He swung to the big telescope mounted in the west windows. "Bah! It gets worse. Those creatures, they don't know when they are dead. And the way they come! We must go soon."

He swung back to Fallon. "But how to find out if you are right?"

"You have a submarine," said Fallon.

"So has the Navy."

"But they're all needed. Yours can go where the big ones can't—and go deeper. These monsters are all heading for land, which means they gravitate to the surface. You might get through below."

"Yes." Bjarnsson strode up and down the cluttered room. "We could take a depth charge. If we found the volcano to be the cause, we might close the fissure.

"Time, Fallon! That is the thing. A few days, a few weeks, and the sheer pressure of these hordes will have forced the defenders back to the mountains and the deserts. Civilian morale will break."

He stopped, making a sharp gesture of futility. "I am forgetting. The radiations, Fallon. Without proper insulation, we would evolve like the sea-things. And it would take many days to make lead armor for us, even if we could get anyone to do the work."

"Radiations," said Fallon slowly. "Yeah. I'd forgotten that. Well, that stops that. Projector or volcano, you'd never reach it."

He brushed a hand across his eyes, all his brief enthusiasm burned away. He was getting like that. He wished he had a drink.

"Probably all moonshine, anyway," he said. "Anyhow, there's nothing we can do about it."

"Nothing!" Joan Daniels spoke so sharply that both men started. "You mean you're not even going to try?"

"Bjarnsson can pass the idea along for what it's worth."

"You know what that means, Webb! The idea would be either laughed at or pigeonholed, especially with the Jap propagandists doing such a good job. The government's got a war on its hands. Even if someone did pay attention, nothing would be done until too late. It never is."

She gripped his arms, looking up at him with eyes like sea-blue swords.

"If there's a bare chance of saving them, Webb, you've got to take it!"

Fallon looked down at her, his 

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