Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

Long Tom turned in at a building which towered — a sheer mountain of gleaming stone and steel — nearly a hundred stories into the sky. The entire 86 thfloor of this building constituted the New York Headquarters of Doc Savage.

Past a phalanx of elevators in the skyscraper lobby, Long Tom strode and paused before Doc Savage's own private elevator shaft, fishing in his pocket for a key. This speed elevator was of Doc Savage's own ingenious designing. It maintained lightning passage between that 86 thfloor and the main lobby as well as the basement where — in a subterranean garage — Doc's remarkably equipped motor vehicles were housed.

Fitting the peculiar key to the hole, Long Tom gained access to the speed elevator.

He jumped wildly just after he stepped into the lift. There was blurred movement as something — it appeared to be an amazingly elongated mouse — scurried between his feet and disappeared around the corner in the lobby.

Long Tom popped his head out of the elevator to get a better view. All he got was another impression of blurred motion. Strangely, the thing did not seem to be running on legs nor did it writhe like a snake. It flowed, seemingly.

Like a grayish-blue streak, it flowed against the shiny black oxford of a uniformed elevator starter and disappeared within the recesses of his trousers leg.

The elevator starter was an active young man who liked to practice tap steps when no one was around. He was rather good at it. But the dance routine that he went into when that grayish-blue streak flowed up his pants leg was like nothing executed on a stage or ballroom floor.

Long Tom grinned at first, watching the young man's epileptic antics. But suddenly he quit grinning and started forward with great strides.

He had caught a glimpse of the elevator starter's face. The young man's features were knotted in stark agony! A shrill cry broke from his writhing lips. His knees bent under him. He fell, arms gyrating wildly.

Long Tom caught him before he struck the floor and bent over the shuddering body. His hands patted frenziedly over the young man's trousers leg, attempting to crush that unseen thing responsible for the fellow's tragic condition.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"Stand back!" Long Tom warned as curious men and women in the lobby surged close.

They paid no attention, of course, crowding in and staring, asking aimless questions. New Yorkers invariably behave thus when one of their number acts in a manner slightly deviating from the normal.

"Get a doctor," someone advised.

"Stand back!" Long Tom warned again, sharply this time. "Something bit him. There's a poison snake or bug or rat or something loose in here. You're all in danger!"

Even that did not move them. With new recruits continuously pressing in from behind, the crowd swelled closer. Curiosity was an emotion more rampant than fear.

Then something happened which did move them. They became all at once conscious of a man approaching. He neither spoke nor shoved. But there was such quiet mastery in his face and manner that — instinctively — they looked at him. And then with a kind of awe , they pressed back to allow him free progress through the crowd.

The man was a giant.His strong features — kilned by tropic Sun and Arctic wind and held under superb emotional control — seemed to be molded in bronze . He topped by fully a head every man in the lobby. And yet so perfectly was his huge frame developed — prodigious muscles molded in perfect symmetry — that it was only the manner in which he towered above the close-pressed crowd that revealed him as the giant he really was.

His crisp hair seemed made of bronze only a shade darker than his skin. His great neck sinews — only slightly less hard than metal — showed decidedly above his collar. Cables of the sinew ridged his hand.

The most remarkable feature of all about the bronze man was his eyes . Strange eyes they were, hypnotically compelling like pools of flake-gold , stirred with restless life as though tiny whirlpools kept the fine goldflakes continually in boiling suspension.

For an instant after the bronze giant was discovered in their midst, a hush settled over the lobby.

"Doc Savage!"someone said.

Others took up the name. From lip to lip, the murmur flew. "Doc Savage!" … "Doc Savage!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc Savage was bending over the unconscious form of the elevator starter. Cabled fingers — which could, without exaggeration, twist a horseshoe into a straight line — rolled up the trousers leg of his patient with gentle deftness. On the calf of the leg, 2 rows of blue holeswere revealed. There was no swelling, no inflammation. Just that double row of tiny lacerations.

Suddenly, penetrating the many-mouthed murmur in the lobby came a weird sound, a kind of musical trilling which ran up-and-down the scale, softly, fantastically as though the sound emanated from the air itself. It was suggestive of the sibilant slipping of an evening wind through palm fronds. Or of the call of some golden-winged bird out of an Arabian Nights fairy tale.

This sound came from Doc Savage himself. It was an unconscious part of the bronze man — a thing he did in moments of stress or at times of great surprise.

Doc Savage spoke to his aide Long Tom. The bronze man's voice was arresting, deep, and pleasantly resonant.

He said with impressive simplicity, "We will take him upstairs."

Doc lifted the unconscious man with noticeable ease. The crowd made a path for them to the elevator.

On the 86 thfloor, Doc Savage and Long Tom entered the Headquarters' Receptionroom. The room — with its great comfortable chairs, deep-piled Oriental rug, and solid table exquisitely inlaid with ivory — reflected the power and solid dignity of Doc Savage.

Doc examined his patient more closely and administered a hypodermic.

Long Tom hovered close. "Will he come out of it, Doc?"

"He will," the bronze man said quietly.

Doc listened then attentively while Long Tom related what he knew of the elevator starter's injury.

"Did you identify the thing which attacked him?" the bronze man queried.

Long Tom shook his head. "I only glimpsed it. It seemed to flow along the floor so fast that I saw only a blur . It didn't appear again after attacking this lad. I think it must have been trampled under the feet of the crowd."

Doc pointed to the parallel rows of lacerations on the patient's leg. "Only one thing could have left such marks."

" Centipede?" Long Tom hazarded.

"Correct," Doc said. "Judging from the angle in which the anterior legs — or modified fangs — have dug into the flesh, the space between lacerations, and the immediate effect of the creature's poisonous bites, I should say one of a species of giant centipedes indigenous to the Galapagos Islands."

"The Galapagos! That's where Monk and Ham and Pat sailed looking for Johnny!"

"They have arrived," Doc said grimly. "And they found trouble!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Long Tom stared. "How do you know?"

"This message came in over the shortwave set a few minutes ago."

Doc handed Long Tom a copy of Ham's and Monk's message, reading: