Soon there was a gradual change in the color of the water, fading from green to greenish blue and then to dark blue. Ronaro snapped on the searchlights at the Alarian equivalent of 700 feet and the yellow beams spread out into the dark blue waters on all sides. The pressure gauge showed them an ever increasing force pressing on all sides of their vessel, until, at 1700 feet, it had reached 770 pounds per square inch. At this level the water was as black as space itself. The beams from their searchlights had changed in color from yellow to a luminous gray bordered along each side with dark blue. Sprinkled through the blackness were the lights carried by many deep-sea fish. The two Alarians studied the vision screens with tense concentration. Fish swam through their light beams and were gone again in an instant in the surrounding blackness. Groups of lights moving through the darkness told them of large fish or schools of smaller fish, but they were unable to trace the outlines from the pattern of lights. "We should be near bottom, by now, if this were Alar," commented Ronaro at 3000 feet. "The waters of this planet may well be deeper than those of our home world," pointed out Ekrado. Both of them looked at the pressure gauge. At the Alarian equivalent of 1358 pounds per square inch, it was not far from the red line that indicated the maximum pressure the lifeboat could stand. But still they kept going down through the ice-cold blackness. "Look Ekrado!" clamored Ronaro. "The God Ka!" It was not, indeed, the God Ka, but it might well have been. Its body alone was five times the size of their lifeboat and its tentacles stretched for an unknown distance, far beyond the rays of their feeble lights. It brooded motionless in the inconceivable pressure, as though watching them, although it had no trace of eyes. Both Alarians concentrated their minds on the problem of communication with the tremendous mind they knew was contained within that mighty bulk. They both floated motionless, eyes closed, concentrating. But while the Alarians were motionless, the thing before them was not. A great tentacle wrapped itself around the hull. As the tentacle tightened in its body-crushing embrace, it encountered unexpected resistance in the hard metal of the hull. Even as the two Alarians were beginning to face their disappointment at what they had found, or what they had not found, that unexpected resistance registered within the brain of the giant squid. The dull surprise and heavy anger that flared within the primitive mind warned the two Alarians of their danger.