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When the city was finally reached, not only would it be ensured against sudden destruction but the Quabos themselves would have become accustomed to the difference in pressure. Had they gone immediately from the accustomed press of Penguin Deep into the atmosphere of Zyobor, they would have burst into bits. As it was they would be able to flood the city slowly, without injury to themselves.

Such was the situation at the time Stanley, the Professor and myself arrived in Zyobor. The Quabos must find an immediate haven or perish. On the ocean bottom they were threatened by the mound-fish. In the higher levels they were in danger from almost everything that swam: few things were so defenceless as themselves after their long inertia. Their answer was Zyobor.

The great low cavern, without the support of the myriad walls, would probably collapse trapping the invading Quabos and leaving the rest without a home once more. But Aga answered this before I could voice it. The Quabos had foreseen that point. They were tunneling slowly but surely toward the city from a point about half a mile from the diving chamber.

With hundreds of the powerful men of Zyobor working as closely together as they could without cramping each others movements, and with the whole city resounding to the roar of the machinery, we labored at the defence that might possibly check the advance of the hideous Quabos.

Again and again loud detonations heralded the collapse of more of the invaders. But it seemed as though their flailing tentacles were as myriad as the stars they had never seen. It seemed as though their numbers would never appreciably diminish. We thrust and parried till our arms grew numb. And still there appeared to be hundreds of the Quabos left.

Cut sections of the Quabos water-hose and connect them to the nearest wall jets. Run!" I ran, with fifty of the men of Zyobor close behind me. We dodged out the side of the palace grounds least guarded by the Quabos, ducking between their ranks like infantry men threading through an opposition of powerful but slow-moving tanks. Four of our number were caught, but the rest got through unscathed.

A spurt of fire belched from his hose, streaming out for four or five feet in a solid red cone. The Professor and I touched off our torches; and we moved slowly out the door toward the ranks of Quabos. "Don't try to save yourselves from their tentacles," advised Stanley. "Walk right up to them, direct the fire against their helmets, and damn the consequences.

The earthquake wiped out the elaborately burrowed sea tunnels of the Quabos, killing half of them at a blow and driving the rest out into the unfriendly openness of the deep. Now this was fatal to them. They were not used to physical self defense.

Down a side street we raced, and along a parallel avenue toward the tunnel. As we went I prayed that all the Quabos had centered their attention on the palace and left their vulnerable water-hoses unguarded. They had! When we stole up the last block toward the break we found the nearest Quabo was a hundred yards down the street and working further away with every move.

He drew a few more lines, and marked a cross at a point in the outer rim of the diagram. "What will happen? The Quabos force through the last shell of the city wall. The water from their tunnel floods into Zyobor. But and mark me well only the water from the tunnel! The outer end, remember, is blocked off in their pressure-reducing process.