Key Out of Time | Page 8

flashed up and away. The dragon was rising in turn, but coming to meet
the Hawaikan creature was a ball giving off light, bringing sharp vision
and color with it.
Ross's arm swung up to shield his eyes. There was a flash; such
answering vibration carried through the waves that even his nerves, far
less sensitive than those of the life about him, reacted. He blinked
behind his mask. A fish floated by, spiraling up, its belly exposed. And
about him growths drooped, trailed lifelessly through the water; while
there was a now motionless bulk sinking to the obscurity of the
depression floor. A weapon perfected on Terra to use against sharks
and barracuda had worked here to kill what could have been more
formidable prey.
The Terran wriggled out of the niche, rose to meet another swimmer.
As Ashe descended, Ross relayed his news via the sonic. The dolphins
were already nosing into the depths in pursuit of their late enemy.
"Look here--" Ross guided Ashe to the crevice which had saved him,
aimed the torch beam into it. He had been right! There was a long
groove in the covering built up by the growths; a vertical strip some six
feet long, of a uniform gray, showed. Ashe touched the find and then

gave the alert via the sonic code.
"Metal or an alloy, we've found it!"
But what did they have? Even after an hour's exploration by the full
company, Ashe's expert search with his knowledge of artifacts and
ancient remains, they were still baffled. It would require labor and tools
they did not have, to clear the whole of the saucer. They could be sure
only of its size and shape, and the fact that its walls were of an
unknown substance which the sea could cloak but not erode. For the
length of gray surface showed not the slightest pitting or time wear.
Down at its centermost point they found the dragon's den, an arch
coated with growth, before which sprawled the body of the creature.
That was dragged aloft with the dolphins' aid, to be taken ashore for
study. But the arch itself ... was that part of some old installation?
Torches to the fore, they entered its shadow, only to remain baffled.
Here and there were patches of the same gray showing in its interior.
Ashe dug the butt of his spear-gun into the sand on the flooring to
uncover another oval depression. But what it all signified or what had
been its purpose, they could not guess.
"Set up the peep-probe here?" Ross asked.
Ashe's head moved in a slow negative. "Look farther ... spread out," the
sonic clicked.
Within a matter of minutes the dolphins reported new remains--two
more saucers, each larger than the first, set in a line on the ocean floor,
pointing directly to Karara's Finger Island. Cautiously explored, these
were discovered to be free of any but harmless life; they stirred up no
more dragons.
When the Terrans came ashore on Finger Island to rest and eat their
midday meal one of the men paced along the beached dragon. Ashore it
lost none of its frightening aspect. And seeing it, even beached and
dead, Ross wondered at his luck in surviving the encounter without a

scratch.
"I think that this one would be alone," PaKeeKee commented. "Where
there is an eater of this size, there is usually only one."
"Mano-Nui!" The girl Taema shivered as she gave to this monster the
name of the shark demon of her people. "Such a one is truly king shark
in these waters! But why have we not sighted its like before? Tino-rau,
Taua ... they have not reported such--"
"Probably because, as PaKeeKee says, these things are rare," Ashe
returned. "A carnivore of size would have to have a fairly wide hunting
range, yet there's evidence that this thing has laired in that den for some
time. Which means that it must have a defined hunting territory
allowing no trespassing from others of its species."
Karara nodded. "Also it may hunt only at intervals, eat heavily, and lie
quiet until that meal is digested. There are large snakes on Terra that
follow that pattern. Ross was in its front yard when it came after him--"
"From now on"--Ashe swallowed a quarter of fruit--"we know what to
watch for, and the weapon which will finish it off. Don't forget that!"
The delicate mechanisms of their sonics had already registered the
vibrations which would warn of a dragon's presence, and the depth
globes would then do the rest.
"Big skull, oversize for the body." PaKeeKee squatted on his heels by
the head lying on the sand at the end of the now fully extended neck.
Ross had heretofore been more aware of the armament of