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Updated: May 3, 2025
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.
"Now thou knowest our fate," concluded Aga with a shudder. "Zyobor will be a part of the great waters. We ourselves shall be food for these monsters...." She faltered and stopped. "But this cannot be!" I exclaimed, clenching my fists impotently. "There must be something we can do; some way " "There is nothing to be done. Our wisest men have set themselves sleeplessly to the task of defence.
One does not make love easily to a queen, the three hundred and eleventh of a proud line. And then, as maids have done often in all countries, and, perhaps, on all planets, she took the initiative herself. "We have a curious custom in Zyobor of which I have not yet told thee," she murmured. "It concerns the kings of Zyobor. The color of their hair."
And gradually, as we watched, a picture appeared a picture that will never fade from my memory in any smallest detail. The Quabos had huddled for protection into a large cave at the foot of the cliff outside Zyobor. There were a great many Quabos, and the cave was relatively confining.
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.
Caught between the two forces, the beaten fish milled in hopeless confusion and indecision. In half an hour they were all reduced to huddles of slimy wet flesh that dotted the pavement from the break back to the palace grounds. The invaders were completely annihilated and the city of Zyobor was saved!
Every soul in Zyobor moved in a daze, with strained face and fear haunted eyes. Their proficiency in mental telepathy was a curse to them now: every one carried constantly, transmitted from the brains of the servant-fish outposts, a thought picture of that outer cavern in the murky depths of which writhed the thousands of crowding Quabos. Each mind in Zyobor was in continual torment.
I stopped as my objection answered itself before she could reply. They would not have to live in air to inhabit Zyobor. They would inundate the city flood that peaceful, beautiful place with the awful pressure of the lowest depths! That thought, in turn, suggested to me that every building in Zyobor would be swept flat if subjected suddenly to the rush of the sea.
The citizens lowered their dead into the great well we had cut, with appropriate rites performed by the Queen. The daily tasks and pleasures were picked up where they had been dropped. The haunting fear died from the eyes of the people. Shortly afterward, with great ceremony and celebration, I was made King of Zyobor, to rule by Aga's side. Stanley took Mayis for his wife.
Then, "Come on, Stanley. We'll round up every able bodied citizen in Zyobor and get to work. I suppose they have some kind of rock drilling machinery here?" They had. And they strangely resembled our own rock drills: revolving metal shafts, driven by gas turbines, tipped with fragments of the same crystal that glittered so profusely in the palace walls.
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