A call came through the communication tube from Sparks. "Report from Consolidated Radio News-Broadcasters, sir, aimed especially at us." "Well?" asked Keith, motioning Hemmy to listen in. Sparks read it. "'A week ago Atlantic City reported that seven men were snatched off fishing boat by unidentified tentacled monsters. Testimony of witnesses was discredited, but was later corroborated by the almost identical testimony of other witnesses at Brighton Beach, England, who saw man and woman taken by mysterious monsters whilst bathing.' Perhaps these same creatures destroyed the Newfoundland fishing fleet." His level voice ceased. "Tentacled monsters ... 'machine-fish,'" Wells murmured slowly. "'Machine-fish.'..." Their eyes met, the same wonder in each. "Well," Keith rapped at last, "we're seeing this through!" * * * * * He turned again to the location chart. The green spot as always was in the center, and at a constant distance was the red, showing that the _NX-1_ was hot on the other's trail. The depth dials indicated that both were diving deeper every moment. "Where in hell's it going?" the commander rasped. "We'll be on the floor in a few minutes!" Here the teleview showed the world to be one of fantasy, one to which the sun did not exist. It was not an utter, pitchy blackness that pervaded the water, but rather a peculiar, dark blueness. No fish schools, Keith noted, scurried from them. They had already left these waters; aware, perhaps, of the passing Terror.... They plunged lower yet. Wells was conscious of Hemmy Bowman's quick, uneven breathing. Conscious of the tautness of his own nerves, strung like quivering violin strings. Conscious of the terrific walls of water pressing in on them. And conscious of the men below, their lives bound implicitly in his will and brain.... A thought came to him, and quickly he reached into a rack for the chart of the local sea-floor. His brow creased with puzzlement as he studied it. "Here's more mystery, Hemmy," he muttered. "Look--there's an underwater cliff about half a mile dead ahead. It rises to within four thousand feet of the surface. And that thing out there is charging straight into its base!" "They must be aware of it," jerked the other. "See?--they've stopped!" * * * * * It was true. The gulf between the two colored spots was rapidly being swallowed up. At a pulsing forty-one knots the _NX-1_ was closing in on the motionless mystery craft. "They're sinking to the floor itself," observed Wells. "Perhaps waiting to attack." The invisible beams from their ultra-violet light-beacons streamed through the silent gloom outside, yet still the teleview screen was empty. Keith punched a stud, and the _NX-1's_ whining motors dulled to a scarcely audible purr. "What is the thing?" muttered Hemmy Bowman. "God, Keith, what _is_ it?"