The Man on the Meteor by Ray Cummings

How can I make clear the dismay, the confusion that swept over us at this unexpected outcome to our supposedly successful escape? What could we do? Retrace our way back through the winding tunnel? There were many diverging passageways: we would lose ourselves hopelessly in this honeycombed mud-bank. And before us was the cave, into which we could not venture without the practical certainty of capture.

Too bewildered to do otherwise, we crouched and stared down into the cave. It was less crowded now, but there were still a hundred or more Maagogs on its floor, and dispersed about its wall niches.

Across from us, almost at the same level, was that other ledge on which we had formerly perched. Behind it, its tunnel showed as a small circle of blackness. Perhaps we could swim across the cave unnoticed-get into that other, now familiar, passageway-then through the coral barrier and into the open water. To safety. Unless the monster were still there. . .

Atar aroused me from these thoughts. He was pointing downward into the cave.

"Nemo. Caan. What is he doing there?"

On the platform, Og and three of the white old men were gathered. Around them a small school of fishes was swimming. Ten or twenty fishes-short, squat things, two or three feet long, smooth, dull black skins, and with huge distended mouths. For all their size there was about them an aspect of extraordinary strength-their powerful squat build, the alertness of their movements.

My heart almost stopped with the sudden realization that these fishes-or were they fishes? -were not swimming aimlessly, but were waiting for Og's command! Like a pack of trained animals they circled about their master. Then Og called to them. They answered with full-throated, yelping cries! Fishes with voices, you exclaim? You need not be amazed. There are "shouting fishes" even in your own waters of Earth.

Og was bending over the shell where Nona had been bound. The rushes that had bound her and which Atar had cut, were still lying there. At Og's call these swimming creatures gathered around him eagerly. The sound of their voices-yelping, whining-was blood-curdling. Og was raising up the severed bonds-holding them out; and the fishes were smelling of them!

Then, in a pack they gathered; and Og, leading them, swam with them across the cave up near its ceiling to that other ledge from whence, with Nona, we had made our escape.

The black fishes entered the other passageway, with Og and half a dozen other Maagogs after them. As they swept down into it, their gruesome cries died away into the distance.

You, with your knowledge of similar things, will doubtless think it stupid of us to be puzzled at the meaning of all this-at its danger to us. Yet-we had no way of knowing. We stared at each other, relieved that these ugly black things which uncannily answered Og's commands, had disappeared.

"Nemo! You are hurt! " It was Nona, who now had noticed that my arm was bleeding where the Maagog girl's dagger had ripped it.

"Nothing. " I said; and I wiped it against my robe.

We tried to plan what we should do. Could we cross the cave? The Maagog girl was still down there, near the platform, with eyes alert to everything around her-eyes that still smouldered with hate and jealous rage. No. To enter the cave would be to court almost certain discovery. We would have to retrace our way-find some other tunnel to lead us out into the open water.

We were starting back, had gone perhaps a hundred yards, when far ahead of us down the narrow passageway, we heard sounds. Yelps! Cries! Whines! Not human-the cries of those squat fishes with their huge slimy jaws!

Panic seized us. We darted back toward the cave. Then forward again, trying to find a side tunnel. But along here there was none.

The yelps grew louder; Og's voice mingled with them. And then, before we could decide in which direction to go, like a pack of eager hounds following a trail and come at last upon their quarry the black fishes swept down upon us. I tried to fight them off-tried to protect Nona. But they darted about me, under me, over me, and gripped me from every side. Teeth like needles, ripping, tearing at my flesh. Og's voice shouting a command. Caan screaming a warning at me. Then something heavy struck my head. Silence and blackness descended upon me.

I recovered consciousness to find myself lying in a bed of mud in a dim, cave-like room. My first sensation was one of heat; the water I was breathing was hot, stifling. My head throbbed.

Nona, Caan and Atar were gathered over me, waiting anxiously for me to recover my senses. Nona, hearing my weak voice, seeing my eyes open, threw herself down beside me.

I was not greatly injured. Og had struck me on the head with the flat of his spear. It had cut my scalp and raised an ugly lump. Besides that, the flesh of my legs, arms and shoulders was torn by those fishes' teeth as if by needles.