"This is no time for technicalities!"
A tiny smile etched itself around Kerry Blane's mouth, was instantly erased. He heard Splinter's gasp, felt terror driving him back a full step.
It came out of the water with a deceptive speed, great loops of itself flicking toward the crabs that scuttled wildly to escape. It had no definite shape, no arms, no features, yet it was alive! It surged up on the beach like a congealed mass of glowing syrup that rose a full hundred feet into the air. It had no eyes, yet seemed to see the entire scene with an uncanny intelligence.
"My God!" Splinter said wonderingly. "Is that the thing we were supposed to destroy?"
"That's it," Kerry Blane said tonelessly.
"And us with only four hand-guns!"
And even as he spoke, his gun went dead in his hand.
IV
The sea Thing was almost out of the water now, its pseudopods flicking to the bodies of the slain beasts, resting momentarily, then drawing back into the main bulk. Almost instantly, the bodies had been dissolved and assimilated; so fast, indeed, that there was no appreciable interval of time between the flicking of the pseudopod and the assimilation.