little faces. But I could see now the evidence of Nereid's Earth heritage—these other girls, even more slim and frail-looking, with oval faces and pert little pointed chins. And their skin was distinctly less pink-white than hers.

Finally the departure for battle. Assembling of this weird little sub-sea army. I watched it with silent, awed amazement. There was but one type of sub-sea vessel here, the small underwater cylinders such as Leh and Allen had come in from the country of the Gorts. Most of them were that same twenty foot size, to carry two men; and a few of them were some thirty feet, with space for three. An underwater electronic ray armed them in bow and stern. Leh explained the weapon to me. It had an effective range of fifty feet, with a current duration of some ten seconds. It would kill any living substance at that range almost instantly; and with duration would eat into the metal armour of Tollgamo's ships.

"My father has had no opportunity to build an underwater weapon of more range and power than this. It is all we have," Leh was telling us. And my heart sank, and Allen and I exchanged glances of dismay, as Leh added:

"Tollgamo has built them up to a range of three hundred feet."

There were about fifty of the small cylinder-boats; most of them to take two men. For battle tonight it was all Peters could assemble. But the cylinders were fleet as darting fishes. We had mobility, and courage, but with sinking heart I wondered if it would serve us.

And I also wondered what Tollgamo would have. Leh's information gave us little hint; and presently he, Allen and I took one of the larger cylinders.

We ran without lights. For a time all I could see was a turgid vista of dark-green depths. An abyss of water at times was beneath us. Then there were the tops of jagged mountain peaks, naked black needle spires rising in clusters out of the depths. Leh knew very well the oceanography here in this undulating terrain of seascape. We headed for the mouth of the inlet at the head of which Tollgamo's city was perched. But before we reached there, little lights down in the watery green haze suddenly appeared. An orange, blurred haze, separating in a moment into dotted points of light.

"Tollgamo's forces!" Leh murmured.

At perhaps a hundred feet of depth, we shut off our tiny rocket-streams of oxo-hydro fluorescence and hung poised. The three of us sat breathless, peering. Had our 

 Prev. P 38/48 next