"056 (B028) - Repel (The Deadly Dwarf) (1937-10) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

The hoods were not metal, but globes of a transparent composition as clear as glass and almost as tough as steel. Air was taken care of by a chemical purifier. There were tiny two-way radio sets which were effective over a range of a mile or so.
Monk and Ham, watching with the girl on the cliff rim, also had portable radio sets with which they could listen to the divers, and talk to them.
For weapons, Doc and Renny carried an underwater metal-cutting torch which was Doc's invention. These might have been pistols with barrels two feet long and round metal bulbs attached to the handles. They ejected a chemical gas which combined with the elements in the water and burned with terrific heat.
The bronze man and Renny anchored the lifeboat a short distance from the spot where the strange geyser of water was still playing above the surface. Then they stepped overboard. The shoes, of a metal heavier than lead, were not bulky, and could be disengaged by a certain foot movement, making it unnecessary to use the hands, perhaps sometime when the hands might have something else to do.
There was the usual phenomenon caused by increasing pressure as they sank. The suit mechanisms automatically compensated for the pressure.
The water was not clear, due to the proximity of the lava. It was distinctly warm. It was dark almost at once. The clouds of steam cut off the sunlight.
Doc switched on the cutting torch, holding it behind his back. The intense white lance from its tip showed illumination.
"I'm about fifteen feet from you, I judge," Renny's voice said.
Monk, from up on the cliff, cut in, "You fellers see any sign of Long Tom yet?"
"Give us time," Renny said.
Doc touched coral growing up from the bottom. It was like a tree, sharp, and would have cut through the fabric of an ordinary diving suit. The metallic gloves protected the bronze man's hands. He went down, and it was like sinking into a fabulous forest on another planet.
Gold was suddenly all around him. Crawling, swaying strings of aureate wonder. Some gigantic sea plant. When Renny touched the streamers they melted into a fulvescent shower, and suddenly all the water was filled, as if some Midas was pouring finest gold flake by the bushel. On the bottom, huge purple sea fans curtsied greeting, with cactus-like sea urchins clustered about their base.
A blue fish, as tapered and steellike as a knife blade, flashed away, and battalions of tiny fishes with all the colors of the spectrum fled for their lives. A tiny octopus, half hidden under a sea fan, vanished in a cloud of his own ink.
"Holy cow!" Renny said wonderingly.
DOC kept his torch going for light. There was enough of a charge in the grip magazine to keep it going for more than an hour. They worked toward their objective.
A shadow cruised over them. Renny popped his torch on, gasped loudly, got it off again.
"Did you see that?" he gulped.
"Shark," Doc Savage said without emotion.
"I thought it was a submarine!" Renny muttered.
Ham, from the clifftop, said, "Sharks won't bother you if you let them alone."
"The heck they won't!" Monk sneered. "You stop puttin' out bum information like that or I'll hit you so hard on top of the head that you won't know which toe to crawl out from under!"
Ham sneered audibly. "Listen, creation's joke, if I have to slap you down, they'll—"
"Tune out, will you!" Renny complained. "Do it on another wave length!"
Renny was watching the shark. The monster cruised about in several short circles, plainly curious. The two men stood perfectly still. The shark started down. As Renny had said, he did have some of the proportions of a submarine.
Doc popped on the glaring white of his torch. The shark left for other parts with a swirl of water that shoved them about in the sea growth.
Doc said, "We had best keep close together, Renny."
The big-fisted engineer chuckled over the two-way radio. "I can stand a lot of company. This is the spookiest-lookin' ocean I ever saw."
The two men worked forward, both Herculean figures, as men go. Renny's muscles were perhaps the more spectacular from a distance, but on close examination he faded alongside the sinewy wiriness of the bronze man's development.
There were more fish, millions, almost, and several small octopuses. One stingaree passed overhead, its white underside giving it a strangely angelic aspect, trailing its long snake tail with the deadly barb. It was a big one.
It seemed to become easier and easier to move as the two men went forward.
"Hold it!" Doc said sharply.
Renny stopped walking—and found himself still going forward!
"Holy cow!" he exploded, and grabbed a sea fan. It slid through his fingers, stripping off its purple outer coating, leaving the black, tough skeleton.
WORRIED now, Renny grabbed again, this time at coral. It was loose in the sand, broke out, and he dropped it. He stabbed his feet into a big sponge. That did not hold, either. He tried a seaweed growth. No luck.
"Hey, Doc!" he thumped. "Somethin's pullin' me!"
The next instant the bronze man was alongside him. Both were being carried along. Faster than before.
"We waited too long," Doc said quietly. "And we were a bit careless."
Doc got hold of a growth resembling coral. It was some variety of millepore, and did not hold. The bronze man speared the nozzle of his torch into the sand. It did not hold.
"The thing is suckin' us to it!" Renny roared.
Doc kept his torch on. They both saw a spire of coral ahead. It leaned over the way they were being swept. But it looked solid.
Renny, struggling frantically, yelled, "I can't—make—it!"
But he did. Rather, Doc Savage got hold of the coral with one hand, and whipping out his feet, managed to contact Renny. The next instant they clung to the coral. They would have lost their torches, except for the lines that attached them to their belts.
Renny stared in horror. Bits of sea growth, fishes, sailed past, being drawn irresistibly. Sponges, lumps of coral, sea t urchins, now and then a shellfish, rolled along the bottom.
Peering upward through the transparent globe of his helmet, Renny could see an octopus clinging to the coral spire above them. It had a body about the size of one of his huge fists. The octopus somehow depicted utter terror.
"What are we gonna do, Doc?" Renny gasped.
"We probably will not have much choice."
"Huh?"
"This coral is giving."
Renny snapped his torch on, peered at the base of the coral spire.
"Oh, damn!" he groaned.