."

"Yes," I muttered. "I saw it. I--I saw it _move_!"

* * * * *

We maintained a speed that kept the surface-temperature gauge
dangerously close to maximum permissible reading, and despite the forced
ventilation of the ship, we were dripping with perspiration.

Atmospheric speeds are maddeningly low after the reckless, hurtling
speed of space travel, but our vaunted scientists haven't yet found a
way of eliminating friction, and we had to make the best of it.

With maddening slowness the image in the television disk grew larger and
clearer, relentlessly confirming our original conclusion.

The _Kabit_ was wrapped in the coils of a mighty serpent; a monster that
must have been the height of a man in diameter, and whose length I could
not even guess.

Four coils were looped tightly about the _Kabit_, and we could now see
the terrible tail of the thing, and its head.

I have always been glad that the details of that ghastly head became
visible gradually: viewed suddenly, in full relief, it was a sight that
might well have threatened the reason of any man.

The serpent's mouth was lined with a triple row of long, fang-like
teeth, tilted gullet-ward at a sharp angle, and the breathing holes were
elevated to form warty excrudescences near the end of the snoutish upper
jaw. Long colorless tentacles fringed the horrible mouth: barbels that
writhed incessantly, as though they sought food for the rapacious jaws
they guarded. From a point slightly above and to the rear of the tiny,
ruby eyes, two slim and graceful antennae, iridescent and incongruously
beautiful, rose twice the height of a man. Like the antennae of a
butterfly, they were surmounted by tiny knobs, and were in constant
motion.

The whole head was armored with great plates or scales, dark green in
color; and apparently of tremendous thickness. A short distance behind
the head were two tremendous reddish-brown fins, with strong supporting
spines that seemed to terminate in retractile claws. In the water, these
fins would undoubtedly be of tremendous value in swimming and in
fighting, but on land they seemed rather useless. Aside from a
rudimentary dorsal fin, a series of black, stubby spines, connected by a
barely visible webbing, the thing had no other external evidences of its
marine origin.

"You've been restless for action, Mr. Correy," I commented grimly. "I
believe this chap will give us all you could desire."

Cor