Page:Astounding Stories of Super Science (1930-12).djvu/67

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THE SEA TERROR
353

shore. With an effort, Dr. Bird twisted himself in his lashing and looked in that direction. The huge body had again come to the surface, and three of the arms were towering into the air. Grasped in them was a long, black, cigar-shaped object. As they watched the object was torn into two parts and the fragments crushed by the enormous power of the octopus. Again the arms writhed in torment, and then they stiffened out. For a moment they towered in the air and then slowly sank below the surface of the sea.

"The cyanide has worked," cried the doctor, "and in its last agonies the creature has turned on its creator and destroyed him. It is a shame, for Saranoff was a brilliant although perverted genius, and besides, I would have liked to have learned his method. However, I may find something when we open the land end and raid the cave; and really, he was too brilliant a man to hang for murder. Once we open the cave and I get any data that is there, my connection with the case will end. Trailing down the gold and recovering it is a routine matter for Bolton, and one in which he won't need my help."

"What about that creature we saw in the cave, Doctor? Won't it hatch into another terror of the sea like the thing that destroyed the ship?"

"The trochosphere? No, I'm not worried there. It won't try to leave the cave for some days yet, and by that time we'll have the land end opened and the floodlights turned on. They will keep it there and it will starve to death. We could send down a sub to feed it a torpedo, but there's no need. Nature will dispose of it. Meanwhile, I hope the Minneconsin rigs up a jury tackle pretty soon and takes us on board. I'm getting seasick."


IN THE NEXT ISSUE

The Fifth-Dimension Catapult

A Novelette of an Extraordinary Interdimensional Rescue

By Murray Leinster


The Gate to Xoran

A Thrilling Story of a Metal Man's Visit to Earth

By Hal K. Wells


The Eye of Allah

A Story of the Tracking Down of a Mysterious Scientific Killer

By C. D. Willard


The Pirate Planet

Part Three of the Outstanding Current Novel

By Charles W. Diffin


——AND OTHERS!