"That can be done with ease," said Aga. "Come."
We went with her to the gardens and approached the nearest pool.
"My fish-men are watching the Quabos constantly. They report to me by telepathy whenever I send my thoughts their way. I will let you see, on the pool, the things they are now seeing."
She stared intently at the sheet of water. And gradually, as we watched, a picture appeared--a picture that will never fade from my memory in any smallest detail.
The Quabos had huddled for protection into a large cave at the foot of the cliff outside Zyobor. There were a great many Quabos, and the cave was relatively confining. Now we saw, through the eyes of the spine protected outpost of the Queen, these monstrous refugees crowded together like sheep.
The watery cavern was a creeping ma.s.s of viscous tentacles, enormous staring eyes and globular heads. The cave was paved three deep with the horrible things, and they were attached to the it walls and roof in solid blocks.
"My G.o.d!" whispered Stanley. "There are thousands of them!"
There were. And that they were in distress was evident.
The layers on the floor were weaving and shifting constantly as the bottom creatures struggled feebly to rise to the top of the ma.s.s and be relieved of the weight of their brothers. Also they were famished....
One of the blood red, gigantic worms floated near the cave entrance.
Like lightning the nearest Quabos darted after it. In a moment the prey was torn to bits by the ravenous monsters.
The other side of the story was immediately portrayed to us.
With the emerging of the reckless Quabos, a sea-serpent appeared from above and snapped up three of their number. Evidently the huge serpent considered them succulent tidbits, and made it its business to wait near the cave and avail itself of just such rash chance-taking as this.
While we watched the nightmare scene, a Quabo disengaged itself from the parent ma.s.s and floated upward into the clear, giving us a chance to see more distinctly what the creatures looked like.
There was a black, shiny head as large as a sugar barrel. In this were eyes the size of dinner plates, and gleaming with a cold, h.e.l.lish intelligence. Four long, twining tentacles were attached directly to the head. Dotted along these were rudimentary sucker discs, that had evidently become atrophied by the soft living of thousands of the creature"s ancestors.
As though emerging from the pool into which we were gazing, the monster darted viciously at us. At once it disappeared: the fish-servant through whose eyes we were seeing all this had evidently retreated from the approach; although, protected by its spines, it could not have been in actual danger.
"How dost thou know of the tunneling?" I asked Aga. "Thy fish-men cannot be present there, in the rear of the tunnel, to report."
"My artisans have knowledge of each forward move," she answered. "I will show thee."
We walked back to the palace and descended to a smooth-lined vault.
There we saw a great stone shaft sunk down into the rock of the floor.
On this was a delicate vibration recording instrument of some sort, with a needle that quivered rhythmically over several degrees of an arc.
"This tells of each move of the Quabos," said Aga. "It also tells us where they will break through the city wall. How near to us are they, Kilor?" she asked an attendant who was studying the dial, and who had bowed respectfully to Aga and myself as we approached.
"They will break into the city in four rixas at the present rate of advance, Your Majesty."
Four rixas! In a little over sixteen days, as we count time, the city of Zyobor would be delivered into the hands--or, rather, tentacles--of the slimy, starving demons that huddled in the cavern outside!
Somberly we followed Aga back to her apartment.
"As thou seest," she murmured, "there is nothing to be done. We can only resign ourselves to the fate that nears us, and enjoy as much as may be the few remaining rixas...."
She glanced at me.
The Professor"s dry, cool voice cut across our wordless, engrossed communion.
"I don"t think we"ll give up quite as easily as all that. We can at least try to outwit our enemies. If it does nothing else for us, the effort can serve to distract our minds."
He drew from his pocket a sheet of parchment and the stub of his last remaining pencil. His fingers busied themselves apparently idly in the tracing of geometric lines.
"Looking ahead to the exact details of our destruction," he mused coolly, "we see that our most direct and ominous enemy is the sea itself. When the city is flooded, we drown--and later the Quabos can enter at will."
He drew a few more lines, and marked a cross at a point in the outer rim of the diagram.
"What will happen? The Quabos force through the last sh.e.l.l of the city wall. The water from their tunnel floods into Zyobor. But--and mark me well--_only_ the water from the tunnel! The outer end, remember, is blocked off in their pressure-reducing process. The vast body of the sea itself cannot immediately be let in here because the Quabos must take as long a time to re-accustom themselves to its pressure as they did to work out of it."
He spread the parchment sheet before us.
"Is this a roughly accurate plan of the city?" he asked Aga.
She inclined her lovely head.
"And this," indicating the cross, "is the spot where the Quabos will break in?"
Again she nodded, shuddering.
"Then tell me what you think of this," said the Professor.
And he proceeded to sketch out a plan so simple, and yet so seemingly efficient, that the rest of us gazed at him with wordless admiration.
"My friend, my friend," whispered Aga at last, "thou hast saved us.
Thou art the guardian hero of Zyobor--"
"Not too fast, Your Highness," interrupted the Professor with his frosty smile. "I shall be much surprised if this little scheme actually saves the city. We may find the rock so thick there that our task is hopeless--though I imagine the Quabos picked a thin section for help in their own plans."
A vague look came into his eyes.
"I must certainly get my hands on one of these monsters ... superhumanly intelligent fish ... marvelous--akin to the octopus, perhaps?"
He wandered off, changed from the resourceful schemer to the dreamy man of scientific abstractions.
The Queen gazed after him with wonder in her eyes.
"A great man," she murmured, "but is he--a little mad?"