by Don Wilcox
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The Complete Novels
Don Wilcox
(custom book cover)
Jerry eBooks
Title Page
About Don Wilcox
Pseudonyms
Bibliography
DISCIPLES OF DESTINY
THE ICE QUEEN
CRAIG’S BOOK
PRINCESS OF THE SEA
THE GIANTS OF MONGO
DESERT OF THE DAMNED
THE LAVENDER VINE OF DEATH
THE EYE OF THE WORLD
CLEO ELDON WILCOX was born and died in Lucas, Kansas. In addition to ‘Don Wilcox’, his best known pen name, he used the pseudonyms of Buzz-Bolt Atomcracker (one story), Cleo Eldon, Max Overton, Miles Shelton, and Alexander Blade (a house name). His wife’s maiden name was Helen Miles Shelton. He and Helen had a daughter, whom Wilcox described in an Amazing interview as “furnishing diversion” when he was trying to write.
Wilcox published most of his science fiction in Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, when both were Ziff-Davis publications under the editorship of Ray Palmer. (Wilcox wrote once that he began writing science fiction after a chance meeting with the editor of Amazing Stories). At one time he was Palmer’s most prolific and popular contributor, averaging over 40,000 words a month of published stories.
Wilcox also had stories published in Mammoth Western and Mammoth Detective, two other Ziff-Davis magazines.
Wilcox graduated from The University of Kansas, and then earned an M.A. in sociology. He taught English, creative writing, history, and sociology in several junior and senior high schools, at the Chicago campus of Northwestern University, and at The University of Kansas — and later he edited newspapers.
In 1932 he and his wife began writing plays for high school classes, and he began writing feature articles for the Kansas City Star. He was also a painter, but early in his career gave up painting in order to have more time to write.
Wilcox also wrote scripts for television programs, including Captain Video. In explaining his science fiction writing, he told genre historian Mike Ashley that he seldom read other science fiction authors, but got his ideas for stories from museums, planetariums, ancient histories, and sociology textbooks.
His only published SF novel outside of the pulp magazines was The Whispering Gorilla (World Distributors, 1950) [as by David V. Reed/reprinted with Return of the Whispering Gorilla by Gryphon Books in 1999].
Almost forgotten today, at one time Don Wilcox was a mainstay of the Ziff-Davis science fiction magazines and very popular with readers of both Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures. He was said to write science fantasy rather than science fiction, but he had many readers who thought of themselves as science fiction fans. One of these fans was future science fiction writer and editor Terry Carr. “Give Us More Wilcox, Please!” begged Carr in a letter to Fantastic Adventures in the early 1950s.
When his writing career was nearly over in 1975, Wilcox retired to Florida and resumed painting. At the time of an interview with Mike Ashley in the late 1980s, he had created 300+ paintings, most of them portraits.
Cleo Eldon Wilcox, in addition to his main pseudonym, ‘Don Wilcox’, also wrote under these names:
Buzz-Bolt Atomcracker
Alexander Blade
Cleo Eldon
Max Overton
Miles Shelton
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Originally published in magazines]
Disciples of Destiny (1942)
Craig’s Book (1943)
The Ice Queen (1943)
Princess of the Sea (1947)
The Giants of Mogo (1947)
Desert of the Damned (1947)
The Lavender Vine of Death (1948)
The Eye of the World (1949)
Amazing Stories
March-April 1942
Volume 16, Numbers 3-4
PART I
Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito were but disciples of this weird old man who made the earth shake from his tower of evil science!
CHAPTER I
“Danger! . . . Danger! . . . Storm over the Flinfiord . . . Danger!”
The low-spoken warning was scarcely more than a whisper in the earphones—a girl’s whisper, at that. It certainly didn’t have the sound of an official weather forecast, but the ominous tone sent chills through Ross Bradford’s arms and fingers. His left hand tightened on the stick. He checked his altitude.
“Danger! . . . Danger! . . .”
Ross shot a glance at his companion. Hank Switcher had gone to sleep with his earphones on. Now he was stirring. He pushed his pudgy face up from between his shoulders like a sleepy turtle coming out of its shell. Then his head lopped down again and he began to snore gently.
“Storm over the Flinfiord! . . . Beware! . . .”
Hank Switcher gave a disturbed snort. His eyes kept on sleeping but his mouth woke up enough to mumble, “What th’ hell is Flinfiord?”
“It must be an island,” said Ross. “Never heard of it.”
Hank managed to open one eye, but all he saw was a patch of midnight sky smeared with a thin sprinkling of stars. “There’s no storm. What’s she talking about? She must be a radio ham playing pranks. Are you about to get this bomber delivered to merry old England?”
“Less than two hours to go, if the weather behaves.”
“You see any storm?”
“Not a sign. The sky’s clear.”
“Altitude?”
“Ten thousand, and still on the gyropilot.”
“Wake me up when we get there,” Hank groaned, and hunched down for another Sleep.
“Fishermen of the Flinfiord, take warning! . . . Travelers on the coast road should find shelter . . . Airplanes, veer northward to avoid region of the Flinfiord . . . A storm is about to break in this vicinity . . . A storm . . .” Veer northward! Ross Bradford snorted. He was already north of his course, and he did not intend to lose any more ground. The secret British airport on the coast of Scandinavia was waiting for this bomber, and he, as an American volunteer pilot, meant to get it there before daylight.
Ross searched the instrument board. He checked the readings on the temperature gauges for the four whirlwind motors. The plane was holding a steady two hundred miles per hour. Out under the starry sky Ross could now see the heavy black of a rugged island looming up on the horizon.
“Damn, what a voice,” Hank Switcher smiled blissfully. “If that gal’s a radio ham, I should have gone in for radio instead of book writing. Listen to her—”
“Something’s screwy.” Ross pushed a map into Hank’s hands. “There’s no official weather station charted for this region.”
Switcher blinked at the map for a minute. There wasn’t even a Flinfiord.
“Mysteries that pass in the dark,” Hank Switcher mused, jotting idly in his notebook. “Another story that might have been. Lovely voice—lovely girl. Maybe she’s warning her lover that the old man’s come home, or something. Whispering it in code, you know. Storm coming up—that means the old man’s pacing the floor—”
“Bosh! You’re always writing shotgun stories.”
“Anyway, it’s an item in my literary notebook. But, dam it, this is just my luck. Mysteries everywhere and I just sideswipe them. That sweet little voice says veer northward, so we have to veer northw—”
“We didn’t veer,” Ross snapped.
“Huh?”
“We’ll shoot straight over yonder island in another five minutes.”
Hank jammed his notebook in his pocket and
peered through the windshield. “You mean we’re gonna run smack into that storm, after she warned us—”
“So you fell for it,” Ross chuckled. “Well, I didn’t. The sky’s as clear as—”
A wide flare of lightning jumped across the sky.
“It’s coming! . . . The storm! . . .Take shelter!”
Click. The mysterious station switched off. Ross and Hank exchanged blank stares. The veteran pilot’s hand tightened on the stick. His eyes combed the dials, then fastened grimly upon the vast midnight landscape.
Hank Switcher took refuge in his notebook. “Flash out of nowhere,” he jotted. “The voice of a girl. Throbbing with fear. Appeal. Gathering troubles. Impending doom. Doesn’t make sense, but keeps echoing in your ears.”
Suddenly the outside world went blinding white. The lightning flash seemed to be everywhere at once.
It came again, held on for three or four seconds.
“That’s no natural lightning,” Ross Bradford snapped. “Gimme my colored specks.”
A hard clap of thunder ripped against the plane. Ross threw open the vents on each side and the wind roared into the control cabin.
The plane was nosing down when the next flash came. Through their dark glasses Ross and Hank saw the core of that flash. It was far beneath them, directly over the promontory on the farther point of the island.
“I can still see it,” Hank sang out, jiggling his head to shake the image out of his eyes. “That kind of light bores in and hangs on like—”
Ripping thunder drowned their talk. The storm was growing into something terrifying, colossal, unnerving. Hank gritted his teeth. If he had been suddenly tossed into a seething volcano the surprise couldn’t have been much greater. Clouds were forming out of the roaring wind. They puffed out almost like jets of steam, only dark and dangerous-looking. The sky was becoming overcast.
Ross Bradford caught another view of the lightning spray before the storm’s darkness spread a black blanket between the plane and the island ahead.
What Ross saw was an ocean-wide wheel of light. Several arms of the violet-white rays stabbed out from a circular core at the top of that black promontory, leaped in straight lines like the spokes of a wheel, flared like a dozen giant beacons powerful enough to encompass the very ocean.
Every flash of that ubiquitous light ended with a hard, roaring crash of thunder. Every crash brought on a shifting swirl of tornado. The big plane trembled, swerved downward, refused to straighten out. Suddenly a section of the fuselage ripped with a grinding metallic crunch. Ross was thrown against the instrument board. He felt the safety belt tug at his stomach.
Then he saw Hank, wide-eyed, throwing off his safety belt with nervous hands. Ross understood. He quickly checked the parachute harness that clasped his companion, shouted, “ ’Sworth a try . . . Count ten, Hank!”
Ross touched a lever. The bomb hatch flew open, and Hank fairly rolled for the opening. He threw his hand in a motion for Ross to follow. Then he was gone.
But through the bomb hatch Ross caught a glimpse of wreckage swirling black against the violet-white shaft of light—the rudder and fin, the stabilizers—
All control was gone now except the ailerons. Ross fought wildly, but the steep dive took his breath. His consciousness hovered in the balance. Yet even as the blackness threatened to engulf him he knew, from the gleams of light that shot along the inner walls—from the screaming of winds—that the whole tail of his ship was gone!
It had gone instantly, not with the scream of ripping fuselage yielding to overpowering winds. It had dissolved. That stream of light had cut the rear end of the ship off—disintegrated it!
A horrifying dizziness was Ross’ only sensation now. He lost his grip on his hope that the falling plane might not strike Hank—that Hank might live to explain—
What was this? A sickening, weird, unbelievable something seized the last shreds of Ross’ consciousness. He was seeing a strange face, a pair of evil eyes, hanging there in the darkness, glaring—glaring—a haunting, torturing vision.
All the hatred and anger and viciousness in the world seemed to focus in that pair of eyes. They came larger, gleaming with a luminous hypnotizing power, hurling their diabolical challenge squarely at the falling pilot. They seemed to accuse him, charge him with all the wrongs of a wicked world.
They came closer, brighter, harder—until the very lightning that filled the sky seemed dim in comparison. Had they come simply to torture Ross Bradford in his last moment of life—glaring—glaring—glaring—
CRASH!
CHAPTER II
A Madman’s “Statistics”
Ross Bradford clung tenaciously to the slimy rock. Cold waves dashed over him intermittently; perhaps the waves had brought back his consciousness.
The storm was subsiding now, though the sky and sea were still black. Ross’ thoughts came clearer with every deep full breath. Now he was not even sure that he had lost consciousness at any time during the dive and crash. His ears still echoed with the awful hiss of the burning plane. But everything had happened so swiftly—the blind head-on smash against jutting rocks, the explosion of fuel tanks, the slush of black waves over the burning plane.
He fought his way upward out of reach of the waves. Here the ragged rock was dry against his ripped and torn fingers. He sprawled over a flat surface, closed his eyes, felt the vibrations of the pounding sea. There was nothing to do but sleep until morning.
His consciousness dulled away, tortured though it was by pain. The dull ache in his left upper arm sharpened to a blow-torch burn. His eyes again seemed to see the fire of exploding fuel tanks—a flame that twisted and turned into a memory of those mysterious eyes, burning hot with evil, that had glared at him so vividly a few minutes before.
Eyes out of nowhere—what could it mean?
And that other mysterious spell—the voice of the girl who had tried to warn him—
Ross awoke to the shout of one Hank Switcher,
Grey dawn ripped across the waters. A dory was plodding through the waves, and the pudgy turtle-like figure in the prow was waving his arms like a commodore winning his first victory at sea. “Are you alive?” Switcher yelled. “What do you think?” Ross retorted. “Hell, after all the trouble I had finding a stretcher.”
Ross rose stiffly, rubbed his burnt arm, ran his fingers through his towsled hair. “I’m all right except for being pickled in salt water. But the bomber—” He jerked a thumb toward the deep. “Nice mess I’ve made of things.” The dory came up alongside. Ross had Hank and the two fishermen examined the streak of broken rock where the bomber had crashed, so that they could attest to the catastrophe. But Hank said there was no need of that; he had been an eyewitness.
“Perfect bird’s-eye view from the parachute,” said Hank. “I saw you straightening out just as you hit. And the explosion—umm—nice little flare-up. I said to myself, ‘There goes old man Bradford.’ Yep, it was beautiful.”
“You’ve got a morbid sense of beauty,” said Ross, getting into the dory. “I suppose you floated down with a notebook in your hand, writing a blow-by-blow account. Well, let’s be off. Before the sun sets again, I’m going to account for that storm—or lose my socks trying.”
“You’ll lose your socks,” Hank said, “from all I can get out of these natives.”
“What’s your explanation?” Ross asked sharply, turning to first one and then the other of the rowers.
Neither of the seamen were inclined to give a very satisfactory answer. When you lived in Flinfiord, they said, you didn’t try to explain things. You just took what came.
“But storms don’t just spring up out of nowhere,” Ross pursued. “There’s got to be a cause for things like that.” Again the seamen shrugged.
“They don’t talk much,” said Hank. “I think it’s a Flinfiord trait.”
Hank had been lucky enough to parachute down to the northern point of the island, he said. The lower winds had carried him in. The rest of the n
ight he’d spent untangling himself from the parachute cord—that and knocking at natives’ doors trying to stir out a rescue party for Ross.
“At first I thought they didn’t speak English, they were so suspicious. They seem to be overfed on midnight rescues around here.”
They rounded the northern point of the island and pushed toward the little fisherman’s village that lay huddled along the west coast. The sun sifted through the morning mists. From the farther side of the island black and purple mountains rose against the morning sky like a magnificent backdrop under magic stage lights.
Ross pointed down the west coastline. At the southwestern point a high salient promontory reared dark and sheer. A cluster of castle-like buildings crowned it.
“That’s where the fireworks came from,” said Ross.
“And the warning,” said Hank. “I took the trouble to inquire. There’s a female radio ham up there.”
Ross instructed the fishermen to row to that end of the island. The fishermen grumbled that it would make them late for breakfast. But breakfasts were the least of Ross’ worries. This business of broadcasting warnings about storms, and suddenly following through by broadcasting the storm itself, could stand to be investigated. Ross reiterated that he intended to trace the matter down before he left this place.
“You’ll probably run up a board bill,” said Hank.
“I won’t stay over more than a day or two,” said Ross. “I’ll just run up to that castle and take a look.”
“Ummm?” Hank made a comical face. “That girl did have a nice voice.”
“Shall I give her your regards, Hank, or will you come along?”
Hank wasn’t ready to decide. He wouldn’t mind seeing the girl. She might be just the heroine he needed for a story. But he’d hate to get mixed up in any more thunder and lightning.
The mention of thunder and lightning brought back Ross’ heavy mood. Thousands of dollars and hours of work had gone into making that bomber and Uncle Sam had entrusted him to get it across. He was going to have some explaining to do.