Tiny muscles on the Martian's face began to tense. Sweat broke out on his face.

"You cannot harm me," he said steadily. "Can only kill me. If you kill me, mankind die. We of Mars have then a planet of water to ourselves. That's my warning. Heed me."

Fifteen minutes passed. Olduk's face was a mass of blood and burns. Every nerve in his body was quivering. He had answered none of the questions hurled at him. He had refused to divulge the location of the buried ship. Finally his muscles relaxed, and his double-lidded eyes sagged shut.

The chief of the secret service said ragingly, "Throw him into a cell, the dirty—! We'll work on him later!"

After Olduk was taken away, the iron-gray man looked at the Speaker.

"What do we do now?"

The Speaker looked in horror at the sphere of water in his hand. "We'll have to give in—"

"Damned if we will," the other snarled, pacing up and down. "If we could find out where that ship is, we could send a super-tension ship down and blow it to—" He stopped, his eyes lighting. He wheeled. "Didn't Olduk say 'ten miles' below the surface? Damn! There aren't many places that deep—" He snapped his fingers, and reached for a phone.

Three hours later, a bullet-shaped rocket ship, able to withstand thousands of tons' pressure, and reinforced with an intangible force-field, fled away from the continent, bound for the Maracot Deep; for such was the first choice, and, as it happened, it was the last.

High above the ocean, the pilot turned the craft nose-down, and poured full power into his jets.

The craft plunged for the surface of the hard ocean, at frightful velocity; struck; penetrated; was under, velocity broken almost in three by the terrific impact. The ship bored down, powerful searchlights playing on swarms of startled fishes. Down, down. The pilot made an exclamation, grinned his triumph. Here, ten miles down, they saw the hulk of the ship that was causing such destruction in the world above.

The pilot signaled one of his subordinates. The man pulled a lever. The craft's entire load of super-explosives sank downward toward the menace.

The pilot sent his ship blasting for the surface. Seconds later he heard and felt the tremendous vibration that, he knew, heralded 

 Prev. P 12/18 next