Then we were back, almost at the surface, out of range again, wheeling, poising, with the enemy behind and beneath us. I stared down, and saw that the girls, like a school of plunging dolphins, were making their dive. And then I had my first sight of one as she was struck. She was a tiny descending silver streak; and the bolt darted up, caught her. For a horrible second or two it clung. I saw her waver; come loose from her sled. And then she was a twisted, blackened, almost shapeless blob, slowly drifting down, with crimson air-bubbles for a moment rising. Then on the black ridge bottom her inert form lay, with a little movement as the water made it weave, as though horribly she were still alive. For five minutes we stared down at the swarm of attacking girls. They swarmed within the wide angles of the opposing rays. Some of them were at the hulls of the enemy ships, holding their rays close, trying to melt through. Then at last they were rising; swooping back to the surface. Some of them! But others were wavering away. With broken mechanisms discarded, some were swimming free. And others were sinking. Broken, twisted little shapes, with the water tinted crimson as they sank. Leh, Allen and I stared at each other, white-faced, as the girls came fluttering up, flipping on the surface to get air, organize into squads again; and to recharge their tiny projectors. The squads reformed. My heart sank at the pitiful gaps in the formations. We had lost more than a hundred and fifty girls in that first attacking dive. And two of our ten cylinder-boats were crippled. Air bubbles were oozing from them; then the exit escape porte of one of them opened as the little cylinder sank. The two men came out, with buoyant belts which all of us were wearing so that they floated away on the surface. But we had done some damage. Two or three of the big Tollgamo vessels seemed to be in distress. The one leading the line had checked its advance. Those behind seemed trying to hasten forward, so that now the ships were bunching. One of them, seemingly out of control, had slued sidewise, close to the edge of the abyss where the green-black depths went down perhaps a thousand fathoms. Perilously close, so that now as we stared it sagged drunkenly on the brink and seemed out of commission. And at the window portes of another of them, a dull-red glare was apparent. An interior fire. "Not too bad," Leh was muttering. "We'll do better, next time." Where was Nereid? My heart seemed to stick in my throat with apprehension as I watched the girls coming up. And then I saw her; still unharmed. She came close past our turret on her power-sled, her white arm waved at us as she flipped past and broke the surface for air. And then Allen suddenly gasped, "What the devil is that? What now?"