Doc Savage - The Monsters Part 20

PLANE NOISE came through the morning air. It started with a faint drone, like that of a mosquito, and loudened with surprising rapidity. It stopped the discussion and gripped their attention.

"Sounds like a fast bus," Renny offered, and eyed his huge fists in the dusk of the pit bottom.

The plane swooped overhead, so low that its propeller blast fluttered the canvas shed covering. Fine sand was blown into the pit.

"It must be a friend of theirs," Monk grunted. "I don't hear any sounds of excitement."

"It's the boss!" came Hack's excited yell from somewhere on the island.

Once more, the plane crashed its exhaust stacks past overhead. Then, with noisy backfiring, it landed.

Motor boat engines sputtered and howled. They were evidently towing the plane into a camouflaged hangar.

The giants on guard at the pit made coughing and gobbling sounds at each other. Delight was distinguishable in the uncouth noises.

"They seem glad to see the big shot," said Long Tom. "And no wonder," Ham snapped. "He's the guy who knows how to return them to normal size. If something would happen to him, they'd be in a fine pickle."

The arrival of the plane had completely occupied the attention of Doc's five men, so the bronze man was given no opportunity to explain his plans for their escape.

Amid many glad cries from the giants, men approached the pit. Hack's raucous tones became audible.

He was explaining things to his chief.

"We've got the whole Savage gang," be said. "They're in the pit. We disarmed them. They're helpless."

"Then why in h.e.l.l didn't you rub them out at once?" The master villain spoke these last words, there was no doubt of it. Utter arrogance crackled in the voice. The tones were hollowly froglike.

"Pere Teston!" Monk breathed.

"It doesn't sound like a natural voice!" gasped Jean Morris.

"Too hollow," Monk agreed.

Doc Savage spoke. "The master mind seems to be speaking into a tube to disguise his voice. Using a gas pipe, or perhaps a cardboard mailing tube."

Hack's harsh tone said, "We kept 'em alive, boss, thinkin' you might want to talk to 'em."

"They can tell me nothing of importance," snarled the master of the giants. "They might know how Detroit is fixin' to receive us," Hack whined. He sounded servile, ingratiating. This was A a marked change from his usual overbearing manner.

The master villain laughed harshly into the tube which he was using to disguise his voice.

"It makes no difference what Detroit does!"

Hack wailed, "But if they use airplanes and bombs on -- "

"We're not attacking Detroit to-night," retorted the ruler of the giants. "Instead, we'll give Milwaukee a surprise."

"Milwaukee -- instead of Detroit?" Hack gulped.

"HACK, MY friend, you are very dumb at times," said the cavernous voice. You do not think that the few giants we have here, even with their armor, would stand any chance in attacking a city prepared to receive them."

"They're mighty big -- "

"Size is not of supreme importance these days, my friend. It is brains which count. Bombs and modern machine guns would make short work of our giants."

"Then what are we gonna do?" Hack groaned.

"Do not sound so disappointed," chuckled the hollow tones. "My plan is based on psychology. II you had read the newspapers to-day, you would understand. The size of our giants has been exaggerated.

Our earlier newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts helped."

"I don't get you."

"The imaginative American public actually thinks we have monster men a hundred feet high. We will make our little foray upon Milwaukee, first bombing the light plant so that the city will be in darkness. The giants will smash windows, and catch a few people and break their necks. In the darkness few will see the big fellows. After that, rumor will have the giants infinitely larger than they are."

Hack seemed to be digesting his chief's words. "You think we can scare them towns into coughing up five million apiece?"

"We can certainly try," chuckled the hollow voice.

"But if he don't -- "

"Then there are many other crimes our giants can commit, my friend. As you know, the compound which made them large also made them very bard to kill. Wounds which will overcome an ordinary man will not even faze these fellows."

"You're right, at that," Hack agreed.

Chapter 25. DEATH MAGNIFIED.

NOTHING WAS said for some moments. The giants made hootings and cluckings of a happy nature.

The big fellows apparently had not relished attacking a city ready to receive them. The a.s.sault on Milwaukee was more appealing. In the pit there was stark silence. Renny perspired, and blocked and unblocked his enormous fists.

Monk, homely face grim, absently scratched Habeas Corpus behind the ears. The steel-haired girl was rigid, pale. The giant mail of bronze alone was devoid of emotion.

They all knew that death crouched outside the pit Hack asked his chief, "But how're we gonna get the giants down to Milwaukee?"

"The planes," he was reminded. "I have marked the position of lighting plants. We will bomb them. Then we will land on the lake front. From there, the giants can work into the heart of Milwaukee. In the darkness, that will not be difficult"

"Swell idea," Hack agreed.

"Dispose of the prisoners," snapped the master of the giants.

"How?" Hack asked.

"Use a machine gun. Then have the giants fill the pit with rocks."

Hack loudly directed a human monster to bring him a rapid-firer. This was done. There were clickings, as a fully loaded ammo drum was jacked into the mechanism. Hack appeared on the pit rim.

He was going to do the wholesale murdering himself. Steel-haired Jean Morris moaned and covered her eyes with her hands. Monk made an animal snarling noise, and crouched as if to leap up at the killer.

Doc Savage rested his strange, flake-gold eyes on Hack. "I left this pit for a time last night," he said.

"You can't kid me!" Hack sneered. "You're lyin'!" "The giants heard your voice from the rocks," Doc reminded him. "The voice was thrown by ventriloquism, as you guessed, but its purpose was to cause them to look away, so that they would not observe my return."

This startled Hack. He blinked. The master of the giants had heard the words. His Voice rattled from the hollow tube he was using for a disguise.

"What's this, Hack?" "He's kidding us," Hack growled. "I was never more serious," Doc a.s.sured them.

"me giants heard a voice all right," Hack advised his chief. Then the scarlet-necked thug glared down into the pit. "What'd you do when you was outside, bronze guy?"

"When you learn that, it will be too late to help yourself," Doc informed him without expression.

"Whatya mean?"

"Disaster will have overtaken you."

The steel-haired girl suddenly removed her hands from her eyes.

"I know what Doc Savage did!" she screamed. "It's something that will destroy all of you. Take me out of here, turn me loose and I'll tell you what it is!"

"You hussy!" Renny thundered, and reached hands for the girl.

"GET BACK, you big-fisted hooligan!" Hack gritted from the pit top.

The command was hardly necessary. Renny had already dropped his arms. It had been his intention to clap a palm over the girl's lips and shut off her words. But it was now too late. The hollow voice of the leader of the giants joined the discussion. The master villain, however, did not show himself.

"Take the girl out," he commanded. "We'll hear what she has to say. We can't run any risks."

"You've got to turn me loose in return for what I have to tell you," Jean Morris wailed. "You've got to promise that!"

"It's a promise," boomed the czar of the giants.

A rope dangled down into the pit like a bronze snake. Hack menaced Doc and his men with the machine gun, keeping them away from the hemp strand. The girl knotted the rope under her arms and was hauled up.

Doc Savage watched her as she reached the top of the pit When the girl saw the master-sinister of the giants, she started violently and her hands made a fluttering gesture. "Oh -- it's -- " she began.

"Shut up!" warned the man's sepulchral voice.

The girl obediently controlled her surprise. Then she said, "What I've got to tell you is in confidence.

Have you a place where we can talk in private?"

There was a pause, while the leader of the giants considered. "I've got a shack I use for headquarters.

That'll do," he said.

He and the girl moved away, and their footsteps were soon lost to the ear.

There was something bordering on agony in the looks which Doc's five men exchanged. The perfidity of the young woman had been a bitter shock.

"I thought there was more to her than that!" Monk groaned, "After all we've done for her! Imagine her givin' us the double-cross!"

"We haven't done so much for her," Renny retorted gloomily. "She couldn't be much worse off than she was down here in the pit"

Long Tom, somewhat more pallid than usual, asked Doc curiously, "Did you really tell her what preparations you have made?"

"I talked to her last night," Doc replied.

Monk groaned and sat down on the pit floor.

Comparative silence fell over the men. The six giants remained on guard at the pit. Hack was also present, his machine gun ready in his hand.

The minutes seemed much longer than usual. When voices suddenly reached them, no more than five minutes had elapsed, although it seemed infinitely longer.

The steel-haired girl and the master of the giants were speaking. The voices obviously came from a mechanical loud-speaker, for they were metallic, although not loud. The leader of the giants was not disguising his tones now -- and they had a familiar ring!

Doc's men registered astonishment. There was something about the voice of the master mind that tickled their memories. Monk opened his cavernous mouth, as if to speak the name the voice brought to mind. But the import of the words which they overheard caused him to keep silent.

APPARENTLY THE conversation was occurring in the headquarters shack, although the loud-speakers were relaying it from the opposite end of the island.

"What did Doc Savage do last night?" the master of the giants asked.

"He arranged for the giants to learn something," Jean Morris retorted.

"Learn what?"

"The truth about a point on which you had deceived them."

"You're not talking sense!"

"Oh, yes, I am! Savage arranged for the giants to learn that they cannot be returned to normal size."

"h.e.l.l! How'd he find that out?"

"He went through your laboratory. He learned the method by which the size of these men had been increased. He has a vast knowledge of chemistry, and realized instantly that you had been lying to the giants. They cannot be returned to normal size and remain alive for any length of time."

The master of the giants swore violently, bitterly.

"It's a good thing I talked to you, Sister," he snarled finally. "II them big boys found out they can't be reduced, they'd turn on me. How was it arranged for 'em to find out the truth?"

From the pit bottom, Doc Savage and his aids were watching Hack. The thug's features had become slack, astounded, as he listened to the words relayed by the loud-speaker. These words were not loud enough to reach back to the hut where the girl was being questioned.

The giants on guard had fallen silent. Theirs was a grim,' ominous quiet. They had heard every word that had been said.