was the last articulate speech he made, and the last words Black had time to hear, for suddenly Gresham began to struggle violently with the blankets, striving to throw them off, lashing out with clenched fists whenever Black tried to hold him.

In the end they had to strap him to the bunk to keep him from injuring himself and those around him. He lay there struggling furiously, resting in panting silence and then fighting against the restraining bands again. His face was wild with a ferocity that sent cold shivers through Black’s mind, a less than human ferocity.

And in the writhing of his body against the straps, in the way it bowed and lashed straight again, and the strangely fluid motions of his struggle, Black tried not to think he saw the movement of a shark’s body fighting in deep water against an alien foe.

“Blood!” Gresham muttered, deep in his throat. “Blood—so much blood—can’t see, but—there’s another—kill, kill! Kill them all!”

And it seemed to Black that the little cabin was dark with the dark of the undersea and blinded with blood that spread through the dim water, and boiling with the terrible combat of an unknown struggle.

He knew to an instant when the shark died. He could tell by the last spasmodic convulsion of Gresham’s body on the bed, the double lashing motion and the sudden silence. He even thought he saw for an instant the blankness of death itself flicker across Gresham’s face, the brush of it touching the edges of the mind that had controlled the shark’s mind.

After that there was only silence, and the slumber of deep exhaustion....

“It was too late,” Gresham said. His voice was a whisper, hoarse from the shouting he had done through his nightmare. His body was bruised from struggling against the straps, and his mind was sick and tired.

“It must have been too late from the moment the explosion went off, if anyone had known. But they still hoped. They sent the Swimmer up and they brought me down, hoping until the last I could do something.” He laughed briefly, a croaking sound in his raw throat. “I might have known it was too wonderful to last. The cities and the people—they were never meant for human eyes to see. I was lucky to get even the one glimpse I had. And maybe it’s just as well. The two cultures never could have met. If there were any way for humans to reach them, we’d only have destroyed their culture as we’ve destroyed everything else 

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