"If Quentin doesn't have that televisor fixed by the time we get back, we are in a jam."
"There's the ship!"
We looked where the pointing arm of Brady designated. The wrecked space ship lay imbedded in the murky waters of a swamp, fully one-third of its bulk out of sight. Above, the torn and tangled mass of vegetation bore witness to the rapid descent of the craft. Mighty branches were torn away from giant trees. The ship itself was enwrapped by interlaced creepers which it had ripped loose from the upper foliage.
We waded through warm, stagnant water which teemed with marine life. We were halfway to the side of the C-49 when a cry from behind startled me into action. I turned and stared into the gaping jaws of a terrifying serpent wriggling through the shallow water on many legs. Several electric pistols flashed almost simultaneously. The loathesome monster turned belly up, floating dead upon the surface of the swamp water.
From then on, we advanced more cautiously. Coming alongside the crushed hull of the interplanetary liner, we made an inspection of its position. The space ship lay nearly right side up, the decks slanting a bit sharply to one side. Upon the outer deck of the C-49, Cragley scratched his head and looked the situation over.
"Not so bad as I'd feared," was his comment. "Wouldn't be much else but junk here if it hadn't been for the jungle breaking the fall." Cragley pointed upward to the strong barrier of interlaced foliage. "I hope to discover just why it was we fell."
"Wasn't there an explosion?" I inquired. "There was a great shock just before you opened the door to my stateroom. For a moment I thought we'd struck the planet."
"Yes—there was an explosion," Cragley replied, a bit reluctant to voice the admission. "It occurred somewhere in the mechanism operating our radium repellors. That's why the ship started falling. Its weight was left partly free against the gravity of Venus. We had to leave so quickly there was no time for inspection."
One by one, we descended into the wrecked C-49. In that part of the ship which lay lowest below water level, tiny streams of dirty water trickled between wrenched plates, forming pools of water which rose slowly about us. Cragley and his men inspected the radium repellors. They whispered strangely among themselves. A steely glint shone resolutely in Captain Cragley's eyes.
"There's deviltry been done here," he stated fiercely. "The C-49 was deliberately wrecked by someone on board!"