He jerked his head significantly at the wheelhouse lamps, hardly more than aglow. "Looks like we have to lick the things or else! No good wasting more bullets, either. The things dodge 'em. See how they flicker when you put a bullet close? No wonder D'loo calls them the ghost snakes." Kort nodded, and yet it seemed to him that Hodge's appraisal was wrong, in some vague way he couldn't himself put a finger on. "If they dodge the bullets," the first mate went on, "then they must see 'em coming. Maybe we need something faster than bullets--a bolt blaster, maybe." "And Spale's got one!" finished Kort. "Only one aboard," finished Hodge. "He had a mutiny once, and a blaster saved his fat neck for him. Since then he won't let anybody else keep one aboard, curse him. I reckon we'll have to find his." * * * * * Five minutes later the two men trod softly away from Spale's cabin, the precious blaster, clumsy with its huge capacitor drum, ridged barrel, and pointed electrode, in Hodge's hands. Yet Kort was haunted by an unreasonable premonition of failure. Perhaps, he told himself, repeated failure had sold him on the belief that the sea slugs were invulnerable. Certainly the blaster was no common weapon. It shot a bolt of non-oscillating high amperage current, a single shattering projectile of pure energy, with the speed of light itself. What living thing could sense the approach of that flashing death? They entered upon the catwalk after Kort's light had shown it clear of the creatures. The stokehole fluorescents were mere luminous streaks against encroaching darkness. Only dying embers glowed behind the open fire door. But the flash beam revealed four white trunks grouped before the boilers, as though attracted by the warmth. Purple faces of the dead glared up in the pallid light of the torch. Hodge swore feelingly, leveled the blaster. The weapon spat a lurid, creamy-white bolt that pierced the nearest trunk. Kort held his breath. The flash seared his sight, seeming of longer duration than it really was, and limned the sea thing starkly against the blackness of the stokehole. The light of his torch seemed feeble after it. But in that light the creature swayed, unhurt, untouched. Hodge cursed it furiously, fired again and again. The crash of bolts was thunderous in that confined space. Fringes of electrical fire leaped from metal at their touch. Ozone stung Kort's nostrils. But when the blaster clicked emptily not four, but five trunks swayed languidly before the boilers, curving their supple bodies in undulating motion that at times gave them the shape of huge, animated question marks. "Drum's empty," said Hodge quietly. "Let's go topside."