Edmond Hamilton

“ A moment, as the fleet seemed to pause above the city, he saw it all plain—the multitudes of ranked great globular structures, stretching away as far as the eye could see, the dark, slug-like beings that hastened through their streets and squares, the vast pit at the city's center from which arose the mighty, half-glimpsed current of waters, and the towering spire near that pit's edge, the tiny bulbular room at its top a point of green radiance, around which were grouped scores of the vast, thousand-foot striding-machines. ”

“ Up, up, up—until at last our craft shot bodily out of the waters into the sunlight and clean air. Panting and half senseless we ripped the doors open, breathed deep of the salt breezes. The waters on which the submarine floated were running in great seas, and from a hasty consultation of our instruments we saw that already the sea's level had risen several feet, and knew, too, as no others did, what was causing that rise and bringing doom upon the earth. ”

“ There came into their minds a vision of what might have been, of the seas that might have whelmed a planet, with a strange and terrible race triumphant and supreme upon it, and then one of what would be, when the hordes of fugitives, half hoping, half doubting, would creep back from their hills and mountains of refuge toward their deserted lands and cities, when the places that were silent now and dead would be ringing again with life, when all the terror that had riven earth would be but a thing of the remembered past. ”

“ It was the flood, the ever-feared deluge of all the legends of men, the horror that was springing upon all the earth. Men prayed and fought and sobbed and killed themselves in their raving fear, that night, but ever the remorseless waters rose higher, and higher, and higher. Up and up they came, slowly, steadily, surely, up toward the annihilation of man and the age-old reign of man, up toward the whelming of a world. ”

“ Down, down, down—a thousand feet the dial registered, and the waters about the submarine had become dark blue, all but lightless, and darkening still more as they steadily dropped lower. There were no lights turned on, nothing to betray their presence, and into a still deeper darkness the great fleet sank, while Clinton and Evans and the seamen in the little room stared from the dials to the dark port-holes with strange, set faces. ”

“ For I knew now how far from humanity were these strange and fearful slug-creatures who were of more than human intelligence, but with no human point of view, who could capture men and put them in this prison of air at the sea's bottom as we of earth would capture some creatures of the sea and imprison them in a prison of water, or aquarium, on earth! ”

“ Stevens cried out hoarsely as he saw torpedo and bomb flash down and send a half-dozen of the great machines reeling and crashing down upon the city in flashes of bursting fire. At the same moment he was aware that their own craft was winning slowly out of the giant grip of the magnet, inch by inch, foot by foot, creeping upward and outward from that grip, while below the last scores of the attacking submarines were meeting their doom, crushed by the arms of the giant machines and annihilated by the purple-flaring bombs that rushed up toward them from the city below. ”

“ I, who have none, came here in the hope of finding you, Stevens, knowing that you would be with us if you could. And so now you know what terror it is that is flooding our world, that is rising toward the death of all humanity, and toward which, at the bottom of the Atlantic, we sail within the hour, for one final desperate attempt to halt this rising doom."
Clinton rose to his feet with these words, gazed silently out over the red-lit city, over the rising floods that rushed through its streets and sent the fear-crazed fugitives outside shouting down those streets in blind horror. ”

“ Away into the distance as far as the eye could reach stretched this mighty city of globes, and I saw that on the top of each globe was a small squat mechanism, like that which our trawl had brought up but larger, and while these mechanisms were not themselves luminous or shining, there sprang from them in some way rays of white light which made it plain that it was these which produced the strange white light that bathed all this gigantic city. ”

“ And even as they fled, news was flashing along the last remaining lines of communication of great tidal waves that had wiped away life in the Hawaiian and Philippine Islands, of the waters of the China and Yellow Seas black with the bodies of drowned men, of the fear that had lit India red with the torch of terror, that had prostrated black and howling hordes along flooded African coasts, that had made of a hundred European cities infernos of roaring panic. For through all of earth's five continents, that night, the roads leading inland were the scene of the stampede of humanity. ”

“ Ever downward, downward, the mighty magnet of light pulled the helpless craft, while Stevens' own craft, highest of them all, could only resist that terrific pull by all the power of its humming motors. And among the helpless craft below he could see the great machines of the slug-people stalking about in terrific destruction, crushing and smashing the defenseless boats as they sought vainly to escape while Stevens' own craft sought frenziedly to win out of the remorseless grip that held it. ”

“ I uttered a shout, and heard a hoarse order from Evans shouted through the speaking-tube, and a moment later the submarine shot upward with all the power of its motors. But as it did so there came a jarring shock and clash of metal, and then our craft was pulled downward, its propellers spinning in vain. The great upraised arm of the giant striding machine had gripped us and held us as a child might hold a toy. ”

“ The air, we found, was quite pure and breathable, though with a strange odor of chemicals, and had it not been for the vast white-lit city of globes lying beneath the waters outside our transparent doors, one might have thought himself in some room on earth's surface.
"I knew, though, as the submarine's startled occupants stepped out into our strange prison, how far we were from earth's surface, how unfathomably far from the life of humanity in this city of the sea's dark depths, this white-lit town of the trackless ocean's floor. ”

“ Surely in all the record of battles had men never gone toward battle like this, with no shouts or cheers or flying flags or defiant shots, but only the dark, grim shapes that sank gently down and down into the peaceful, darkening depths of the sea. ”

“ For if there is one thing considered constant in this changing world of ours, it is the level of the sea. All our heights and depths are compared to and computed from it, so unchanging do we esteem it; since though great tides may come and go the level of the sea itself seems never to change, so delicately balanced are the combined processes of evaporation and condensation which deplete and replenish it. And for this hitherto unchanging level to rise suddenly for almost three feet, in as many days, was a phenomenon of intense interest and mystery. ”

“ Valiantly they labored, as men will do for their life and land, but before midnight of that night through a score of great breaches the long-repressed seas were rushing in upon the little land in ravening, titanic fury, and church bells were ringing wildly across the countryside and beacon fires blazing red, while roads and canals were choked with hordes of panic-driven fugitives fleeing blindly through the darkness from the terror that leaped upon them from behind. ”

“ The morning waned, and the afternoon, and sunset came, but still those gathered scores of long grim craft forged north and north, toward the Nelsen Deeps and what lay at their bottom, toward the last great battle of humanity to save its drowning world. ”

“ The power-plants that lit the great city were failing one by one as the rising waters reached them, section after section snapping into sudden darkness, while away to the west the soaring red flames of a great fire east a quivering crimson glow across the doomed and drowning metropolis. ”

“ From far away, all around the great city, there were hastening toward the attacking submarines scores of the giant striding-machines, their vast steps whirling them across the city with inconceivable swiftness, the great arm of each outstretched toward the submarines. An order was barked, and the craft's propellers spun swiftly as it headed upward to avoid those reaching, menacing arms, while the whole great fleet headed up also with the same purpose. ”

“ A moment we humans stared at these strange figures, in sickened horror, while those outside watched us carefully through the clear door, ready to open it and send the destroying floods in upon us at any wrong move on our part. Then one of the three, with a long, slender rod in his grasp, moved to the metal wall of our prison and drew a sketch, or diagram, of sea and land, with slug-like creatures at the sea's bottom and erect, manlike ones upon the land. ”

“ Far above us, we knew, were sunlight, and fresh breezes, and ships going to and fro upon the waters, but around us were only the oppressing waters and the white radiance and the city of globes and its unhuman people. And at last the age-old plans of those people were finished, and the great generators were turned on. We saw them flocking through the streets toward the great spire and the vast pit, saw a gleam of sudden green radiance from the control room at the spire's top, in the distance ”

“ This was the second calm report from the Portsmouth station, given to the waiting newspapers late on the afternoon of the 6th. Within an hour it had flashed along the telegraph keys and wires, and had fallen into type and was leaping from the presses in London, and in New York, too, and in cities around the whole earth's girdle. And with the publication of that message the whole matter suddenly lost its lighter aspects, and the world that had theorized and laughed and joked concerning it suddenly sobered, and looked up with startled eyes. ”

“ Beneath that ghastly light, through the swift-running streets, the panic-driven mobs fought and splashed their way toward the nearest hills, toward the open country, toward safety. Crowded automobiles whirled through those streets in blind disregard of those whom they ran down. ”

“ One of our trawls has brought up a thing so incredible, so unbelievable, that our minds refuse to credit it though it lies before our eyes. I will not expose this expedition to the derision of the world by telling what we have found until we learn more, and for that reason we are making a descent within the next half-hour which will tell us all. When you hear from us again we shall either have made the greatest discovery ever made by men, or shall know ourselves the victims of some incomprehensible delusion.
Clinton. ”

“ Through the darkness of that dread night they went, vast, unorganized mobs that fled blindly on, pushing and striking and trampling, and as they fled the last organizations of men were slipping and crushing, knocked down like children's houses of blocks by the giant hand of fear. ”

“ Standing in the submarine's narrow control room, Clinton gazed intently at the dials before him, then out of the port-holes in the wall. "We're there, Stevens," he said, quietly, gesturing toward the little windows through which the great fleet behind could be seen, each of its scores of craft resting motionless on the surface. And now the submarine's commander, Evans, who had been lost and prisoned with Clinton, came toward them.
"Our craft will descend first," he told them, "the others following in close formation. ”

“ These creatures, as we had guessed, were native to the sea as man is native to the land, developed from the lower forms of sea-creatures in the remote past just as man developed from the lower land ones. Life began in the sea, as you know, and these slug-beings had developed into intelligence and power while man was still a half-ape roaming the barren plains. ”

“ The next moment the great striding-machines had reached them, were grasping them, crushing them, whirling them about like toys and hurling them far away to break and smash upon the globes below, spilling forth men and air-bubbles and great clouds of oil. ”

“ You were to have been of our expedition, Stevens, and you know what my plans were. You know how we sailed in our submarine to penetrate the deeps that had never yet been penetrated by man. Out of the English Channel, out into the open Atlantic we sailed, west and northwest, until we had reached at last the northern boundary of the Nelsen Deeps. ”

“ Around the spire which held the control of all the generators there watched always their giant striding-machines, since this little room at the spire's tip held all the energies of all their generators on earth centered inside it, and should it be damaged or wrecked the generators themselves would run wild, resulting in titanic etheric explosions which would inevitably destroy not only all the generators themselves but also the great cities built upon them, and the numberless slug-people of those cities. ”

“ Everywhere on earth, in those hours, men were turning away from the coasts, away from the vast, ravening seas that were hurling themselves over the land, and were pushing inland toward higher ground, toward the Alps and the Appalachians, toward the Pyrenees and the Andes, toward the Himalayas and the Rockies. ”

“ You know that since the dawn of time earth's seas have dwindled steadily, following the laws of molecular motion, that slowly those seas have retreated and dwindled, as on every planet they do, as on Mars they did eons ago. And since the slug-people could live only in the terrific pressures of the great depths their own realms were swiftly shrinking. ”