DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (32 page)

When he popped around the superstructure, Kan saw no sign of the bronze giant, but the unexpected sight of Startell Pompman transfixed him as through he had encountered a being recently deposited on earth from the moon, or some farther sphere.

His hand flashed to his holster. A startled expression twisted his face when he realized the holster was sealed inside his suit. Sputtering angrily, he grabbed for the sidearm of a nearby Marine, yanked it from its holster.

Kan took careful aim at Startell Pompman’s bloated shape.

Pompman again bellowed,
“I warn you, sir!”

Then he raised the lid….

THE Marine nearest the big plutocrat never had a chance. He had redirected his rifle in Pompman’s direction.

The lid lifted only a fraction of an inch.

The sea air hung heavy with moisture. Almost immediately, it commenced to thicken and swirl, as if a fog was descending upon the becalmed junk. But this was a fog that behaved with singular intent. It rushed toward the open box.

The Marine with the pointing rifle released that rifle abruptly. He had no choice in the matter. His hands, from finger bones to tendons, suddenly lost all moisture. The dead weight of the rifle literally yanked his dry, mummified hands off at the wrists.

The eyeballs in his head turned to white raisins. His jaws slacked, and the tongue flopped out like a mummified snail.

The Marine was dead before his mummified face smacked the deck.

Captain Kan was more fortunate. He was wearing his atmosphere suit, although it was not entirely sealed. He merely suffered a sudden unaccountable shock of thirst. Recognizing his peril, he backpedaled, returning to the bow where the prisoners were clustered. He screeched out frenzied orders, the words tumbling together in an avalanche of sound.

Startell Pompman advanced, holding the container lid cracked just enough that the power of the Buddha’s Toe was operating. His eyes were avid with power, his features sweating profusely, like a man enjoying strenuous but pleasurable exercise.

The sound of his boots on the deck planking resembled warning drums.

“My day has come!”
he crowed.
“I control the power of the Buddha of Ice. When my natal horoscope was first cast, it foretold that this would be the most auspicious day of my entire life!”

Doc Savage emerged from below. A noticeable change had taken place. Over his head he had affixed a gas-proof hood, as transparent as Cellophane, which sealed at the throat by a thick rubber band. His bronze skin was greasier than before, and its hue was more coppery. Even his hair was smeared with the stuff. The only part of him that did not partake of that coloration was the tip of his right forefinger, which was a dull, dark bronze.

The bronze man was moving rapidly, while still adhering to the stealth that marked his deep training. He was barefoot, and attempted to creep up on Startell Pompman from behind, unawares.

But no man is perfect—not even Doc Savage. The art of stealth requires that other conditions be right. They were not.

His own shadow betrayed the bronze man’s approach. There was no helping it. Doc was a giant and he cast a Samson-sized shadow. This intercepted the light falling on the spherical helmet.

Alerted, Startell Pompman turned ponderously, saw his Nemesis.

Grinning, he directed the corrugated box at Doc Savage’s exposed bronze physique.

Doc halted. His flake-gold eyes, which rarely missed any detail no matter how minute, discerned something of import.

“Pompman,” he cautioned. “Seal the box. You are in grave danger.”

“Do you take me for a dunce and dumbjohn, sir?”
Pompman sputtered.
“I am in control of the situation, and I will not relinquish that splendid mastery.”

“You cannot hope to control the thing in that box,” Doc asserted. “It must be destroyed.”

A lumbering human pachyderm, Startell Pompman bawled,
“Destroyed! The power to sway nations? Poppycock! Balderdash, I say! Why, there isn’t a government under the stars that would not pay tribute in the billions of dollars to avoid the Buddha’s unslakable influence falling upon their waterways and reservoirs. Can you imagine it, sir? The power to make a dust bowl of any sovereign nation lies in my grasp. Fabulous fortunes will be levied by me, for I possess an earthly authority greater than that of Jupiter himself.”

Face working, the pompous plutocrat pushed the blue box at Doc Savage.

“Fall!”
he bellowed.
“Why don’t you turn into a mummy, damn you!”

“I have found a counteractant to the Buddha’s influence,” the bronze man told him firmly. His lips did not move, however. He kept his mouth closed as much as possible, as a precaution should the gas-proof hood prove insufficient to the task.

Seeing that Doc Savage was somehow standing up to the awful influence, the astrologer opened the box a trifle wider.

It was his undoing.

The act of flexing his left hand caused a stretched seam to pop on that sleeve. Doc Savage had spied the weakened seam, attempted to warn the crafty man of the peril.

It was no good. The blue box cracked wider. A tearing sound reached Pompman’s ears. He recognized its import. His eyes grew round. Then they shriveled into white blobs in his surprised skull. His rimless spectacles dropped from his retreating nose.

In an instant, the visible part of Startell Pompman’s anatomy—his round head—had collapsed into the papyrus visage of a mummy. He stood rooted, already dead, held in place by the enveloping stratosphere suit.

Then, like a tree chopped to the tipping point, he began toppling.

Fate is a fickle female. Startell Pompman might have fallen backward, or to either side. Either would have been calamitous.

Instead, he fell forward. Forward—still clutching the fatal box!

The expired astrologer happened to land atop it, causing it to snap shut. The power of the Buddha’s Toe was cut off. But it was a near thing.

Doc Savage pitched forward in an attempt to claim the strongbox.

But Captain Kan came storming up, flanked by a pair of Marines. He flung off the hood of his black coverall suit, which he had prudently donned during the confrontation. The neck thus revealed was the hot hue of flame.

Excited words blew off his lips. “So! You lied! The death device was concealed on this junk all along.”

Removing his own protective hood, Doc Savage came erect. He shook his head firmly.

“I told no lies,” he stated. “What is contained in that box is only a fragment of a larger relic. That most dangerous piece must be recovered from the Red Dragon ship.”

Captain Kan eyed the bronze man for an indefinite period of time. His eyes squeezed shut until they were almost closed, the exposed slits resembling the seamed edges of twin walnuts.

“Please to hand me the box,” he said at last. “Carefully.”

Doc Savage rolled the desiccated cadaver that had been Startell Pompman off of the steel box. He grasped the latter, holding it firmly shut, and came to his feet.

For a moment, his flake-gold eyes quested about, as if seeking a safe place to which he might carry the dangerous container. But there was none. His face set in firm lines.

Having no choice in the matter, the bronze man presented it to Captain Kan.

“I accept this important treasure in the name of my Emperor,” Kan said in a pleased purr.

“What about the other fragment?” inquired Doc.

Captain Kan was a long time in answering. At length, he said, “Since you are so eager to acquire it, I suggest that you don that outfit and go aboard the other junk to recover it.”

“Alone?”

“Alone. The safety of your men and your—ah—scientific crew, will be my guarantee that there will be no further treacheries.”

WORDLESSLY, Doc Savage knelt and began disassembling the atmosphere suit from the still corpse of Startell Pompman. It was amazingly small, like a deflated balloon. No one failed to notice how shriveled up was the corpse of an obese man who had been full of vitality only moments before. It was unsettling.

Doc managed most of the operation, but requested that Monk help him with the gauntlets and clumsy helmet.

“We’ve been holdin’  back, Doc,” Monk whispered in Mayan.

Doc undertoned, “Make no moves unless necessary. Kan now controls the Toe.”

Doc carefully removed an emergency patch from a slit pocket and clapped it over the ruined seam that had caused Startell Pompman’s grisly undoing. He clapped this in place with a spring clamp designed for this purpose, one of several affixed to the suit’s broad tool belt.

Lastly, the marvelously clear helmet was set on Doc’s shoulders.

When the bronze man was fully encased, he switched to speaking Japanese, and said, “A boat will be necessary to convey me to the other junk.”

Captain Kan gave the orders to assist Doc into the waiting tender. This was done by lowering him by a sling of hempen ropes. Monk and Renny did the honors.

The tender was run over to the Red Dragon junk, which had taken on water, and was listing. But junks are such marvelously seaworthy craft that this one looked as if it would float until the end of time.

When Doc reached the bow, he was forced to climb via the anchor chain. This was a ponderous and difficult process, but the bronze man negotiated it as if he were a spider climbing its own web.

Captain Kan watched with intense eyes, but no expression.

Then he gave the tender crew a short downward chop of his hand.

They pushed off.

“Hey!” Monk howled. “They’re stranding Doc over there!”

“Merely applying necessary caution,” said Captain Kan thinly.

All watched until the tender had moved to a safe distance. Then Captain Kan shot a significant glance in the direction of his aide, Yakamashi. The latter blew a blast on his whistle.

A Marine produced a flare gun from his kit and pointed it skyward. He pulled the trigger. A rocket shell was sent screaming into the darkening sky.

At the point at which Doc Savage was clambering over the rail, the gunboat coughed a shell in the direction of the wallowing junk.

It whistled briefly. Struck. Subsequently, the Red Dragon vessel’s stern was blown away, going entirely to pieces.

PANDEMONIUM broke out on the deck of the pirate junk,
Cuttlefish.

Mary Chan gave vent to a screech of surprise. That started it. This brought heads swiveling from the spectacle of the exploding Red Dragon junk.

Monk Mayfair took advantage of the unexpected distraction. He bunched hairy knuckles, hauled off, and knocked Yakamashi off his puttee-wrapped boots. Then he grabbed the Japanese by the front of his uniform tunic, lifted him over his bullet head, and flung the hapless sailor bodily in the direction of Captain Kensa Kan.

Captain Kan lunged for his scabbard, which was leaning against a deck cannon, drew his military sword, and charged after the apish chemist.

Temporarily without his sword cane, Ham Brooks harvested a
parang
short sword off the body of a fallen pirate, and came rushing to Monk’s defense.

An argument ensued over whether or not Monk needed defending. Monk pushed Ham away. The dapper lawyer stuck out his handsome jaw and glowered.

A slash of Kan’s sword settled the conflict for the moment. It took a nip off of the edge of one of Monk’s ears. Monk vented a howl of wrath, clapped a hand to the injured ear.

Ham stepped in, caught the next sweep, parried it expertly. Kan drew back and hammered fiercely at the dapper lawyer in retaliation. Sparks flew off clashing edges.

Thereafter the air rang with steely sounds as the two drove their clanging blades at one another. Accustomed to a lighter, fencing-style weapon, Ham appeared to be at a disadvantage. He quickly recovered his aplomb and hacked furiously against Kan’s slashing counterattack. The engagement began going against the captain.

A Japanese Marine attempted to intervene with fixed bayonets.

Monk tripped him and sat down on his chest until the man’s boot heels ceased beating frantically against the blood-smeared deck.

Renny had been hovering near a fallen length of bamboo. It had the look of a discarded Malay blowgun. The big-fisted engineer bent, scooped it up and sighted down the fat tube. His pleased frown told that he spied one of the feathered darts whose tip had been earlier dipped in the same anesthetic that coated Ham Brooks’ sword cane blade.

Placing one end of the blowgun to his mouth, Renny filled his capacious lungs and expelled them in the direction of another Marine, who was attempting to brain Monk. The apish chemist was still seated atop his fallen foe.

The dart struck the Marine in the cheek. He had started his downward blow. Then he stumbled. Roused, Monk batted the rifle butt aside and grabbed for an ankle, pulled his antagonist down, and changed perches.

This foe did not struggle under the weight of the hairy chemist. A puzzled expression crawled over Monk’s unlovely countenance.

“That one’s already out cold,” boomed Renny. “Get up and join the durn fight.”

Monk bounced to his feet and slapped the nearest Marine so hard that teeth flew out of the latter’s mouth.

The contingent of the Emperor’s Imperial Marines suddenly discovered that their thinned ranks meant that they were now outnumbered. Their sagging faces reflected their consternation.

Wah Chan pushed his way out from the clot of prisoners. Suddenly there was a sword in one hand and a Malay
kris
in the other. He began making short work of the nearest Marines, literally chopping their rifles from their hands.

Those who could, whisked swords from scabbards.

Pandemonium was now in full cry.

It filled the skies, too. For one of the swift-moving violent line squalls that trouble the Yellow Sea was rapidly descending upon the scene. A pelting rain began falling. Wind picked up, making it slant at angles to the waves. Seas churned.

Gore had made the foredeck slick and slippery. Pounding rain now mixed with the sticky crimson fluid. Keeping erect became a problem for the combatants.