* * * * * There was no answer; the other diver only put up his arms to ward the thing off, and they saw his hands were empty, weaponless. Another leaping step carried them almost within reach of the hideous thing that at the first touch of the other diver's hands had suddenly formed itself into the huge ingestion funnel. Adam swung his arm back to stab the amoeba with his explosive spear, but Jake's voice came through the earphones. "Too close, Mr. Adam. He's right on top of that man; you'll blow him to pieces. Let me try to attract him away." Jake was holding out the harmless end of the spear. He prodded the giant amoeba briskly, and he did so, the jelly-like creature again opened a huge funnel and swooped with a speed surprising for so large and formless an object. Jake dodged and flattened to the sea-bottom, shouting "Give it to him!" Adam jabbed, pressing the button of his spear as he did so. There was a violent shock; Adam himself went down from the impact of the compressed water and as he fell saw the diver they had rescued tumbling also. Above them a cloud of milky silt boiled up, then whipped away in long ribbons as some obscure current of that strange sea caught it. The giant amoeba loomed through the murk, with a great ragged hole in its side--but the hole was closing, healing before their very eyes! As he tried to rise and draw the rocket-pistol again, Adam's ears caught Jake's growl of fury, and he saw the engineer lunge with another of the bomb-spears. Again there was the violent shock and murky cloud, half clearing to show Adam the strange diver, who took two staggering steps toward him and then collapsed against his supporting arm. At their feet the giant amoeba, lay, a whitish, shapeless mass, injured beyond the power of a second restoration--but no! As he watched, a foot long bud suddenly projected from the side of the mass, swelled, detached itself, and then slithered off into the dimness. "Holy catfish!" ejaculated Jake. "You can't kill the thing! Who is it you got there?" "Don't know. Hello there, hello! Doesn't answer." "Better get him inside. I'll help." Together they half dragged, half lifted the diver toward the air-lock, leaped, caught it, and in a few minutes more were in. The lights in the corridor were blinding bright; Jake and Adam snatched off their own helmets, and worked feverishly on the gears of the stranger, to reveal the pale, half-unconscious face of Paulette de Vries. * * * * * She grinned feebly and licked pale lips. "Hello, Adam! Oh, boy was I glad to see you a few minutes ago! I thought that thing had me. It was like a bad dream." "Are you all right? How did you get there?" "I'm all right now, thanks.... I walked." She got up, a tottering step, and slipped out of her space suit. "I don't need help--excuse me, I'm being ungrateful. What was it?"