Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

With the electrical wizard Long Tom, Doc accompanied the dark-skinned man back to the broadcasting station to try to get a line on what was the matter with the radio beam.

"A ship carrying one of my aides — while following your beam — was recently thrown off its course and wrecked," Doc advised.

"The trouble must have been with the receiving apparatus," the dark-skinned man said.

"Impossible!" interposed Long Tom, who had made the boat's radio installation and knew it was as perfect as was possible.

"Then examine my layout," the radio station attendant invited.

Doc and Long Tom made a careful examination, then returned to the plane.

"What'd you find out over there?" Renny queried.

Long Tom answered, "Everything was in perfect mechanical shape."

Refueled, the plane took off and soared high over the feverish Panama jungle, then left the lush green for the sparkling blue of the Pacific with engines throbbing as it bored steadily Southward toward the Galapagos.

Long Tom was bending over the audio-frequency amplifier. He jerked his headphones off and held one to Doc's ear. A dot-dash combination in sharp staccato sounded plainly.

"The 'A' wave is coming in too strongly," Long Tom said.

"Are we off the course?" Renny rumbled.

"We are off the course as transmitted by the beam antenna back at the Canal Zone," Doc stated.

"But that's the right course," Renny protested.

"Is it?" Doc asked mildly.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"It's the beam the others were riding when their ship piled on the rocks," Renny rumbled. "We want to go where they were wrecked, don't we?"

"Yes," Doc said. "But this beam may not be directing us there."

"I get it," Renny muttered. "If there's nothing the matter with the instruments, the trouble must lie with that dark-skinned baby at the Canal Zone who is transmitting the signals."

Doc nodded. "He transmitted the beam so that it put Johnny on the rocks. It may be that now he is laying down a beam which — if we follow it — will land us in the Pacific Ocean with empty gas tanks."

Renny snorted, "Thinks he's sendin' us on a one-way trip, huh?"

Long Tom was struck with an idea. "Stop me if you've thought of this one, Doc. But how does the course — as broadcast to us by the radio beacon — compare with the latitude and longitude of the island as given you by Boris Ramadanoff?"

"The two check perfectly," Doc said.

"Then Ramadanoff gave us the wrong directions, too?"

"It is almost certain that he did."

"Want me to bring him in, Doc?" Renny asked, eagerly.

"Yes," Doc said. "It is time that Ramadanoff talked."

Renny hurried aft, unlocked a small individual cabin, roused Boris Ramadanoff out, and trundled him forward to Doc. The bronze man turned the plane controls over to the sensitive mechanical arms of a robot pilot. Then he faced Boris Ramadanoff.

"I want the latitude and longitude of your brother's island," Doc announced.

"I gave it to you … "

"I want the correct latitude and longitude," Doc interrupted, severely.

"The one I gave you is correct," the little man insisted, stubbornly.

Doc fixed his gold-flecked eyes on Ramadanoff while he spoke in brittle tones to Renny and Long Tom.

"Get out the rope, Renny, and loop it over Ramadanoff's right foot," the bronze man said. "Long Tom, open the side hatch."

Renny looped the rope over Ramadanoff's foot and pulled it tight. Renny hauled back so exuberantly that he pulled the bearded little man off his feet. Long Tom threw open the side hatch, revealing a patch of blue. It was the Pacific Oceannearly a mile below.

"Pull his 'chute off, Long Tom," Doc directed.

Long Tom slipped the pack-chute from the little man's shoulders. The packs — contrivances developed by Doc himself — were not bulky. They could be worn with no more inconvenience than a heavy coat would have occasioned. When in the air, Doc ad his men were usually equipped with the safety devices and, in this case, they had provided one for their prisoner.

Doc looked at Ramadanoff and said, "Renny here is going to lower you through the hole. He will lower you down hand-over-hand slowly untill he comes to the end of the rope. Then if you have not indicated that you will speak the truth, he will let go the rope."

Doc looked toward Renny. "Lower away."

Ramadanoff had been lowered half of the rope's length when the bluff worked. He looked up and squalled like a wildcat.

"I'll tell!" he screamed.

"Hold him there a minute, Renny," Doc ordered. He looked down at the cringing prisoner. "The location?"

Ramadanoff screamed latitude and longitude down to minutes-and-seconds. He had it on the tip of his tongue.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"We will let him cool off now," Doc decided. "Renny, take charge of him."

"Will I, Doc!" Renny boomed.

Ramadanoff was so giddy from being dangled on the rope that he could not stand when he was first drawn back within the plane. Long Tom fitted the pack-chute back on the man's shoulders. Then Renny dragged him un-gently aft and locked him in the fuselage compartment again.

The plane ran into a fog bank as it droned SouthWest. Doc climbed the plane and came out on top in dazzling sunshine. Occasional rifts in the fog showed him the blue Pacific below.

Eventually, a rent showed something else besides water.

"Land below," Renny announced. "A small island."

"Cocos Island," Doc said. "We take our final bearings from here. The next land we sight will be the Galapagos."

"That won't be long at the rate we're traveling," Long Tom said.

It was only a brief glimpse they got of Cocos Island. Then the fog closed in again like swaddling cotton, seeming to wedge the hurtling plane against the sky.

"Bring out the prisoner, Renny," Doc suggested some time later. "We will try again to find out something more about this mysterious Devil's Honeycomb ."

Renny grinned and went aft to unlock the compartment door.

"We'll make him talk," Long Tom affirmed grimly.

But they did not make Boris Ramadanoff talk.

Renny threw open the prison compartment door and stared, jaw sagging, his generously proportioned mouth yawning wide like a tunnel opening.

"What's the matter?" Long Tom called, sharply.

"Matter!" Renny howled, dazedly. He turned, dived forward.

"He busted a hole in the floor!" Renny squalled. "He's jumped out!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"How could he break out?" Long Tom demanded. "Nobody can break through the alloy skin of this plane. It's even bulletproof."

"How did he do it, Renny?" Doc asked, quietly.

"That was the compartment where we had the floor ripped up the other day, Doc," Renny muttered. "It wasn't welded. Just small bolts set in temporarily."

Doc looked at the chart. "It is too late to do anything about it now. Doubtless, Ramadanoff bailed out over Cocos Island. It is entirely too large an island for us to waste time trying to locate him."

The great tri-motored speed ship scudded on, riding above the fog bank like a gigantic water bug skimming the surface of quiet depths.

"How're we gonna locate anything in this fog?" Renny wanted to know later.

"We can get our latitude and longitude above, then go down and land on the water to wait till the fog lifts," Doc explained. "That, of course, may not be necessary."

That logical plan — it developed later — was never to be put into execution. At the present latitude and longitude — given by Boris Ramadanoff under pressure — the fog became strangely reddish in color over a considerable area. This crimson glowwas uneasy, flickering, brightening and dulling as though the leaping fires of Hell itself strove to break through.