The Man on the Meteor by Ray Cummings

The glare of light showed the water plainly-a brilliant, ghastly green. We reached the sea-bottom, turned and dashed forward. The Maagogs were there. They saw our light coming of course, long before we saw them. A crowd of them, confused, half-blinded, but they were standing their ground nevertheless.

Over the line of light-sleighs I saw that we had to deal here with perhaps five hundred Maagog men. They seemed armed with spears. They huddled heavily against the sea-bottom, some half a mile from the edge of the forest. The line of them stretched back there, and more were constantly coming out.

When our sleighs were no more than a few hundred yards away, I shouted at Atar. At his relayed signal, the sleighs shrouded their pods and turned upward, out of reach of the enemy. It left the water in semi-darkness-blackness it must have seemed to the Maagogs, with that blinding glare so suddenly extinguished.

And then we leaped at them.

It was a swirl of confusion, this hand-to-hand warfare. I held my dolphin resolutely above it, taking no part, but watching for every advantage into which I might hurl my men.

Looking down into the swirling water I could see the Maagogs fighting desperately to impale my swimmers with their spears. And my young Marinoids, darting over them, up and down, seeking to touch them head and legs simultaneously that the electric shock might kill them.

The fighting spread. Soon it was going on over a wide area. It was almost silent, uncanny fighting. The swish of the churning water-a shout, a death scream here and there. Bodies were dotting the sand. Maagogs, but Marinoids too. And the Maagogs in this first engagement outnumbered us two to one.

I was perhaps fifty feet above the sand, with the sleighs poised inactive immediately over me. Atar dashed up.

"How are they doing? Nemo, would it be better in the light?"

I had not thought of that. A trio of Maagogs, wounded and confused, came floundering up at us. Atar, from his dolphin, dispatched them easily with his sword.

"The lights! " he shouted. "Lights-and spread out-to light it all."

The lights flashed on; the sleighs moved away to separate positions.

As though on a lighted stage, the scene was now illumined. It was a good move, for the Maagogs, living in the dark Water of Wild Things, could not stand the light as well as we could.

Back to the edge of the forest the fighting was in progress. But my heart sank. There were two Maagogs dead to every Marinoid; but it was not enough. These were the weakest of Og's forces-and I was using against them the best of mine. Half an hour more of such fighting and these first columns would be cut to pieces and routed. But what of that, if I lost nearly half of my finest men? There were the black fishes yet to cope with. My electric men would do best against them.

I saw now my mistake. I should have fought these lumbering Maagogs with my older, more numerous men. Spears against spears-and saved my youth for the black fishes.

Atar, I think, came to these conclusions simultaneously. Together we dashed over the scene of battle, calling off our fighters. They came readily, for the Maagogs, sorely harassed, were glad enough to let them go.

Up we started, but there were now no more than a hundred of us, where before there had been more than twice that. The light-sleighs, again shrouded, followed us. In the dimness down there, the sea-bottom was strewn with inert, broken figures-the wounded floundering-the water darkened with blood. And over toward the forest the Maagogs were retreating, to join fresh columns coming out. Then as we rose, the scene faded into obscurity.

"We must get back up," Atar called to me. "Get our older men-all of them-and come down again at once."

We were rising to where our waiting army would soon come into view, when off to the left I saw a cloud of tiny forms coming out of the upper recesses of the forest. Dashing at us, to cut off our ascent! Swiftly. I saw at once that our swimmers could not avoid them.

The black fishes! A swarm of them, with Og in their midst, was upon us!