Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (5 page)

After a while, Ham Brooks found his tongue. “What I fail to follow,” he admitted, “is why the finding of this man in ice should produce such an urgent response.”

Doc Savage seemed hesitant about responding to that assertion. When he did, all that he would say was, “According to Johnny, there were signs that this may not be an ordinary man.”

“Holy cow!” boomed Renny. “What do you mean by that?”

“I would rather not say,” replied the bronze man quietly.

“Holy cow! Now my curiosity is really out of the barn,” muttered Renny.

THE HOURS passed and they approached the area of the Arctic Circle west of Greenland where the Fortress of Solitude lay, supported by an ice-bound island, far from civilization, unsuspected by man.

By this time, Doc’s men were growing excited about the prospect of visiting the strange spot. Renny the engineer was particularly interested in the place. He had never been there, while the others had.

“I’m mighty interested in checking out this place,” he admitted. “It sounds like an engineer’s dream.”

Monk offered, “It looks kinda like an Eskimo Paul Bunyan built an igloo out of some kinda blue glass, as big as a football stadium.”

Ham declared, “This boastful baboon is, as usual, exaggerating. Slightly. But the Fortress is an impressive structural achievement, I will admit.”

Indeed it was, for the bronze man had built it out of a superconducting material of his own invention. The outer skin, Monk and Ham agreed, resembled highly polished blue agate. But the substance was actually a glassy metal that could be welded so that no seams showed.

By the time they approached the place where the Fortress stood, it was day. But Arctic winter had arrived, and with it the perpetual polar twilight. Anticipation was high.

Doc Savage dropped the air giant out of the clouds, and sent the ship skimming over the ice-choked seas.

“There it is,” he told them. “Look off to starboard.”

It was a rush to the starboard windows, and every man pressed his nose against any available window. Disappointment rode their faces.

“Where is it?” demanded Renny, voice flavored with disappointment.

“Squatting on that island,” directed Doc.

“I don’t see any blue dome,” Renny grumbled. “All I spy is a kind of glacier sitting on an island of ice.”

“That is it,” Doc said quietly.

Doc Savage dropped the plane toward the water, and made an extremely careful, if dangerous, landing inasmuch as the wintery waters were filled with ice chunks.

Doc ran the big aircraft up to the edge of the island, and drove the ship up onto a natural ramp that had been smoothed out of one stony side of the isle.

Shutting down the motors, Doc directed that the hatch door be opened. Ham took care of that, and quickly stepped back, driven backward by a blast of cold air.

They all donned parkas from a storage locker aft.

Stepping out, they approached the strange glacier.

Doc Savage explained for his befuddled men what had become of the Fortress of Solitude that they knew or had heard about.

“You will recall that after the unfortunate affair in which John Sunlight discovered this place, it was necessary to relocate the Fortress to an even more remote location. With the world at war, military air traffic over the Arctic has been increasing to the point that an air patrol discovering the dome was all but inevitable. Thus I felt compelled to remodel it, so that it resembled a natural glacier. But it is not a glacier, for the construction is of a special plastic I have devised that resembles glacial ice.”

The men clustered around the Fortress, and touched its icy surface with tentative fingers. The weird material was cool to the touch, and slick in a way that ice is not slick. It was too dry. The outer surface, with its facets and diamond-sharp projections, looked as if it were transparent. But peering into the ice that was not ice showed absolutely nothing at all.

Taking a tour around the perimeter, Renny finished his circuit and remarked, “This wouldn’t fool anyone who landed here. You can tell it’s not really a glacier.”

Doc nodded. “From the air, it is indistinguishable from a so-called blue growler, and unlikely to attract the attention of a pilot willing to land in such an inhospitable place.”

Renny grunted, satisfied that Doc Savage’s remodeling of his Fortress of Solitude would long go unnoticed. The Arctic was not exactly a tourist spot. And military floatplanes overflying this area were always on missions that required them reaching their destination efficiently. This Arctic zone was not currently being explored. Doc’s secret was safe, barring the unforeseen.

From a pocket, Doc Savage removed what proved to be a small magnet, which he placed against the curved side of the Fortress. He touched several flat planes in a specific sequence.

Two amazing things happened. First, a man-size hatch heaved upward, permitting them to enter. There had been no sign of any door prior to this manifestation.

On another side of the great diamond-like structure, two doors parted revealing a cavity that was nothing less than a hangar for aircraft. There was already a gyroplane therein, as well as a small two-engine aircraft equipped with an ingenious arrangement of floats that doubled as skis.

“We will not tarry long enough to hangar our plane,” said Doc. “But we do need to refuel for the next leg of our flight. And I must get that radio inside.”

While Doc Savage’s men split up—Renny to take a quick tour of the interior of the Fortress of Solitude while Monk and Long Tom unreeled a great hose that fed off underground aviation fuel tanks in the hangar space—the bronze man located a stainless steel sled that was obviously oversized and used to move heavy equipment over the ice.

Doc pulled this down to the waiting plane, and single-handedly unstrapped and then jockeyed the big radio out of the plane and deposited it on the sled without damaging it.

He towed this back with one hand, and only then was it apparent how immensely strong the big Hercules of a fellow actually was. His muscular development was so symmetrical that Doc Savage did not seem over-muscled, when wearing ordinary garb. The casual ease with which he jockeyed the radio around showed that he was prodigiously strong.

Reaching the entrance, Doc Savage set the radio in one corner, and warmed it up. He wished to test the set before departing.

It was not a portable set, and it was very powerful. Doc started the generator, spun the dials, watching the various meters. It was in perfect working order.

He waited. The air was still in the radio room. The place was amazingly soundproofed, as well as perfectly insulated against the cold.

Then the radio made noise. It sputtered, popped. Bright blue electric flame spurted. Odor of burned insulation arose.

Doc Savage whipped to one side, changing position. He snapped a light on, the better to see. There was an inspection window back of the radio apparatus, and he expected to see that open. But it was closed.

Taking up a flashlight, Doc roved the flash beam. He stabbed the ray over the rest of the apparatus, shifted to the immediate surroundings, flake-gold eyes scrutinizing. No one in sight. He went back to the radio.

The apparatus had been short-circuited by thrusting some metallic object into the wiring. Certain essential parts had burned out, rendering it useless.

The damage, although complete, was such that it would escape the eye of one who did not know much about radio transmitters. A wooden-handled screwdriver—it lay on the floor below—had been placed across two contacts under and at the rear of the main power panel.

Doc Savage scrutinized the terminals which had been shorted. It was easy to discern their location, down near the corner of the board. They were prominent. He tried to reach them. He could not, without removing certain braces.

After a moment, the bronze man’s fantastic trilling note, his small peculiar sound which always denoted surprise or some form of intense mental activity, came into evidence. The sound filled the radio room like a chorus produced by unearthly crickets.

It was manifestly impossible for a man to have reached in to those terminals with the screwdriver. This was a fact, incredible as it seemed.

THE others came running from other parts of the structure.

“What’s wrong?” demanded Ham, waving his sword cane excitedly.

Doc Savage did not immediately reply.

Instead, he wheeled the radio into a laboratory so fabulous that it shamed anything else in the world, including the great wizard’s workshop at his skyscraper headquarters, which was believed to be the most well-equipped in the world.

Doc Savage moved the radio behind a large fluoroscopic machine. He turned the latter on, and watched the screen intently.

The device showed the complicated innards of the radio and Doc Savage traced the tubes and bundles of wires and other elements until he discovered something out of place.

Directing the attention of his men to a lower quadrant of what was revealed, he signaled them to be ready.

“You may come out now, Monzingo,” invited Doc.

There was an interval of silence, followed by a rodent-like rattling. Then, Doc repeated his request in a louder voice.

A panel dropped down in the back, and out crawled an uninvited stowaway.

“Holy cow!” Renny roared. “What’s
he
doing up here?”

“Obviously stowing away,” spat Long Tom. “I’ll bet that’s my fox.”

“Explain yourself,” Doc instructed. No trace of fire flared in his resonant voice. But deep in his flake-gold eyes, there was an angry sparkle.

Monzingo Baldwin shuffled feet like a little child. He refused to meet their accusing eyes.

Finally, he stammered, “I—I thought I’d tag along. I only wanted to have s-some fun.”

“That is out of the question,” stated Doc Savage. “This expedition is too dangerous for an outsider.”

“Blazes!” bellowed Monk. “We can’t turn back now!”

Doc Savage said simply, “We cannot take him along.”

“I won’t be any trouble—honest,” Monzingo Baldwin promised.

Doc Savage studied the miniature man intently. “Out of the question,” he repeated.

There ensued a kind of argument that rarely overtook Doc Savage and his personal brain trust.

LONG years of association, first in war, and then as peacetime adventurers, carried with it a strong deference to the judgment of the Man of Bronze. Although independent fellows, Doc’s aides understood the value of following orders. When Doc Savage directed them to do something, they invariably complied.

Here, they were voicing a natural desire to get on with the expedition, and not turn back without good reason.

The fact that the former Cadwiller Olden had managed to stow away this far was more than alarming. Countering that was their reasonable expectation that their old foe had been rendered harmless. But the collective memories of his murderous former life were not greatly diminished.

The sight of the reformed master criminal in Doc Savage’s holy of holies was distressing in the extreme.

Despite all that, there was a strong, unanimous feeling that they needed to get on with the expedition to Mongolia.

Doc Savage was not persuaded. He was a man of extreme caution. He left little to chance. That they were flying into danger, there was no doubt. The additional risk of this new passenger greatly added to that danger, even if the calculation was inexact.

Doc Savage decided to check in with Johnny Littlejohn by radio before taking off. It was his hope that his men would settle down and see the wisdom of his decision.

Returning to the radio room in one corner of the lab, Doc Savage warmed up the old set and attempted to raise the archeologist.

“Doc Savage to Johnny Littlejohn. Come in, Johnny.”

But the big-worded geologist did not respond.

Doc Savage decided to give the matter another hour to settle.

During that interval, the bronze man let his men talk themselves through the situation. He did not attempt to persuade them, but simply allowed them to work out their concerns.

The strategy appeared to be bearing fruit. After some forty minutes, Renny began to argue for a swift return in order to avoid dangerous complications.

Most of them agreed with this. Monk was for getting on with it. Ham predictably took the opposite view, but impatient Long Tom also wanted to get going in the direction of Mongolia.

What finally decided the matter was Johnny Littlejohn’s voice crackling from the radio excitedly.

“Johnny to Doc! Johnny to Doc! Come in, Doc Savage
.”

The bronze man seized the microphone. “Doc here.”

“Doc! Trouble is brewing! I don’t know if I can hold out much longer.”

Doc’s voice leapt out, “Hold out from what?”

Johnny Littlejohn began to reply, then his words got mixed up, and the deafening racket of his supermachine pistol came over the ether to fill the cavernous laboratory of the Fortress of Solitude.

After that, Johnny’s voice was heard no more. There followed a great deal of background noise, assorted commotion, and then a species of unpleasant silence.

Doc Savage turned to his men, his voice edged with a metallic bite. “We have no choice in the matter now. We must press on as quickly as possible.”

At one quadrant of the lab, the former Cadwiller Olden grew frightened when he heard these words. He clapped his small hands together like a small boy. It was such a childish display that it actually allayed much of their fears.

No one noticed the cunning gleam that came into the tiny eyes of the mischievous midget.

Chapter V

THE LONG FLIGHT

FLYING ACROSS THE Arctic region, although it has been accomplished many times over recent years, remains an unusual and perilous enterprise.

Doc Savage relied on the big airplane’s robot pilot to guide them for much of the way over the great barren wasteland of ice and snow. Despite the presence of their diminutive stowaway, the boredom of the long hours of monotonous flying fast became tedious. The depressingly endless Arctic twilight did not help their mood, either.