DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (34 page)

Their fate lay in the hands of the Buddha that could not be contained.

Washington Chandler took his children in his arms, hugged them tight. Mary Chan was weeping to think that her life—if not
all
life—was drawing to a conclusion.

Renny made impotent fists of his monster hands. Monk and Ham exchanged confused glances, as if they did not know whether to hurl at one another a final farewell insult, or to simply say goodbye.

Members of the
Cuttlefish
crew began to moan,
“T’ung! T’ung!
All is lost!”

Another blue-white bolt of storm lightning arrived. It seemed to crack open the very sky, split the night with a reverberant thunder that promised to go on forever. For an unforgettable instant, it illuminated the entirety of the Buddha, showing its icy interior.

It was the size of a skyscraper now, its cold, opaque orbs fixed on distant points. It seemed to be looking out over the whole wide world like a conquering deity. All who witnessed this phenomenon felt like helpless ants.

Abruptly, when it seemed as if the dreadful Buddha could not grow any more massive, an unexpected thing transpired.

Its crystalline countenance shattered, as if struck by a massive but unseen hammer. The vile canine visage looked momentarily startled. No doubt that was an optical illusion created by the myriad fissures which suddenly veined its austere countenance.

Yet it presaged a greater event. Everyone expected something. No one knew what. Then the Buddha of Ice exploded into a million gleaming shards of starlight!

A deluge rivaling that of Noah’s flood swept across the deck, washed the unprepared over the rails and into the Yellow Sea. Pirates. Marines. Only the Chans and Doc’s men, coming to one another’s assistance, held fast to rails and cannon and bulwarks.

Panic overtook the survivors now. There was pandemonium. Elemental chaos. Those possessing weapons clutched at them—a mistake. They, too, were swept overboard. Those without, sought to grab for railings and other lifesaving projections. Some managed to hold on for dear life.

UNNOTICED in the pelting downpour, a small rubber-encased grappling hook jumped out of the water at the bow, bit into the rail, and a knotted silk line grew taut. Up this, Doc Savage climbed onto deck, flake-gold eyes surveying the scene.

No one challenged him.

The bronze man slushed along the deck until he found the crackled-finished steel box containing the Buddha’s Toe and took possession of it. It had been set deep in a coil of line, which kept it from upsetting.

Throwing off his helmet, Doc called out in Mayan. “Monk! Ham! Renny! Take control of the ship!”

As it turned out, there was not much ship to take control of. Virtually everyone had been knocked off their feet by the deluge that attended the abrupt and miraculous disintegration of the Buddha of Ice.

Doc got his men together. Everyone had made it. The Chans were also safe.

Wah Chan had Captain Kan by the scruff of his uniform collar. The latter’s uniform cap had been lost and his shock of coarse black hair, straight and stiff as wire, was disclosed.

“You are now a prisoner of China,” the Generalissimo grated.

Captain Kan looked whipped, but he hissed, “You are forgetting my ship, and the sailors who man it.”

“I’m not forgetting anything,” Wah Chan hurled back. “They’re over there and you are here with us. Savvy?”

Captain Kan said nothing to that. His dark eyes remained confident. He seemed to believe the odds were still in his favor. For the gunboat crew was getting itself organized and attempting to finish putting off the shore craft.

“If necessary, my crew will sink this junk, even with my unworthy self on board,” Kan assured Doc Savage, who had joined them.

The bronze man considered his words. They carried weight.

“Terms?” asked Doc.

“You can’t expect fair terms from that cur,”  Wah Chan complained.

“Terms,” repeated Doc grimly.

Fire snapped into Kan’s dark eyes. His chin came up. “Surrender the box and permit me to disembark. I will spare all your lives.”

“How can we trust you?” asked Doc.

Captain Kan squared his shoulders, lifting his gaze as if giving an admission that he did not want to utter. “I beheld what you all did, Savage-
san,
” he admitted. “The so-called Buddha was in truth too dangerous to dwell on the earth, just as you warned. Far better for the world that it was destroyed. Satisfied with that result, I only crave something to carry back to my superiors, with which to save face.”

Doc was thoughtful. He removed the gauntlet of his stratosphere suit, revealing a cabled bronze hand.

“In my country, as in yours, it is customary to conclude an agreement in a friendly manner.” Doc put out his hand.

“Ah, so.”

Smiling with thinning lips, Captain Kan shook it firmly.

Doc touched the dull bronze tip of one finger to the Japanese’s clasping hand.

A strange expression crossed Kan’s features. His eyes rolled up in his skull and his knees gave out. He collapsed on his feet.

Doc caught him, lowered the man to the deck.

“Fainted!” grunted Wah Chan, studying the captain’s slack features. “Why, that milk-livered so-and-so! He couldn’t take it!”

Doc shook his head. From one forefinger, he removed a dull cap of bronze, resembling a thimble cunningly made over to look like a fingertip. This was tipped with a tiny hypodermic needle, which fed off a gland reservoir containing an anesthetic chemical. Pressure actuated the contrivance. Doc had donned it before leaving the
Cuttlefish
in the event it would prove useful later. It had.

Monk asked, “What do we do now?”

“Yeah,” grunted Renny. “We’re still outgunned and outnumbered by that gunboat crew.”

Doc said, “We will inform the vessel by radio that Captain Kan has suffered a spell and needs emergency medical treatment. If they let us go, we promise to provide it.”

“I get it!” Ham snapped. “You’ll give them the antidote to the dope in that trick hypo.”

Monk grinned broadly. “Pretty slick, Doc. But will they buy it?”

AS it developed, the Japanese crew did. They had all witnessed the Buddha of Ice and its downfall, and were in no mood for further experiences of that sort. They got busy pulling their countrymen out of the water, along with assorted Malays and Dyaks.

While they all watched operations, Renny put several questions to Doc Savage.

“How did you escape the Red Dragon junk?” he rumbled curiously.

“I managed to drag Tang into the water before the junk went down,” explained the bronze man. “But we, too, sank due to the atmosphere suit. I dared not remove it, or the Buddha would have drained me dry, as it did Tang.”

The bronze man looked genuinely sorry that he could not have done more for the wicked monk.

Continuing, Doc related, “The weight of the suit and oxygen tanks took me to the bottom. Just in time to witness the Buddha of Ice explode in size, throwing off the pieces of the shattered ship like a chick hatching from an eggshell.”

“Some chick!” Ham exclaimed.

“It was reasonable to hope that being immersed in water would protect us from the Buddha’s influence, but its increasing size counteracted that protection,” Doc said. “When it became clear where matters were headed, I shed the tanks, which allowed for a safe return to the surface.”

“Well,” Monk said, “I’m gonna be havin’ nightmares about this day until I’m old and gray like this ambulance chaser here.” He jerked a hairy thumb in Ham’s direction.

“That reminds me,” Ham returned. “The next time you see me in a sword fight, you stay out of it. Or you won’t live long enough to sprout gray hairs!”

Monk made a show of rolling up his sleeves. “You Harvard Yard fencing master! Next time I see you in a scrap, I’m comin’ in on the other side!”

Ham grabbed for a discarded
parang
and tested the edge with his thumb. It was like a razor, so sharp that he had not felt it slice in. A dribble of blood came.

“I have a good mind to skin you for a throw rug,” Ham gritted.

Monk roared, “Wave that thing at me and I’ll hammer your head so far down, it will look like you grew a third shoulder!” he vowed.

Violence clearly impended. Mark and Mary Chan exchanged worried looks.

Renny inserted, “Pay them no attention. This is their way of blowing off steam.”

Doc Savage attended to the wounded, beginning with Renny’s lead-lacerated shoulder. His medical skill soon became evident. Lastly, he patched his own bullet-scored side. When the bandages came off, a week or two hence, the scarring would be invisible.

The exchange of rescued pirates for the slumbering Captain Kan and various Marines was conducted with quiet ceremony. Doc Savage solemnly handed over a charged syringe to the officer who took possession of his superior, along with instructions brushed onto parchment in perfect Japanese.

“By the time that stiff-necked captain wakes up,” Monk beamed as the Japanese took their leave, “we’ll be out of these troubled waters.”

THEY sailed for Pirate Island that evening. A sickly yellow half-moon dominated the clearing night sky, and seemed to follow them south—south to the South China Sea.

During the voyage, the Chans had many questions.

“It is obvious—” said Mark.

“—that the Buddha of Ice possessed a limited capacity to absorb water—” continued Mary.

“—hence, it exploded when it had gorged its fill,” finished Mark.

Doc shook his head. “By all evidence, it
imploded,
releasing all of its trapped moisture and constituent elements back into the atmosphere, after it reached its crystalline breaking point. As you know, in nature crystals grow in a near-organic manner—sometimes to gigantic size. The Buddha was no different in that respect.”

“But no one could have known that beforehand,” Mark said simply.

Doc Savage was silent a very long time. It was not his nature to boast, or take undue credit for accomplishments that were not his. He was a genuinely modest man.

Noticing Doc’s discomfort, Renny prodded him to speak.

“There’s something you’re not telling us,” he suggested.

The bronze man took a moment to assemble his thoughts.

“It was reasonable to imagine that there might be a limit to the Buddha’s capacity to absorb moisture,” he said at last. “No way existed to demonstrate such limits without risking inconceivable consequences. To test the theory might have been scientifically sound, but bad policy.”

The bronze man fell silent. He seemed to be embarrassed by his failure to best the Buddha by his own efforts.

Monk Mayfair, who was perhaps closer to the bronze giant than any of the others, sensed that there was more to be told.

“Something happened down there, didn’t it?” he offered.

Doc Savage nodded. “The outcome of the apparent catastrophe was entirely in doubt. It was as reasonable to assume disaster, as it was to trust in salvation. But there was no calculating which eventuality would transpire. There is a certain helplessness one feels in those circumstances. In such times, an appeal to the Deity makes as much sense as any futile action.”

Mary Chan gasped, “So you prayed….”

“Sure,” croaked out Wah Chan. “The psychology of powerlessness made it the only sensible course of action. I’ve been in tough spots like that. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

But Doc Savage was not finished with his account.

“Many people who face death in such circumstances describe a kind of peace that falls over them when the end seemed unavoidable.” Doc paused. He colored slightly, as if unwilling to unveil his deepest thoughts.

Everyone looked at the bronze man in rapt expectation.

“No inner peace came over me,” he admitted at last. “Instead, my thoughts went to all of you, and my cousin Pat back in New York, and the millions of people worldwide who would perish. A deep anger arose within my being. A fury such as I never before experienced. It took possession of my senses. In my frustration, I made for the Buddha. Intending to do what, I do not know. Lash out blindly, possibly. But as I approached it, a flash of lightning illuminated the thing to its very core, showing its crystalline inner structure. It appeared to be internally fragile. A compulsion to give it a final and, presumably futile, expression of human anger came. Employing my foot, I struck out with all my might at the stump of the missing toe, where it appeared weakest.”

Ham gasped, “The devilish thing went to pieces just after that last lightning bolt!”

Doc nodded. “It imploded after I struck it.”

“So it
didn’t
die of its own thirst, after all!” Monk squeaked.

Doc Savage continued to look uncomfortable. The degree to which he employed the personal pronoun alone told how jarred he was.

“The answer to that question is known only to the Almighty,” he admitted. “The Buddha might have reached its upper growth limit at that coincidental moment, or later. My kick could have jarred its structural integrity at an opportune time. There is no way of determining the truth of the matter.”

Wah Chan frowned fiercely. “I don’t see what all this mumbling and stumbling is all about. You kicked the damned Buddha and croaked it dead. Just like Jack the Giant-Killer! You preserved the whole blessed world and everyone on it. They’ll give you a ticker-tape parade bigger than Lindbergh’s reception when you get back to America!”

Doc Savage looked even more uncomfortable than before. During his strange upbringing, emotion had been schooled out of his makeup. This did not mean that he lacked natural feelings, but rather they were under rigid control. That superb self-possession had been shaken loose a bit.

“It would be best if we never spoke of this affair again,” Doc said sincerely.

Wah Chan glowered at the bronze man incredulously.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like being a hero? Ain’t that how you make your living?”

Renny boomed, “Shucks, Doc doesn’t want to take the credit when it’s due him, and he plumb doesn’t want any when the facts are in doubt.”

But Doc Savage put it another way. “The world would not believe our account in any event. Telling it would further nothing useful.”