Triplanetary

marine, a

te familiar with the machine tools of the amphibians. Their stolen lifeboat, being an emergency craft, of course carried full repair equipme

into the practically unbreakable storage cylinders. Mile upon strangely flat mile stretched that waveless, unbroken expanse of water, merging finally into the violent redness of the Nevian sky. The sun was setting; a vast ball of purple flame dropping rapidly toward the h

ed wildly down into the compartment below, out of Costigan's way, for he and

and drove the massive disk home into its bottle-tight, insulated seat, that grisly tip fell severed to the floor of the compartment and lay there, twitching and writhing with a loathsome and unearthly vigor. Two feet long the piece was, and larger than a strong man's leg. It was a

d and ground upon the outer plating of their small vessel. Costigan stood unmoved at the plate, watching intently; hands ready upon the controls. Due to the artificial gravity of the lifeboat it seemed perfectly stationary to its occupants. Only the weird gyrations of the pictures upon th

to do something, C

afraid that it will kick up enough disturbance to bring Nerado down on us like a hawk after a chicken. However, if he takes us

switches. Against the full propellant thrust the monster could draw them no lower, but neither could the lifeboat make any headway toward the surface. The Terrestrial then turned on his rays,

anyway, and what can we

dy that I can see," Costigan made answer. "It must be a kind of flat worm. That doesn't sound reasonable--the thing must b

upward as the metallic fins of the gigantic worm fanned vapor instead of water, but the creature neither released its hold nor ceased its relentl

aximum power. "Look at that! I knew that Nerado could trace us, but I didn't have any idea that they could. It

hes of the greater deeps. It was coming directly toward the lifeboat, and even as Costigan hurled the little vessel off at an angle and then upward into the air one

d a tractor ray upon the flying vessel before it had gained a mile of altitude. Costigan aligned his every driving pr

tem to do it, and I'm afraid to monkey around with things too much, because I might accidentally release the scr

g an incandescent violet under the concentration of the forces being

furious corkscrew turn, and the very air blazed into flaming splendor as a dazz

e began furiously to boil under the full-driven offensive beams of the tiny Nevian ship. But escape Costigan could not. He could not cut that tractor beam and the utmost power of his drivers could not wrest the lifeboat from its tenacious clutch. And slowly but inexorably the ship of space was being drawn downward toward the ship of ocean's depth

mber is going up, Conway,

stiff upper lip, girl. We're still brea

itself away, the three passengers were thrown violently to the floor, in spite of the powerful gravity controls. Scrambling up on hands and knees, bracing himself as best he could against the terrific forces, Costigan managed finally to force a hand up

ented, after a glance into the plate. "I hope th

lio. "I should th

or us. I don't really expect that, but if they can keep him busy long eno

ce screaming out ahead of her. The rays of the little lifeboat had boiled the waters of the ocean; those of the parent craft seemed literally to blast them out of existence. All about the green submarine there had been volumes of furiously-boiling water and dense clouds of vapor; now water and fog alike disappeared, converted into tr

at seething funnel there was waged desperate conflict. At that funnel's wildly turbulent bottom lay the submarine, now apparently trying to escape, but held fas

ace-ship shot away from the strange, red planet; and smaller and smaller upon the plate became its picture. Long since the great vessel of the void had plunged beneath the surface of the sea, more closely to come to grips with the vessel of the fishes; for a long time nothing of the battle had been visible save immense clouds of steam, blanketing hundreds of square miles of the ocean

g smaller in the distance, Costigan swung his visiray be

. He whipped two of those submarines that we know of, and probably half their fleet besides. There's no particular

nd I'm afraid that with their i

we do, Conwa

ope on that paralyzing ray and some of their other stuff, and we

k--the two officers deftly and surely; Clio uncertainly and with many questions, but with undaunted spirit. Finally, having done all they could do to strengthe