jaws and darting forked tongue, with bulging eyes, and bony head and snout.

"Keep diving," yelled Moljar. "It won't open its mouth under water." He watched her surface dive like a fish, then followed himself just as the bullet-like head of the hissing hydrophidian slashed down.

Its massive length coiled and uncoiled savagely about them. The water was a churning white foam. Moljar tried repeatedly to sink his knife into the under-belly of the serpent. But it was like soft but tough plastic, only slightly resilient.

Its massive length coiled and uncoiled savagely about them.

He broke surface, gasped great gulps of the dense air. He saw Mahra and pointed to the right toward the flat raft object they had seen floating there. He yelled. "Keep diving and swimming toward that." Then he went under again as the serpent's head slapped into the water where his own head had been.

It was a world of phosphorescent glimmerings like monstrous fireflies, bubbling and coruscating about his staring eyes as he battled the boiling currents stirred by the serpent. He swam until his lungs were shrieking with agony, then came up again for air. He was only a few feet this time from the floating area. It looked like a collected mass of debris now.

He swam frantically toward it. If he could get up out of the water, he could break out his electro-gun. He looked around for the girl. Her head bobbed up. But still some distance from him. The hydrophidian hissed angrily and struck again. Her silver hair disappeared beneath the serpent's mouth.

He drew himself up onto the raft. He had a quick second of appraisal as he tore the gun from its plastic wrappings. The raft was solid, very buoyant, and membranaceous. Its surface was glossy and veined like the broad leaves of the swamp lilies.

How thick this raft was, how it was made, or how much more of it there was Moljar had no time to think about. But he did know it was alive!

The girl came up a few metres from him this time. Her arms moved weakly. Her face was deathly pale and her eyes pleaded silently beneath the bizarre strands of her silver hair. She again started to sink wearily down as the serpent hissed hungrily and struck.

This time it would have feasted. However Moljar's electro-gun crackled, and its lethal charges burned the monster's glistening 

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