Nick and Tony aimed closely. The bazookas made their peculiar, inadequate sounds. The bazooka-shells, like small rocket-missiles, sped through the short distance. They struck. Their shaped charges detonated, again with inadequate loudness. They did not explode in a fashion to tear the creature to bits. Instead, they sent lancing flames a thousand times more deadly than bullets into the squid's flesh. It fought insanely. It uttered shrill cries. Its arms tore at its own wounds, at the water, at the lagoon-bed as if it would rend and shatter all the universe in its rage. The bazookas fired again and again. It was the eighth missile from the bazooka which ended the battle. Then the enormous body went limp. Its horny beak ceased to try to crush all creation. But the long, thick, sucker-disked arms thrashed aimlessly for a long time. Even when they ceased to throw themselves about, they quivered and rippled for a considerable period more. And when it seemed that all life had left the gigantic beast, and the men from the satellite-tracking station stepped on the monstrous body, it suddenly jerked once more, in a last attempt to murder. The squid's body, without the tentacles, was thirty-five feet long. The largest squid, the Atlantic variety, captured before had a mantle no longer than twenty feet. That relatively familiar creature, _Architeuthis princeps_, came to a maximum total length of fifty-two feet. Counting the two longest arms of this one, it reached eighty. It could not possibly swim in water less than six yards deep. It did not belong in a coral lagoon, but it was there. It was close to sunset when the last tremors of the great mass of flesh were stilled. Terry was in no mood for eating, afterward. He skipped the evening meal altogether, and paced up and down the veranda of the dining hall, at the satellite-tracking station. Inside, there was a clatter of dishes and a humming of voices. Outside, there was a soft, warm, starlit night. The surf boomed on the reef outside the lagoon. Deirdre came out and walked quickly into Terry's arms. She kissed him and then drew back. "Darling!" she said softly. Her voice changed. "How is your leg? Does it still hurt?" "It's nothing to worry about," said Terry. "I'm worried about something else. Two things, in fact." "Name one!" said Deirdre, smiling. "I'd like to get married soon," said Terry ruefully. "To whom?" she asked, jokingly. "But I have to have a business or an income first. I think, though, that with a little hard work I can start up my _especialidades electrónicas y físicas_ again, and if you don't mind skimping a little ..." "I'll adore it," said Deirdre enthusiastically. "What else would I want? What's the other thing you worry about?" "That monster," said Terry with some grimness. "Pouf!" said Deirdre. "You've killed it!" "I don't mean that one," said Terry more grimly. "I mean the one that sent it. I wish I knew what it is and what it intends to do!"