how the Others kill, and what they look like. After that I knew. If the decision were mine, I’d exterminate them all. I can’t help that feeling. It’s instinct. There are things too degenerate to live.

“It’s all been going on down there for I don’t know how many centuries, how many milleniums. Think of it, Black! Empires rising and falling, races ruling and races enslaved, sciences developing along lines we’ll never understand and nobody guessing it until the Swimmer came to the surface.

“His race is intelligent. They must have realized the new radiations and the explosion had come from another intelligent race. They’ve seen sunken ships and drowned men, they knew we lived here in the air. But they’re so alien ... No communication is really possible between us. If it weren’t for the accident that did—whatever it did—to my brain, no human might ever have known.

“Well, I’m going back. There’s trouble down there. They need help.” Gresham paused and laughed harshly. “Why do I keep thinking I can help them? I can’t even share their thoughts. All I can do is find some creature to take me down into the depths, so I can see with its eyes. I can watch, if I can’t help. I can move through those wonderful cities again, and see the Swimmer’s people.” His voice faltered and he gave his mind up for an instant to the memory of that race and its beauty and wildness and strange, alien enchantment.

“The Swimmer himself had to stay,” Gresham said. “The machines—you’d never guess they were machines to see them—weren’t working well. All who could had to help the machines, help to keep the dark race—the Others—away from the cities. So the Swimmer’s mind let go of mine and I had to come back.”

“What can you do?” Black asked. “Is there any way to get in touch again?”

Gresham turned his blinded face toward the ocean. He was silent for a moment.

“That shark,” he said. “The big one. He’s still following us.”

Black had to rise and lean over the rail to make sure.

“Yes, I can see him now. He’s with us.”

“That’ll do,” Gresham said confidently. “An intelligent mind can control a non-intelligent one for awhile. I’ll take the shark’s body and go back.”

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