Beautiful and slumber-like the submarine had appeared from outside, but inside that effect was lost. There were the usual appurtenances: a maze of pipes, wheels, machinery, all silent now, and cold; here were the two port-locks for torpoons; the emergency steering controls; the small staterooms of the _Peary"s_ officers. Looking forward, still striving for complete clear-headedness and normality, Ken could see the two intact forward compartments, silent and apparently lifeless, with dim lamps burning. They ended with the watertight bulkhead which stood between them and the flooded bow compartment.
Ken at last found words, but even his short query cost a sickening effort.
"Where"s--the commander?" he asked.
A man turned from where he had been leaning against a nearby wheel control. He was stripped to the waist. His tall body was stooped, and the skin of his ruggedly cut face drawn and parchment-like. His face had once been dignified and authoritative, but now it was that of a man who nears death after a long, bitter fight for life. The smile which he gave to Ken was painful--a mockery.
"I am," he said faintly. "Sallorsen. Just wait, please. A minute. I worked port-lock. Breath"s gone...."
He sucked shallowly for air and let his smile go. And standing there, beside him, gazing at the worn frame, Ken felt strength come back. He had just entered; this man and the others had been here for weeks!
"I"m Sallorsen," the captain went on at last. All his words were clipped off, to cost minimum effort. "Glad you got through. Afraid you"re come to prison, though."
"No!" Ken said emphatically. He spoke to the captain, but what he said was also for all the others grouped around him. "No, Captain! I"m Kenneth Torrance. Once torpooner with Alaska Whaling Company. They thought me crazy--crazy--"cause I told about sealmen. Put me in sanitarium. I knew they had you--when--heard you were missing." He pointed at the brown-skinned creatures that cl.u.s.tered close around the submarine outside her transparent walls. "I got free and came. Just in time."
"In time? For what?"
Another voice gasped out the question. Ken turned to a broad-shouldered man with a ragged growth of beard that had been a trim Van d.y.k.e; and before the torpooner could answer, Sallorsen said:
"Dr. Lawson. One of our scientists. In time for what?"
"To get you and the submarine free," said Ken.
"How?"
Ken paused before replying. He gazed around--out the side walls of glistening quarsteel into the sea gloom, into the thick of the smooth, lithe, brown-skinned shapes that now and again poised pressing against the submarine, peering in with their liquid seal"s eyes. Dimly he could see the taut seaweed ropes stretching down from the top of the _Peary_ to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men inside it was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, a.s.sured tones to drive away the uncaring lethargy holding them all, and he framed definite, concise words with which to do it.
"These creatures have caught you," he began, "and you think they want to kill you. But look at them. They seem to be seals. They"re not.
They"re men! Not men like us--half-men--sealmen, rather--changed into present form by ages of living in the water. I know. I was captured by them once. They"re not senseless brutes; they have a streak of man"s intelligence. We must communicate with that intelligence. Must reason with them. I did once. I can do it again.
"They"re not really hostile. They"re naturally peaceful; friendly. But my friend--dead now--killed one of them. Naturally they now think all creatures like us enemies. That"s why they trapped your sub.
"They think you"re enemies; think you want to kill them. But I"ll tell them--through pictures, as I did once before--that you mean them no harm. I"ll tell them you"re dying and must have air--just as they must. I"ll tell them to release submarine and we"ll go away and not disturb them again. Above all I must get across that you wish them no harm. They"ll listen to what my pictures will say--and let us go--"cause at heart they"re friendly!"
He paused--and with a ghastly, twisted smile, Captain Sallorsen whispered:
"The h.e.l.l you say!"
His sardonic comment brought a sudden chill to Kenneth Torrance. He feared one thing that would render his whole value useless. He asked quickly:
"What have you done?"
"Those seals," Sallorsen"s labored voice continued "--they"ve killed eight of us. Now they"re killing all."
"But have you killed any of them?" Breathless, Ken waited for the answer be feared.
"Yes. Two."
The men were all staring at Ken, so he had to hide the awful dejection which clamped his heart. He only said:
"That"s what I feared. It changes everything. No use trying to reason with them now." He fell silent. "Well," he said at last, trying to appear more cheerful, "tell me what happened. Maybe there"s something you"ve overlooked."
"Yes," Sallorsen whispered. He started to come forward to the torpooner, but stumbled and would have fallen had not Ken caught him in time. He put one of the captain"s arms around his shoulder, and one of his own around the man"s waist.
"Thanks," Sallorsen said wryly. "Walk forward. Show you what happened."
There were men in the second compartment, and they still fought to live. From the narrow seamen"s berths that lined the walls came the sound of breathing even more torturous than that of the men in the rear. In the single bulb"s dim light Ken could see their shapes stretched motionlessly out, panting and panting. Occasionally hands reached up to claw at straining necks, as if to try and rid throats of strangling grasps. Two figures had won free from the long struggle.
They lay silent and still, the outline of their dead bodies showing through the sheets pulled over them.
Slowly Sallorsen led Ken through this compartment and into the next, which was bare of men. Here were the ship"s main controls--her helm, her central mult.i.tude of dials, levers and wheels, her televisiscreen and old-fashioned emergency periscope. A metal labyrinth it was, all long silent and inactive. Again the weird contrast struck Ken, for outside he could still see the scene of vigorous, curious life that the sealmen const.i.tuted. Close they came to the submarine"s sheer walls of quarsteel, peering in stolidly, then flashing away with an effortless thrust of flippers, sometimes for air from some break in the surface ice.
Like men, the sealmen needed air to live, and got it fresh and clean from the world above. Inside, real men were gasping, fighting, hopelessly, yielding slowly to the invisible death that lay in the poisonous stuff they had to breathe....
Ken felt Sallorsen nudge him. They had come to the forward end of the control compartment, and could go no farther. Before them was the watertight door, in which was set a large pane of quarsteel. The captain wanted him to look through.
Ken did so, knowing what to expect; but even so he was surprised by the strangeness of the scene. In among the manifold devices of the front compartment, its wheels and pipes and levers, glided slowly the sleek, blubbery shapes of half a dozen sealmen. Back and forth they swam, inspecting everything curiously, unhurried and unafraid; and as Ken stared one of them came right up to the other side of the closed watertight door, pressed close to the pane and regarded him with large placid eyes.
Other sealmen entered through a jagged rip in the plates on the starboard side of the bow. At this Sallorsen began to speak again in the short, clipped sentences, punctuated by quick gasps for air.
"Crashed, bow-on," he said. "Underwater ice. Outer and inner plates crumpled like paper. Lost trim and hit bottom. Got this door closed, but lost four men in bow compartment. Drowned. No chance. Sparks among "em, at his radio. That"s why we couldn"t radio for help." He paused, gasping shallowly.
"Could"ve got away if we"d left immediately. One flooded compartment not enough to hold this ship down. But I didn"t know. I sent two men out in sea-suits--inspect damage. Those devils got them.
"The seal-things came in a swarm. G.o.d! Fast! We didn"t realize. They had ropes, and in seconds they"d lashed us down to the sea-floor.
Lashed us fast!" Again he paused and sucked for the poisoned air, and Ken Torrance did not try to hurry him, but stood silent, looking forward to the squashed bow, and out the sides to where he could see the taut black lines of the seaweed-ropes.
"The two men put up fight. Had crowbars. Useless--but they killed one of the devils. That did it. They were torn apart in front of us.
Ripped. Mangled. By spears the things carry. Dead like that."
"Yes," murmured Ken, "that would do it...."
"I quick tried to get away," gasped Sallorsen. "Full-speed--back and forth. No good. Ropes held. Couldn"t break. All our power couldn"t! So then--then I acted foolishly. d.a.m.n foolish. But we were all a little crazy. A nightmare, you know. Couldn"t believe our eyes--those seals outside, mocking us. So I called for volunteers. Four men. Put "em in sea-suits, gave "em shears and grappling p.r.o.ngs. They went out.
"They went out laughing--saying they"d soon have us free! Oh, G.o.d!" It seemed he could not go on, but he forced the words out deliberately.
"Killed without a chance! Ripped apart like the others! No chance!
Suicide!"
Ken felt the agony in the man, and was silent for a while before quietly asking: