_The Silent Ray_
A strange shape had suddenly materialized on the screen--an immense,
oval-shaped thing of dull metal, with great curving cuts of glass-like
substance in its blunt bow, like staring eyes; a lifeless, staring
thing, stretching far into the curtain of gloom behind. How long it
was, Keith could not tell; at first his numb brain refused to grasp it
and reduce it to definite, sane standards of size and length. The cold
weeds of the sea-floor kelp beds swayed eerily over and around it.
From its bow, he saw, peculiar knobs jutted, the function of which he
guessed with dread.
Was it waiting with a purpose? Was it waiting--and inviting attack?
A frightened whisper from Hemmy Bowman broke the hush:
"Keith, the thing has ports, but shows no lights! What kind of
creatures can they be?"
As he spoke, the three men in the control room felt the unmistakable,
jarring tingle of an electric shock. And while their nerves still
jumped, it came again; and again. They were conscious of a slight
feeling of drowsiness.
Keith gaped at Bowman and Brown, and then a flash on the teleview
screen drew his eyes. There, against the blackness of its otherwise
inanimate hulk, one of the jutting knobs on the bow of the mysterious
submarine was glowing and pulsing with orange life! With it came the
tingling shock again. It flicked off as they watched, then returned
and went once more.
"They're attacking, but thank God the shock was harmless!" Wells said
grimly. "All right; they've asked for it: I'm going to see how they
like the taste of a torpedo!"
* * * * *
The two submarines were resting on the ocean floor with perhaps two
hundred feet between them. The _NX-1's_ bow tubes were not exactly in
line to score a direct hit; she would have to be maneuvered slightly
to port. The range was short; the explosion from the torpedoes would
be titanic.
Keith punched the control studs, ordering the men below to assume
firing stations. Then, while waiting for the _NX-1_ to shift, he
studied the teleview screen to sight the range exactly. The black dot
which represented the enemy craft was not directly on the crossed
hair-lines of the dial-like range-finder, but shifting the _NX-1_ a
few feet would bring it to the perfect firing point.
But the _NX-1_ did not budge.
Surprised, her commander swung and looked at Bowman. "What the devil?"
he cried. "Did that shock--?" He left the dread thought unfinished and
leaped to the speaking tubes.
"Craig! Jones! Wetherby!" he yelled. "Men! Don't you hear me? Aren't
you--"
He broke off, wordless, waiting for an answer that did not come, then
sprang to the connecting ramp and ran to the deck below.
The scene he found halted him abruptly in his tracks. Every member of
the crew was sprawled on the deck, in grotesque, limp postures. They
had been standing rigidly at posts, he saw, when the thing, whatever
it was, had struck. Without a sound, without a single cry of alarm,
the _NX-1's_ crew had been laid low!
* * * * *
The commander slowly advanced to the deck and stared more closely at
the upturned faces around him. He saw that every man's eyes were open.
Bending over one still form, he pressed his hand on the heart. It was
beating! The man was alive! Amazed, he moved to another and another:
they were all breathing, slowly and regularly--were all alive! A
curious look in their eyes staggered him for a moment. He could swear
that they recognized him, knew he was staring at them--for every
single pair was alight with intelligence, and Keith fancied he saw
gleams of recognition.
"It must have been a paralyzing ray!" he gasped. "A thing our
scientists've been trying to develop for years.... And that monster
outside knows the secret...." He lifted an arm of the inert figure at
his feet; when he released the grip, it flopped limply back to the
deck again.
"_Keith! Come back, quick!_"
Startled, the commander turned to find Hemingway Bowman at the top of
the connecting ramp, his face distorted with alarm.
"For God's sake, come back quick!" he yelled again. "Down there the
ray might get you!"
With the words, Wells leaped to the ramp and raced to the control
room. He had no sooner made it than he felt again the queer tingle of
the electric charge. He found himself trembling. Bowman's face was
white. His words came stuttering.
"One second later and they'd have got you.... They got Sparks in his
cubby.... You see, the ray doesn't affect us in the control room
because--"
"Because the Gibson insulation that protects the instruments keeps it
out!" Keith finished grimly. "I see!"
Just then a slight jar ran through the submarine. Coincident with it
came a cry from Brown, the helmsman. His arm was pointed at the
teleview.
There they saw the enemy's mighty dirigible of metal was now within
thirty feet of the _NX-1._ It had crept up silently, without warning.
And, spanning the short gulf between them, an arm of webbed metal
craned from the other's huge bow, hooking tightly into the American
submarine's forward hawser holes!
As they took this in, the enemy ship moved away and the arm of metal
tightened. The _NX-1_ shuddered. And, at first slowly, but with ever
increasing speed, she got under way and slid after her captor. They
were being towed away. Kidnaped! Men, submarine and all!
* * * * *
Keith Wells mopped sweat from a hot brow and rapidly reviewed his
weapons. He was sorely restricted. Through an emergency system the
_NX-1_ could be propelled and maneuvered from her control room; but
the torpedo tubes needed local attendance.
"Hemmy, reverse engines," he jerked, himself spinning over a small
wheel. "Let's see if we can out-pull the devil!"
At once they felt the shock of the paralyzing ray, and then the
surging whine of the Edsel electrics pulsed up and in the teleview
screen they watched the grim struggle of ship against ship.
Imperceptibly, almost, as her screws cut in and churned, the forward
progress of the _NX-1_ was slowing, the speed of the other being cut
down, until finally they but barely forged ahead. Slowly, ever so
slowly they were out-pulled; inch by inch they were dragged ahead.
Their motors could not hold even.
"She's more powerful than we!" Wells' bitter voice spoke. "Damn!" He
thought desperately, while Bowman and Brown stared at the fantastic
tale the teleview spelled out.
Again the paralyzing shock tingled, an intangible jailer that bound
them, more surely than steel bars, to the control room. To dare that
streaming barrage meant instant impotence, and perhaps, later,
death....
"Our two bow torpedoes," Keith mused slowly. "We're a bit close, but
it's our only chance. The ray comes at intervals of about a minute;
the torps are ready for firing. If one of us could dash forward and
discharge 'em.... Brown, that's you!"
The petty officer met his commander's gaze levelly. He smiled. "Yes,
sir, I'm ready!" he said.
"Good! It'll have to be quick work, though; I'll try and keep the sub
pointed straight. Wait for the ray, then run like hell!"
* * * * *
The first officer took over the helm and Brown stepped to the forward
ladder, waiting for the periodic ray to be discharged.
The odd tingle came and vanished. "Now!" Wells roared, and Brown
leaped down the thin steel rungs.
He staggered at the bottom from the force of his impact, then
straightened and raced madly forward. Through the drone of the motors
the two officers could hear the staccato beat of his feet.
But their eyes were glued to the teleview. Through clutching beds of
seaweed the enemy submarine was ploughing. Her great, smooth bow lay
straight ahead, metal hawser arm spanning the thirty feet between
them. In another second, Keith thought grimly, two dynamite packed
tubes of sudden death would thunderbolt into that hull, and--
Brown pulled the lever.
The tubes spat out compressed air; a scream ran through the submarine;
and the two steel fish leaped from their sheaths, their tiny props
roaring. Over the narrow gulf they shot; the range was short, their
target dead ahead--and yet by bare inches they missed!
No answering roar bellowed back. Keith had watched their course; had
seen them flash by the enemy's bow, flicking it with their rudders,
but nothing more. "Why?" he cried. And, as Bowman moved his hands in a
hopeless gesture, he saw in the teleview the reason.
It was a jagged pinnacle of rock, which, just before Brown had fired,
had been straight ahead. The towing monster had seen it and veered
sharply to avoid crashing. The barest change of course, yet sufficient
to avoid the torpedoes....
* * * * *
Wells and Bowman were cursing savagely when the sound of Brown, racing
desperately aft, jerked the commander to the ladder. He saw the petty
officer at its foot. "Hurry!" Wells shouted. "The ray!"
Brown grasped the steel rungs and scrambled upward, but he was too
late. The fatal charge tingled. A peculiar, surprised expression
washed over his face; his hands loosened their grip. For a second his
eyes looked questioningly at his commander; a faint sigh escaped him;
and then his arms flung out, his body relaxed, and he slumped like a
slab of meat to the deck below....
Keith Wells saw red. Blind to everything, he was just about to charge
down the ladder to himself re-load the forward tubes when the grip of
Hemmy Bowman's hand stayed him. The thing Hemmy was staring at in the
teleview screen sobered him completely.
The wall of rock to which the enemy submarine had first been charging
had become visible, soaring vastly from the gloom of the sea-floor.
And the monster was towing them straight into a dark, jagged cleft at
its base.
"It's a cavern!" Keith breathed. "A split in the rock--the lair of
that devil. And we're being dragged into it!"