Suddenly the clouds opened wider than ever, as though a veil had been jerked away. The moon blazed down until it laid a silver trail across the water.
As if the moonlight had called it out of the depths, something black and glistening rose from the water into the silver path. For a moment Blade thought it was one of the great reptiles coming to the surface. Then he recognized the conning tower of a small submarine, and the foamy wake it left behind as it ran in toward the island. Half a dozen cylindrical objects seemed to be tied to the submarine's hull, giving it a hump-backed appearance.
Blade had to watch the submarine for only a minute to know that it was heading straight toward the signal light. He moved on again, more slowly and carefully than before. He didn't know what to expect-armed sentries, detectors, booby traps, land mines, or what. He was sure that whoever had set up the signal station and was now coming to inspect it must have provided it with some defenses.
If there were any, Blade passed through them as if he'd been an insect or a ghost. He came out on a ledge of rock uphill from the signal light, just as the submarine stopped about fifty feet offshore. In the glow from the light he could clearly make out who was operating it and who was swimming ashore from the submarine. He watched them and froze, barely breathing.
The signalers and the swimmers were not human. They stood eight or nine feet tall, and they looked like nothing so much as giant stalks of asparagus with four double-jointed arms ending in lobster-like claws. Instead of feet, they moved on a massive rippling suction disk at the base of the «stalk.» The ones swimming in from the submarine were encased from head to foot in flexible, transparent cylinders that left the arms and claws free for swimming. Blade could see air tanks and sacks of gear slung from a belt around each cylinder.
These beings were not human, but Blade had seen them before. Many trips to Dimension X in the past, he'd met them in a Dimension where they helped send out Ice Dragons to prey on the human inhabitants of a glacier-stricken world. The Ice Dragons had a human Ice Master, but ultimately they were the creation and the weapon of the advanced science of the Menel.
Yet the Menel were not creatures of any Earth or any Dimension. They came from deep space, across the great gulfs between the stars. From their distant, unknown home they had come to this world, in this Dimension. They had come and now they were settling down to do what?
Blade didn't know. All he had was a magnificent opportunity to find out and perhaps prevent it, if it was dangerous and he lived long enough. If he hadn't been so close to the Menel and still half stunned with surprise, Blade would have laughed out loud.
Now he probably had the answer to his first question-who was controlling the sea creatures? In finding the answer to that question, though, he'd raised at least fifty more!
Chapter 14
For the moment there was nothing to do but hide and watch the Menel at work for as long as he could. Somehow they hadn't detected his presence, which was distinctly odd. The great stronghold of the Menel under the polar ice of the Dimension of the Ice Dragons had been an incredible display of advanced technology in a dozen fields.
If the Menel had wanted to guard their signal station and rendezvous, they could easily have done so. They could have made it impossible for anyone as poorly equipped as Blade to approach it. That he was here within fifty feet of the Menel, alive and undetected, suggested that the Menel hadn't thought to guard the area at all.
Why? They might despise the inhabitants of this Dimension as hopelessly primitive. So primitive, in fact, that there could be no danger of an attack from them. In that case the Menel might be in for a rude surprise before this night was over.
Or perhaps they didn't have the necessary equipment. Certainly the eight Menel now in sight seemed to have plenty of gear of one sort or another. Blade saw tools adapted to their claws, stacks of gleaming plastic disks, two unmistakable lasers, an array of boxes and tubes that might hold anything. The two signalers had the light and a large metal box with a control panel on one side and wires leading from the other side down into the water. There was nothing that looked like a weapon or a detection device in sight, except possibly the lasers. Even they looked like drills or more signaling devices rather than weapons.
In spite of their lack of alertness, Blade knew that he was really too close to the Menel for safety. They might not be expecting visitors, but he knew they had better night vision than human beings. He didn't know what their hearing was like. Under those circumstances, it might be as dangerous to move back as to stay put.
His present position also had one advantage. He was close enough to the Menel so that he could charge in among them in a matter of seconds. They were slow moving on their disks, although the four claw-equipped arms could strike fast and far. If he could get in among them quickly enough, Blade was fairly sure he could do as much damage as might be needed. Possibly he wouldn't get out alive, but almost certainly he would take most of the Menel with him.
If he got in among them. Blade wasn't going to lift a finger against the Menel until he knew what they were doing. From his experience with them in the Dimension of the Ice Dragons, he doubted they were harmless or friendly here. But harmless or not, they were intelligent beings from another world. The first time he fought them, he'd refused to kill a helpless Menel and actually given first aid to a wounded one. He'd follow the same policy here.
Blade didn't know if anything more would come of this second meeting with the Menel than had come of the first one. He didn't know how often the Menel's travels among the stars (and perhaps among the Dimensions?) might bring them into contact with human beings. He did know that he would do everything he could to make the Menel realize that human beings did not kill them on sight. If that idea could sink into the brains that lay somewhere in those mammoth asparagus stalks, it might open a new direction for the history of both races.
It seemed like an hour but it must have been only a few minutes more before the Menel started their night's work. One of the two signalers at the control panel started twisting switches and pulling levers. The box began to hum quietly to itself, like a distant hive of sleepy bees. Triangular patches that might be dials or indicators began to glow faintly, purple, gold, and green.
Three of the other six Menel opened one of the boxes and pulled out dark plastic tubes. They looked like hypodermic syringes or sprays, but they were four feet long and as thick as a man's arm. All six of the Menel not busy at the control panel began putting on their diving gear again.
This time it was nearly an hour before anything else happened. Then suddenly the night's stillness was ripped apart. The hissing roars of a number of the great reptiles sounded close at hand. Blade looked out to sea, in time to watch the fanged heads and dark humped backs rise into view.
Then Blade saw them begin to swim toward him and the Menel. He could count nine of them, and he had the distinct impression that six of them were herding the other three toward the shore, like dogs herding sheep.
As the reptiles approached land five of the six Menel divers slipped into the water. They were carrying one of the lasers, the syringes, and several other pieces of equipment whose use Blade couldn't guess.
The Menel swam out toward the approaching reptiles. They were not particularly graceful in the water, but with three of their four arms beating steadily they moved surprisingly fast. Blade found himself forced to respect the courage of the five swimmers. It seemed likely that some of the approaching beasts were under control by the two signalers. That didn't mean it was safe to swim up to those jaws that could bite a Menel in half as easily as a man.