Doc Savage - The Monsters Part 18

Habeas Corpus had circled wide of the giants in swimming toward the island. A tiny funnel of wake, barely distinguishable in the moonlight, marked his position. He reached sh.o.r.e and disappeared among the rocks, much to Monk's relief.

THE STONY isle, when they reached it, furnished a surprise. Its height had been deceptive in the moonlight, as had its formation. Viewed from above, it had seemed covered with boulders.

The largest of these huge rocks thrust up from the water near sh.o.r.e.

Closer inspection developed that the protuberances were, in many cases, camouflaged buildings.

In landing, the prisoners were towed close enough to these to observe details of their construction. Metal girders Composed the framework. Over these were stretched stout-woven wires, the netting of which formed foundations for a canvas covering, cleverly painted and veined to resemble stone. The structures were unexpectedly large.

Each held a plane. These craft were large, tri-motored amphibians. A light was turned on in one hangar, permitting a man to resume work tuning a plane motor. This job must have been interrupted by the approach of Doc's gyro. Thanks to the light, and the fact that the cabin door of one of the planes was open, Doc's party got a glimpse of the s.h.i.+p's interior.

Wicker seats, usually a fitting of a plane's cabin, were missing.

"Seats taken out," Monk muttered.

"Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. "These planes are equipped to carry the giants!"

Monk surveyed their gigantic captors, as if calculating the weight of the fellows. He nodded his bullet of a head as if satisfied.

"Yep," he said, small-voiced. "They're too big for the seats, so the seats were ripped out of the crates."

"Shut up, big hairy," growled the ruddy-necked Hack, getting out of the speed boat which bore the machine gun and the loud-speakers.

"I been wondering how you was gonna move your big partners around," Monk told him amiably..

"Shut up, I said," Hack gritted.

Long Tom surveyed their captors -- those who were of normal size.

"Some of these are the birds who grabbed me near New York," he offered. "You know -- in that van."

Hack yanked an automatic from an armpit holster. He waved it meaningly to enforce his command for silence.

Four men of normal size appeared. These fellows were tough-looking customers, swaggering and belligerent.

Doc Savage, studying them, said nothing; but he glanced at Renny.

The big-fisted engineer nodded.

The nod informed Doc that all of their captors -- the thugs of normal size, as well as the giants -- were convicts taken from the prisons of the United States by the ill-starred Caldwell.

Doc and the others were dragged inland. There was another captive on the island. They discovered this a moment later.

This prisoner, Doc and the others did not glimpse fully. Hack and another thug went ahead and removed this mysterious captive from under what seemed to be a great, flat-topped rock.

Black shadows lay among the great boulders. The pair moving the mystery captive kept in these, either by chance or through design, which accounted for Doc's not being able to identify the bound form which they bore.

"It's Griswold Rock!" guessed big-fisted Renny. Doc, the girl and the five men were dragged toward the spot from which the other prisoner had been taken.

What had seemed to be a huge flat rock proved to be a cshed. It was of no inconsiderable size. This roofed and concealed a deep pit. The depression might have been a grave, except that it was considerably larger. Doc and the others were searched to make sure they carried no weapons. The steel-haired girl's frock, being wet from her immersion in the lake, clung to her shapely figure in such fas.h.i.+on as to make it obvious that she carried no weapons.

All of them were forced to slide down a rope into the shed-covered pit. The depth was surprising.

They explored the stone floor and walls of the prison. The rock was smooth, offering not the slightest fingerhold. There was no fitting of any kind in the well-like pit.

"Holy cow!" Renny groaned. "We're sunk!"

"YOU SAID it, Big-fists," growled Hack's voice from the top. Renny glared upward. It was very dark in the depths, and little lighter above, thanks to the shed.

"0. K., 0. K.," Renny grumbled. "But your big scheme ain't gonna work, fellah. The people in those cities, Detroit, for instance, ain't gonna kick in with such huge sums of money."

"So you think," jeered the man above. "Listen, guy, them 'Beware the Monsters!' newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts had the public stirred up and curious. They furnished just the foundation we wanted. They showed the public that this giant business ain't no two-bit scheme!"

"If you think they'll lay down and give up their money, you're crazy!" Renny shot back at him.

"They may not, at first," agreed Hack ominously. "But to-morrow night, we're gonna haul a load of the big boys down to Detroit. They'll wear armor that's proof against anything less than artillery, and they'll wear gas masks. What they will do to Detroit will be plenty. The other towns will kick in after that."

"Planes will bomb the giants!"

"Oh, yeah? Not when the giants carry off the mayor and some others for hostages."

"What do the giants stand to make out of the whole thing?" Renny asked curiously. "What good will money do them? They're just monstrosities. They can't enjoy themselves. They can't even talk coherently."

"After this is all over, they'll be returned to normal size," Hack retorted triumphantly.

'Can Pere Teston make them little again?"

"You said it, Big-fists!"

Doc Savage now entered the conversation, inquiring, "Are the giants taking part in this devilish scheme because they are under the impression they can be returned to normal size?"

"They don't think -- they know!" Hack growled. Hack now gave orders for two giants to station themselves near by and watch the covered pit.

"Have any of the giants been returned to normal size?" Doc Savage called.

"It can be done all right!" yelled Hack. "Pere Teston did it with monkeys and guinea pigs. He even did it with a cow."

"But has he returned a man to normal size?" Doc persisted.

"h.e.l.l, not" Hack snarled. "There ain't been no need of it yet." "Are you sure that the animals, once reduced in size, enjoyed a normal span of life?" Doc questioned.

"What d'you mean, bronze guy?"

"I mean that the shrinkage in size probably brought on almost immediate death," Doc said quietly.

This seemed to be somewhat of a shock to the man above. There was silence. He swore softly.

"h.e.l.l, you're just tryin' to worry 'em! You know they're listenin'."

Hack now withdrew.

"Was that a bluff, Doc?" Renny asked. "Can't they be returned to normal size?"

Doc Savage vouchsafed no reply. Instead, he made a silent round of the pit, a.s.sembling his five men.

Chapter 23. ESCAPE AND CAPTURE.

DOC'S AIDS were puzzled at first, not realizing his purpose in gathering them together. Then they comprehended; and without Doc issuing orders, they went into action.

Renny braced his head and arms against the stone side of the pit. With an agility befitting his apish build, Monk bounded upon Renny's shoulders and balanced there. Johnny topped Monk. Soon they had formed a human pyramid, reaching almost to the top of the pit.

Up this living ladder Doc Savage clambered. Upright on the shoulders of Long Tom, who was the lightest, he could reach the rim. He peered out.

In the moonlight beyond the camouflaged shed he distinguished the two guardian giants. One was to the north. The other stood at the south. All around the shed, the rocky isle was smooth. Chances of crossing this without being observed seemed nil.

Over toward the other side of the island there was talk and laughter -- some of the mirth being expressed in' thunderous howling noises. This was evidently the only type of laughter permitted to the afflicted giants'

vocal cords. Doc's dire prediction that they could not be returned to normal size apparently had not been taken seriously.

Making no noise, Doc Savage clambered over the pit rim. It was then that he caught a faint stir in the darkness inside the shed. He poised, listening, thinking perhaps that it 'night be Hack. But it was not.

The pig, Habeas Corpus, nosed against Doc, making another faint stir as he did so. The homely shote had managed to reach the shed without being seen by the giants.

Doc grasped the pig. Through the medium of signs and a gentle shove, he made the intelligent porker understand that he was to run away from the shed.

The pig galloped off.

The giants saw him. So unusual was the appearance of the pig that their attention was gripped.

The running porker held their attention only a moment ]but that was long enough for Doc to move, un.o.bserved, from the shed to the sheltering maze of boulders.

A bronze phantom who blended with the tawny hue of the rocks and melted entirely into the shadows, Doc Savage made directly for the edge of the island. The huge camouflaged hangars jutted up darkly. Hewaded past them, on out into the lake.

Scarcely a splash marked his entrance into the water. He filled his capacious lungs with air and submerged.

Doc was capable of swimming a tremendous distance under water. He had acquired the ability to do this in the manner that he learned all things -- by studying the methods of the masters. The fine points of underwater work he had picked up from the skilled divers of the South Seas.

Coming to the surface at long intervals, projecting only his nostrils to replenish his air supply, Doc stroked into the lake.

He reached the point where his aids, the steel-haired girl, and himself had been forced to drop the containers of equipment which they had employed to hold themselves on the lake bottom.

The bronze man had made careful note of the location of the spot at the time of their capture by the giants. He had done this un.o.btrusively, and it had pa.s.sed without being observed.

DOC SAVAGE chanced lifting his eyes above the surface. By aligning several of the larger boulders on the island, he located the spot where the equipment lay.

So accurate were his calculations that he found the cases on his third dive.

His sensitive hands explored a container. He was familiar with the boxes, having constructed them himself. This was not the case he wanted. He searched over the black depths of the lake bed until he found others. Not until he had identified the fourth container by touch, did he seem satisfied.

With the rather heavy box cradled under an arm, he stroked for the surface.

The return to the isle, swimming under water for the most part, was by no means easy, the weight of the case being a tremendous handicap.

Realizing there might be watchmen near the hangars, Doc left the water at the opposite side of the island.

He did not waste time resting, once ash.o.r.e. The effort of the return swim, great as it had been, had tapped only slightly his fabulous reservoir of vitality.

Carrying the metal case of equipment which he had retrieved from the lake, he crept inland.

Toward the other end of the island, there was still noisy talk and coa.r.s.e laughter. Doc Savage approached the spot. To no phantom in the stories of mythology was ever attributed greater stealth.

The mirth sounds were emanating from a large, camouflaged shack which was evidently a bunk house.

After ascertaining the nature of this structure, Doc did not approach too closely. He did not wish to risk discovery.

He began a foot-by-foot search of the island.

Near the boathouse he found a hidden building of some size. This seemed to be a laboratory. Shelves of rough, temporary construction held a surprising array of chemicals.

Doc examined the compounds, noting particularly their nature. For light in viewing the container labels, he employed matches from a box which he found near a Bunsen burner. He kept the tiny flame carefully cupped in his palms.

He found books on chemical treatises. The flyleaves of these bore the scrawled name of Pere Teston.There were also notebooks in the same handwriting.

The notebooks contained data on experiments at increasing animal growth. The cases described were apparently Pere Teston's earlier efforts. There was data on the abnormal growth of a cow. Pere Teston seemed to consider this of great importance. He had written: "It will be noted that the mllk-producing capacity of the bovine kept pace with the expansion in bone and tissue. This means that my process of size increase will result in the creation of more efficient farm animals.

"Particularly do I hope to be able to center the effects of my compound to certain organs of the animal in further experiments. This would achieve, for instance, cattle with enormous milk-producing capacities."

There were more notes of this nature. One set had to do with the growing of an enormous draft horse.

In these earlier experiments, dating back several years, Pere Teston had apparently entertained no idea of creating giant men to be used in terrorizing cities.

Doc found no data covering work over the last few months.

DOC SAVAGE left the laboratory and continued his search of the island. He entered several buildings, only to leave at once. They were store rooms, holding immense quant.i.ties of food for the giants'

sustenance.

Near the south end of the island Doc Savage came upon a small, shedlike structure of metal and camouflage-daubed canvas.

Crosslegged before this, so huge and ugly as to give the appearance of a grotesque, oriental idol, sat one of the giants. He seemed to be on guard. The fellow held a large pipe.

The giant poured tobacco into the over-sized bowl. His big, clumsy fingers had trouble with matches.