Doc Savage: The Ice Genius (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage Book 12) (11 page)

He called a temporary halt to the caravan, and his men dismounted as they gathered around the great frosty block.

The figure deep within the rippled frozen matrix had remained intact. They examined him from all angles, attempting to see the entombed individual more clearly. This was impossible, due to the roughness of the ice. It obscured most details.

Yet, touched by moonlight, pale yellow eyes could be perceived. Chinua again looked into them, and felt the chill deep into the marrow of every bone in his sturdy skeleton.

These were the eyes of Tamerlane the Great. Chinua had no doubt of this. Although every Mongol knew Tamerlane was entombed under a slab of black jade in an impressive temple in faraway Samarkand, the warning inscribed upon the ice block told a different story.

IF I STILL LIVED, MANKIND WOULD TREMBLE

“Is it really him?” murmured one Mongol.

Chinua nodded firmly. “It is him. The Great Champion, the Iron of Samarkand. He was found in a spot not far from where Emir Timur is said to have perished on the march to China.”

This was a lie, for they were many miles from that faraway spot west of Mongolia.

But Chinua’s uneducated followers did not know this.

That simple logic was enough for the Mongol nomads. That this was a great Mongol conqueror, they had no doubt. It was an amazing, miraculous thing. And looking into the canine yellow eyes of the long-dead conqueror, they started to suspect that he was not so dead after all.

“Might he yet live?” asked another Mongol.

“Reindeer meat when it is frozen, tastes fresh after it is thawed,” replied Chinua sagely. “It might be so with a man, if he did not completely die.”

“If true, then it is a wondrous thing,” breathed another bandit.

Chinua strode about the chunk of ice with his sharp
kilij
sabre, and used it to chip away at some of the roughest spots, smoothing them out. The others joined him in this work. Unhitching the ropes from the pack ponies, they turned the block over twice, smoothing out every rough spot with the edges of their keen blades.

When Chinua was satisfied, the ropes were reattached to the wooden saddles, and the caravan continued its solemn march.

This time, the chunk of ice scraped along more smoothly, and ceased to lose jutting shards of loose ice.

“We will reach camp by dawn,” predicted Chinua.

“Dawn,” mused one man. “Will not the rising sun cause this block of ice to melt?”

“If it does,” replied Chinua calmly, “then it is meant to be.”

“If it is meant to be, it is meant to be,” intoned another Mongol fatalistically.

As they trudged along, swaying in their ornate wooden saddles, Chinua led them in song again.

“This song was old when Timur was a mere boy,” stated a bandit. “I wonder if he should live again, will he join us in our singing?”

“Not join,” corrected Chinua. “But lead. He will lead us in song. Song—and much, much more.”

Chapter XII

THE BAIL OUT

DAWN WAS STILL more than an hour off when Monk Mayfair turned the big flying boat around, sending it in a sweeping circle to the south.

The apish chemist had found a spot that was sheltered by low mountains and set down there to conserve precious fuel while Doc Savage and Johnny performed their reconnoiter of the ground. Now he was back in the air.

Boredom having seized them once more, Monk and Ham had fallen into their perpetual “quarrel.”

Monk was berating Ham for his choice of profession.

“You are the most shystery excuse for a lawyer ever to come out of Harvard. And, believe me, that’s sayin’ a lot.”

“Do not disparage my alma mater,” warned Ham, separating his cane into two sections, revealing the keen blade of Damascus steel.

“Or what?” growled Monk.

“Or I will trim every bit of rust from your hide to show the world what a hairless baboon you truly are.”

“Try it and I’ll wrap that blade around your throat so many times people will think you’re wearing an old-fashioned starched collar.”

Renny was in the control bucket next to Monk, and quickly grew tired of the overloud exchange.

“Knock it off, you two!” he thundered. “It’s times like this when I wish you both had brought your durn pets, if only to keep you out of our hair.”

“I did not think it wise to bring along my Chemistry,” sniffed Ham.

Chemistry was a small ape the barrister had collected on an adventure long ago. Ham had adopted the unclassified creature due to its remarkable resemblance to Monk Mayfair, but in miniature. The ape was subject to becoming airsick, so Ham rarely included him on long trips.

“That reminds me,” muttered Monk. “Habeas should be wakin’ up by now.”

“What!” howled Ham.

“Don’t listen to him,” Long Tom barked. “He’s just trying to get Ham’s goat. That pig is nowhere on this crate.”

“Hey, Habeas!” called back Monk. “Are you awake yet?”

A snuffling grunt, very much muffled, could be heard from in back of the plane.

Long Tom plunged from his seat to investigate. He located the source of the sound. It was Monk’s portable chemical laboratory. He undid the latches, flung up the lid.

Out bounded Habeas the pig, shaking his long-eared, narrow-snouted head. He rushed up to the aisle and joined Monk in the cockpit, where the shoat received a vigorous scratching.

“You smuggled him on board!” Renny exploded. “How’d you manage that?”

“Aw, I knew that he wouldn’t stand the long flight none too well, so I fed him some food laced with a sleeping preparation. This way he’d be in a better humor when we got here. It was due to wear off about now.”

Fuming in his seat, Ham Brooks looked like a man who had bet his farm on a nag who didn’t place. He was without words.

Monk grinned. “I’m sure glad I brought Habeas along.”

“So am I,” said Ham waspishly.

They all looked at him with incredulous eyes.

“It will give me something to do, slicing that runty hog into thin strips of bacon,” snapped the dapper lawyer, reassembling his dark cane.

That got Monk riled up again, and he launched into a continuous assault on Ham’s character, or lack thereof.

In an effort to change the subject, Long Tom returned to his seat and favored Monzingo Baldwin with a pale, suspicious eye.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, but how is it that you got left behind in that cave that time?”

Monzingo Baldwin shrugged negligently. “I don’t know,” he said petulantly. “It just happened.”

Renny put in, “I’ve been wondering about that myself.”

“Yeah,” said Long Tom. “Seems to me that you had something up your sleeve.”

Monzingo Baldwin rolled up his sleeves to show that there was nothing in them other than his tiny well-formed arms.

“What does that prove?” demanded Long Tom peevishly.

Baldwin shrugged. “I don’t know. But it was all I could think to do.”

There was a brief silence as this comment was absorbed and digested.

Monzingo Baldwin filled the silence by saying, “I know you fellows didn’t want me along, but I wish you would treat me better. I am just trying to be helpful.”

No one said anything to that. Their memories of the midget’s old life as Cadwiller Olden were too vivid. Too, while Doc Savage’s men did not as a rule hold any personal grudge against any graduate from their criminal-curing College, Olden had not undergone the entire course of training, nor had his memory been expunged in the customary manner. He was not, therefore, cured of his evil. The possibility that the malevolent little man might recover his old personality haunted their thoughts.

“Sure wish I knew what you fellas had against me,” Baldwin added.

No one commented on that either. The silence grew very uncomfortable in the plane cabin.

To cover for that, Monk said suddenly, “While it’s still dark. I think I’ll run the ship over the spot where we dropped Doc and Johnny. Maybe by now something is poppin’ .”

Monk sent the big plane barreling further south, while Renny drew on the special goggles that would reveal the eerie glow of Johnny’s ultra-violet camp lantern.

BEFORE too long, they were flying high over the camp.

Everyone kept their eyes glued to a window and, while they were preoccupied, Monzingo Baldwin slipped to the rear of the aircraft cabin and rummaged around as quietly as he could. In a locker, he found a miniature parachute pack that had been constructed with Habeas the pig in mind.

Sending guilty glances forward at intervals, the minute man struggled to fit his small body into the harness. Since that contraption was designed for a pig, not a human being no matter how small, it was hardly a perfect fit.

So the midget removed his belt, and used it to help secure the complicated web harness in place.

When he was satisfied, Baldwin slipped cautiously ahead, until he located the cabin door.

Baldwin had to stand on tip toe in order to reach the latch, but when he did, he threw his entire weight of less than a hundred pounds against the door.

Came a windy rush of cold air. The cabin was suddenly alive with swirling paper and everyone all but jumped out of their seats.

“What just happened back there?” Monk called out.

Long Tom bolted out of his seat, yelling, “That infernal midget jumped!”

“Jumped!” yelled Ham Brooks. “He wasn’t wearing a parachute!”

Struggling to get the door safely closed, Long Tom managed to latch it with a little help from Monk, who tilted the plane so that gravity exerted its proper pull on the door.

That threw everybody into confusion and about in their seats. But the hatch slammed shut.

Renny’s bull-throated voice made the four engines sound like distant thunder in comparison. “Holy cow! Doc won’t like it when he hears about this flub.”

Bustling into the rear, Long Tom went for the parachute locker, a suspicious cast on his face. It wasn’t long before he came back, face red with flushed fury.

“Monk, your pig’s parachute is missing.”

That made everybody rush to the nearest window.

Monk hauled the moaning plane into a careful circle to assist in their search.

A small white parachute popped into view off to starboard.

“That canopy,” murmured Ham, “is undoubtedly his.”

“What the heck does that tricky runt have in mind?” Monk complained.

“If I didn’t know better,” Long Tom said suspiciously, “I’d say his memory is coming back.”

That thought made the chill in the cabin seem warm by comparison.

Chapter XIII

THE DEMON ARRIVES

CHINUA AND HIS bandit horde were still punishing the air with song when the Mongol chieftain spied the tiny white parachute floating down from the sky.

Chinua carried tied to his stout saddle a collapsible antique telescope, which he pulled open and employed to track the falling white bell. He could make out the parachute itself. What it was conveying to the ground was impossible to discern. Even by moonlight.

Barking out a sharp command, the bandit chief sent two riders to retrieve whatever hung off the shrouds of the parachute.

The riders’ horses kicked up a great deal of dirt charging in the direction of the falling object. It was soon lost to sight behind a hill, which the racing horsemen rapidly rounded. They rode with great determination.

When they returned, one brigand carried an unusual individual in the crook of one arm.

Riding up to his chieftain, he presented his prize with both hands. “For you, sire.”

Chinua took the limp figure. Holding the face up to the moonlight, he saw that it was the remarkably tiny midget who had been in the company of the foreigner with the bronze skin and golden eyes.

There was a lump on the little man’s head, and his blunted nose was bloody.

Chinua snapped to his men, “I did not tell you to beat him, only to retrieve him.”

“We discovered him in this condition,” one Mongol protested vigorously.

Another Mongol added, “He landed hard, striking his head on stones. He was unconscious when we found him.”

The Mongol pair assumed innocent expressions, for in truth they had discovered the tiny man running for his life and, for the cruel sport of it, they rode him down, knocking him about with the flat sides of their broad blades until he moved no more.

This false testimony seemed to mollify the Mongol chieftain. He and his clansmen had been searching the sky since the appearance of the parachute, but could see little. By this time, clouds had moved over the moon, plunging the steppe into unrelieved darkness.

They knew enough about modern flying to understand what a parachute was. They also were familiar with the types of sounds modern airplane motors make when passing overhead. So the absence of engine noises puzzled them greatly.

They did not understand, of course, that Doc Savage’s flying boat was equipped with special silencers that reduced engine noise to a low hissing, which was virtually inaudible when the plane was cruising at higher altitudes.

Unable to satisfy their curiosity, the Mongol troop resumed their march, and their lusty singing once again lifted into the night.

Chinua rode with Monzingo Baldwin stretched out on his stomach on the front of his saddle. The midget was out cold, and showed no signs of reviving.

DAWN was breaking as they filtered between the outlying hills that ringed their sheltered cluster of round tents.

The clouds were still packed tight overhead, so the rising sun provided little warmth.

The round-faced Mongol who had been left in charge of the camp came running out to greet them, waving his arms excitedly.

“Mighty Chinua,” he shouted. “I have done all that was asked of me. There is no shred of fire left in the camp.”

Chinua heard the excited man, and it was as if a thundercloud crossed over his windy, weatherbeaten face.

“What is this you speak of?” he demanded harshly. “I gave no such orders.”

The Mongol wrenched to a halt, and started protesting in an excited voice. “The new man brought your orders to me.”