“All right?” came his vibratory query.
“Right!” they both answered.
“Then stand by for the heavy pressure.”
Wider now he opened the water-valve, letting the ocean in, while at the same time their suits continued inflating through their air-valve connections.
To his surprise, Larry found himself no more inconvenienced by the pressure than he had been from the moment the submarine dove to its present depth. Indeed, most of the air that was coming into his suit was filling the reinforced space between its inner and outer layers, much as the Nereid held air under pressure between her two thick shells.
“All right now?” called out the professor’s vibrator.
“Right!” they called back again.
“Then uncouple your air-valve connections and make ready.”
They did so; and he likewise.
Then, advancing to a massive door like that of a vault, he flung back its powerful clamps, dragged it open—and there beyond, its pressure equaled by that within the lock, loomed the black tide of the ocean bottom.