"They were probably afraid the monsters might get out of hand and tackle their own people," said Joan bitterly.

"Maybe." Again Fallon's eyes were distant. Then he clapped his hands sharply and sprang up. "Yes! Got it, Joan!"

The quick motion ripped at the wound across his back. He swayed and caught her shoulder, but he didn't stop talking.

"Einar Bjarnsson! He was my last job. I interviewed him the day before the quake. I want to see him, Joan. Now!"

She took his wrists, half frightened. "What is it, Webb?"

"Listen," he said softly. "Remember the radio calls from the islands? The monsters came out of the west here, didn't they? Well, out there—they came out of the east!"

Fallon explained, as he sent the car screaming perilously along winding mountain roads. Einar Bjarnsson was an expert on undersea life. He had charted tide paths and sub-sea 'rivers,' mapped the continental shelves and the great deeps.

Bjarnsson's recent exploration had been in the Pacific, using a specially constructed small submarine. His findings on deep-sea phenomena had occupied space in scientific journals and the Sunday supplements of newspapers throughout the world.

Two days before the big quake Einar Bjarnsson returned to the place he called home—a small bachelor cabin on a hilltop, crammed with scientific traps and trophies of his exploring. Webb Fallon drew the assignment of interviewing him.

"I was pretty sore at Madge, then," Fallon confessed, "and I had a ferocious hangover. The interview didn't go so well. But I remember Bjarnsson mentioning something about a volcanic formation quite close to the Pacific coast—something nobody had noticed before. It was apparently extinct, and the only thing that made it notable was its rather unusual conformation."

Joan stared at him. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Fallon shrugged. "Maybe nothing. Only I recall that the epicenter of the recent quake was somewhere in the vicinity of Bjarnsson's volcano. I remember that damned quake quite well, because it cost me my job."

Joan opened her mouth and closed it again, hard. Fallon grinned.

"You were going to tell me it wasn't the quake, but my own bad character," he 

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