship. Another plane followed.

Fighter planes flashed toward the island. One of them zoomed sharply, like a bird astonished at something it has seen below. It whirled and came back over that spot. There was the rasping whine of a machine gun. Something like a giant snake reared up and fell back again. And now more planes appeared.

Sunrise was suddenly complete. Terry stared out over the sea. And he could not believe his eyes, accustomed as he was to the highly unlikely, now. Giant squids were afloat at the surface. He saw one here, and another there, and another, and another.... They were emerging by tens, by scores.

"They've been sent up," said Terry very grimly, "by an entity that didn't evolve on the earth. They're ... domesticated, in a way. They're watchdogs for whatever arrives in bolides that fall in the Luzon Deep. They are the reason for the shining circle of sea from which thousands of tons of living fish were drawn down into the abyss. The creatures—the ... ellos who listen to what fish and fishermen say—they keep these things as domestic animals. And they have to feed them. Those mooings were the ... cries of these things waiting to be fed. Try to imagine that, Deirdre! In the blackness of the pit, in the abyss at the bottom of the sea...."

A tentacle broke surface. Terry swung the sound-beam. A mantle reared above the waves. A bazooka-shell hit it. Something huge and stupid and monstrous fought the impalpable thing that hurt it....

Davis approached.

"These," he said absurdly, "aren't the