Part 3 (2/2)
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 s.h.i.+p's main controls--her helm, her central mult.i.tude of dials, levers and wheels, her televisiscreen and old-fas.h.i.+oned 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p 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:
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