DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (33 page)

Amid this fierce confusion, Wah Chan organized the pirate crew of the former buccaneer junk,
Devilfish
. His leadership qualities showed themselves now. He rallied the corsairs about him and made a run at the Marines, pushing them toward the bow.

A fresh shell screamed from the Nipponese cruiser, made kindling of another section of the Red Dragon junk. Evidently there was a powder magazine stored below, for the detonation was immediately followed by a greater explosion. Masts and sails of the great war junk erupted in all directions at once.

In the act of throttling a squawking Marine, Monk’s head swiveled toward the blast. His mouth yawned open cavernously.

“Doc!”

“Holy cow!” Renny rumbled thickly. “He’s done for!”

Hearing this, Ham Brooks’s head jerked around. His guard momentarily down, he felt his
parang
being knocked out of his fist. It skittered along the gory deck.

Eyes bright, Captain Kan placed the tip of his blade against the lawyer’s exposed throat.

“Victory lies in my grasp,” he purred throatily.

DOC SAVAGE was not yet done for.

During the fight aboard the
Cuttlefish
, he had managed to work his way into the hold as the first shell splintered the foundering junk’s stern. The craft was listing dangerously. The bronze man’s previous forays to the Red Dragon ship, combined with his remarkably retentive memory, had saved him precious time.

Water from separating hull planks had begun squirting from numerous chinks, pooling in the hold. Tang lay where Doc had left him, still insensate as a result of the bronze man’s wizard-like knowledge of human anatomy.

Doc proceeded to wake him up. Loss of life was something he always sought to avoid. No matter how evil the monk’s past deeds, Tang deserved a chance to live, if not to repent his ways.

Vising him by his chicken-like neck, the bronze man manipulated nerve centers until a coarse-textured groan was elicited. Tang’s eyes snapped open. At sight of Doc Savage, they became livid with fury.

Cracked nails clawed for Doc’s regular features, but were defeated by the glassy helmet of his stratosphere suit.

Setting Tang down, Doc went next to the Fu Dog that encased the Buddha of Ice. It appeared intact, a swift inspection showed. There was no break in the pitch-caulked seams which insured it remaining watertight.

Doc Savage was considering his options when Tang sprang to his feet and made a mad lunge for the porcelain handle which actuated the Buddha’s baffles.

Encased in the waterproof suit, the bronze man did not hear the splashing of Tang’s sandaled feet in the rapidly-filling hold.

With a croaking imprecation, the wicked monk seized the handle, wrenched it upward.

Doc Savage was hampered by the bulky suit, but he tramped around and seized Tang about the waist, lifted him off his feet and with his other hand calmly dropped the handle again.

In the seconds between the raising and the lowering of the handle, a peculiar phenomenon could be seen. The water sloshing about the floor of the hold actually lifted, as if pulled toward the encased Buddha by magnetic attraction.

Once the baffles were shut, the liquid settled back to a normal level. Still, it was an uncanny thing to behold, and it momentarily mesmerized the bronze man, whose interest in strange new phenomena was without equal. He stared at the uncanny thing, his metallic face intent with a kind of wonder. There was a whirling in his golden eyes that bespoke of fascination with the unknown—a thing that drove the bronze man in his more risky exploits, of which he never spoke.

The trilling sound that was often prodded out of him in moments of extreme emotion could barely be heard outside the confines of the sealed bubble of his helmet. Nevertheless, it was present—a tiny, wondering thing in the face of the uncanny Buddha from the stars.

For once, even Doc Savage was awed.

Tang had grown limp in Doc’s grasp, possibly due to the brief period the Buddha had been exposed to open air and had exerted its power. Suddenly, he began wriggling in an alarming manner.

The whistling of an incoming shell finally registered through the remarkable substance which comprised Doc’s helmet.

There was nothing to do but run for it.

The helpless monk under one arm, Doc pitched toward the exit companionway. A rare alarm animated his flake-gold eyes. They swirled like twin storms of dust-fine metal.

The impact of the shell came before Doc Savage reached topside. He was thrown from his feet, almost lost Tang, gathered him up and tried to grope his way back to the deck as the wounded junk began rolling and heeling drunkenly. Such shrapnel as flew were mostly of wood splinters and failed to penetrate the many-layered suit.

A cascade of rushing water flooded down to meet him.

Doc Savage knew then that the Red Dragon war junk was doomed.

For a long moment, Doc hesitated as if struggling between two equally perilous courses of action. His metallic expression wavered as he calculated his options. Doc seemed genuinely torn.

Finally, he made his choice.

Scrambling to the questionable safety of the deck, the bronze man flung a final glance back at the black-iron contraption that was all that preserved the world from the power of the infernal Buddha.

It was rolling about the hold, careening crazily on its unsecured wheeled casters, louvered lion’s mouth stuck in a fixed position.

The junk gave a sharp lift to port, and the wheeled thing bounced off a bulwark, toppling over with the resounding clang of a church bell dropped from a great height.

The sound made Doc suspect that the watertight shell had been breached, but there was no time to think about that now. Not if he wished to preserve his life. Still pulling the limp Tang along, the bronze man fought his way up through the inrushing ocean, a task seemingly beyond even his terrific strength.

THE JUNK OF the Red Dragon sank swiftly from view.

The superstructure remained intact as it was swallowed from sight in the pelting monsoon rain. This was witnessed by the survivors aboard the
Cuttlefish,
as well as those on the Japanese gunboat, which had caused her destruction.

Doc’s men were struck speechless. It was difficult to tell if the moisture running down their stricken faces was a product of the clouds, or their own eyes. Perhaps it was both. They hung over the rail, stark eyes raking the turbulent seas.

Finally, Renny groaned like sailcloth tearing.

“I don’t see Doc!”

His sword still prodding Ham Brooks’ exposed throat, Captain Kensa Kan said, “So! The brazen devil is dead. Very regrettable.” His tone suggested otherwise.

“You’ll really think that, if the Buddha breaks free,” Ham returned sharply.

Perplexity crossed the Japanese captain’s bone-hard face. “Buddha?”

Mark Chan spoke up. “The Buddha of Ice.”

“The most horrible thing that ever fell to earth,” added Mary Chan.

“The thing in the steel strongbox has only a fraction of its awful power,” Mark imparted.

One eye on the superstructure fast disappearing beneath the waves made frenzied by the pelting rain, Captain Kan shrugged nonchalantly.

“Small matter. It is lost now. I have what I require for my Emperor. Now, please to surrender once more—unless you wish to see this man’s throat sliced open.” Kan prodded Ham’s pulsing throat anew.

But the eyes of Doc Savage’s men refused to leave the spot where debris of the great junk of war floated. Their gazes were fixed, their faces strained.

When the choppy waters regathered at last, there was no sign of survivors.

“That suit can double as a diving rig,” Renny thumped hopefully.

“If it wasn’t breached,” moaned Monk.

They watched and watched, but no sigh of life did they perceive.

Over on the gunboat, another tender was being lowered into the rain-stirred brine. It was not going well, due to the whipping winds and ocean churn.

“Reinforcements coming,” Renny warned.

“I could use the exercise,” gritted Monk. But when his eyes went to Ham Brooks, they looked sick.

Wah Chan loomed nearby. He was still clutching two mismatched blades. They were smeared with scarlet and dripping freely.

“What are we waiting for?” he growled. “Invitations?”

“We ain’t riskin’ Ham’s life,” Monk snapped at him.

The Generalissimo barked back, “What difference does it make? Once those reinforcements get here, we’re all going to be summarily executed anyway. Kan can’t afford to let any survivors live to tell the world that the Japs murdered Doc Savage.”

“Don’t say that!” Renny said angrily. “We don’t know that Doc is dead. Yet.”

Just then, a body bobbed to the surface, floating face downward. It resembled a twist of meat caught in a maroon blanket.

“Tang!” pronounced Wah Chan. “His Buddha finally got him.”

“This means
it
is loose,” whispered Mary Chan. “And the Buddha will drink his fill.”

His clenched fists like ivory bones, Mark Chan remained silent. There was nothing more to add.

All eyes went to the maelstrom of water that marked the spot where the junk of the Red Dragon had gone down to a watery grave.

“Why are you all looking like that?” Captain Kan demanded, his mood partaking of the aura of fear that had settled over the prisoners. “What do you expect to transpire?”

No one replied. For in truth, they did not know what to expect. They only knew that it would be very, very terrible.

IT was.

The zone of disturbance grew more turbulent. That was not unusual, or unexpected. Ocean conditions were deteriorating. The monsoon winds commenced churning a filthy froth mixed in with fragments of the lost junk.

Then the rain began to slant strangely.

It had been beating down in a northeasterly direction, but now it seemed to be twisting, reorienting its pelting, as if obeying some Chinese storm god that had been roused by the recent violent activity of humans.

Even Captain Kan noticed this peculiar phenomenon. He paled. Everyone paled. A few turned literally green.

A sizzling bolt of lightning turned the cloud cover into a luminous greenish-white sheet. A cannonading of thunder rolled across the rain-pimpled water’s surface like giants bowling.

Then the Yellow Sea began bubbling and churning prodigiously. This unexpected activity appeared to be centered at the Red Dragon junk’s last known location.

Something lifted into view. It was white, yet translucent as crystal. A diamond-hard dome of a thing, it swelled, or seemed to.

It was difficult to tell if the phenomenon of the rising of the infernal Buddha of Ice was the result of its lifting to the surface, or the swelling of its size as it greedily devoured the Yellow Sea.

Conceivably, it was both.

The forehead of the thing appeared first. Steadily, a face lifted into view, literally emerging from the swells.

In size, it appeared monstrous, fully as large as a temple Buddha. The towering face was long, sinister of lineaments. The eyes were knife slits, the ears pointed like the ears of a dog, the mouth a cruel slash. All of crystal, cold and impersonal like some being from the stars.

Those who had known him in life recognized those canine features.

“Tang!” grunted Wah Chan.

“It was whispered that he carved the head of the Buddha of Ice to resemble his own visage,” Mark breathed.

“And it is true!” whispered Mary.

The glassy head hoisted completely out of the water. Only then did it become apparent that it was not merely emerging, but swelling. The chin lifted above the waves, then the shoulders, then the upper chest. A mangled piece of iron fell from one shoulder—all that was left of the prison that could no longer contain it.

All the time, it grew and grew and grew like an elemental force of unstoppable power. Where it had emerged from the chop, its glassy surface was slickly moist. But as soon as it reached open air, this dried. Even being lashed by rain, it would not stay wet. Multitudinous raindrops entered the thing, leaving the surface looking like dry ice.

A coldness emanated from the glassy behemoth, radiating outward in waves, touching all with an icy dread that made their marrows congeal. It was a coldness that was remindful of the airless reaches of interstellar space.

“What is that monstrosity?” demanded Captain Kan.

No one answered. No one had the words. It no longer mattered—none of it. The Buddha of Ice had broken free of its fragile iron prison and was devouring all that it could.

Around it, rain swirled in frenzied circular motions, the raindrops themselves behaving like living things, as if eager to become united with the Buddha.

“Why ain’t I thirsty?” Monk muttered, feeling of his throat.

“Wait for it,” Renny grunted.

There was nothing else for them to do. Their fate lay in the hands of unknown forces.

The Buddha loomed twenty feet over their heads. Then thirty. Forty. The turbulent waters made it impossible to judge, but no doubt the Yellow Sea was rapidly evaporating—if that was the correct term for it—as the Buddha absorbed it at a frightening rate.

“One thing for sure,” Wash Chandler grumbled. “The Japs won’t take Wah Chan alive!”

Captain Kan heard this outburst over the wind and rain and howling of the surviving pirate crew.

“Wah Chan! You!” He reached for his sidearm, only to remember that it was holstered beneath his atmosphere suit. His small eyes crossed in frustration.

Ham Brooks came to life then. He seized the advantage, grabbed for the hilt of the threatening sword. He got it and struck Kan against the head, using the flat of the blade, then knocked him down with bunched knuckles.

That should have encouraged a fresh melee. But no one had any stomach for that.

Eyes popping, jaw slackening, they watched the Buddha swell and swell and swell until its face was larger than any tropical full moon they had ever beheld. The sheer magnitude of the thing gripped them in a profound silence, all thoughts of life or death, survival or imprisonment, fled their stunned consciousness.