by Lin Carter
For he was, in actuality, a time-traveler from the remote future, come back from a distant age nearly destroyed by aeons of criminal misrule to change mankind’s grim future by altering its past. There he had been Arkon Z-1000, the final result in an age-long program of genetic engineering designed to produce a superman strong and wise enough to wage battle against the criminal masterminds who had arisen during the closing decades of the Twentieth Century and who had ruled for generations a neo-feudal world which they, in their callous greed, had plunged into a Dark Age of appalling internecine strife from which his own future had slowly emerged to shelter the surviving remnants of mankind and to preserve the awesome scientific wisdom salvaged from a ruined past.
Such was Prince Zarkon of Novenia — Lord of the Unknown, Man of Mysteries, Nemesis of Evil!
In a few terse, well-chosen words, Prince Zarkon apprised his lieutenants of the radio message his sensitive instruments had picked up from the island of Rangatoa. The events surrounding the mysterious death of Tommy Kahua, and the old legend of the fire devil supposedly imprisoned underneath the volcanic mountain, were swiftly told. Scorchy was impressed by the story.
“Cripes, chief! A monster that crawls out o’ the crater o’ a live volcano, drippin’ all over wid molten lava, an’ kills folks with a touch o’ his burnin’ paws! Wow! Sure sounds like our sort o’ case, all right.”
“Exactly my own thought, Scorchy,” said Zarkon quietly.
“How we gonna get there, though, chief?” asked Ace Harrigan thoughtfully. “Too far away for the Shooting Star to be much use,” he mused, referring to Omega’s private jet, one of the fastest in the world. “Maybe we better take the big bird....”
Zarkon agreed. In a private airfield on Long Island the Omega men kept their big, long-distance transport plane, the Skyrocket. Only this huge craft could carry the five of them, together with the clothing and equipment they would need to carry with them, to the other side of the planet.
They discussed ways and means, selecting the cases of equipment they thought it likely they would require on this adventure. During this exchange, Doc Jenkins maintained- a glum silence.
“Hey, Doc,” Scorchy spoke up suddenly, “what d’ya know about this-here island, Rangatoa, anyway? Unlimber that magic noodle of yours; we better know what we’re gettin’ into.”
The big, pale-skinned man said nothing. He looked distinctly unhappy and forlorn. Finally, in a grudging voice, he said that Rangatoa was one of the smaller islands of the Luzon group, the latitude and longitude of which he rattled off in his usual way. Then he informed them that the islands, which had formerly been a colony of Spain, had been granted their independence by the League of Nations in 1930 and had formed the Luzon Union under the active encouragement of Juan Mindoro, the world-known Luzon millionaire, philanthropist, and patriot.
“— The center of the Union is the island of Luzon itself, comprising some seven hundred and thirty-two square miles. The capital city is Mantilla, situated on Mantilla Bay, and a center of shipping in the Pacific. The principal products of the Luzon islands are tea, copra, teakwood, bamboo, manganese —”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s swell,” interrupted Scorchy hastily. “But what about Rangatoa itself?”
The big man’s face became even more glum, solemn, and lugubrious than before. He said nothing. Suddenly Scorchy’s Killarney-blue eyes lit up with wicked glee, and he burst out laughing. The others stared at him puzzledly.
“Don’t you guys get it?” crowed the pint-sized boxer. “Big brain, over there, just plain don’t know nothing about Rangatoa!”
The woeful expression on Doc’s heavy face confirmed this unlikely fact. The Omega lieutenants exchanged glances of amazement. It was literally unheard of for the big man with the eidetic memory not to be an inexhaustible fountain of facts and figures in any and every conceivable topic. They had never before seen him so nonplussed.
“Goldarnit, Scorchy, the Luzon group’s made up of thousands of little tiny reefs and atolls and islands ... ain’t nothing special about this one . I ... I just don’t have any particular information about Rangatoa, that’s all,” mumbled Doc Jenkins in a sad voice, crimson with embarrassment.
But Scorchy wasn’t listening. He was doubled up with laughter.
CHAPTER 3 — At the Cobalt Club
While his lieutenants went about packing their clothing and personal gear, and assembling the big equipment cases they had decided to take with them, Zarkon placed a few local telephone calls, then descended to his basement garage and picked a low-slung, powerful automobile. Driving it up the ramp and through the big, armor-plated, power-driven doors, he emerged onto the street and drove across town to his club which stood on a fashionable, exclusive side street off Fifth Avenue.
Parking at the curb before the imposing marble facade which dated from the turn of the century and had been designed by the famous architect Stanford White, Zarkon entered the lobby and called over the attendant.
“I am supposed to meet Colonel Renwick here, and Admiral Winslow,” he said. “Have either of them arrived yet?”
“Yes, Your Highness, Colonel Renwick asked for you only a few minutes ago. I believe you will find the gentleman either in the study or at the bar. Admiral Winslow has not yet arrived, however; when he does, I will tell him that Your Highness is already here.”
Nodding his thanks, the Man from Tomorrow entered the study, a large, long room decorated richly but in flawless taste. At this hour of the afternoon it was all but deserted; however, in leather easy chairs drawn up beneath one of the huge. windows he recognized two men whom he knew and strolled over to speak with them.
The older man, his silver hair gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, which glinted from the pince-nez glasses affixed to his high-bridged, aristocratic nose, smiled affably as Zarkon approached.
“Ah! A pleasant surprise, my dear Prince. We see you so seldom these days ... I trust you are acquainted with Benson, here,” he said, nodding to the gray-haired man with stiff, colorless, immobile features, who was seated next to him.
“Indeed I do, Philo; how are you, Richard?” nodded Prince Zarkon with a quiet smile.
The white-faced man said through unmoving lips, “Well enough, sir. Nice to see you again. I was just remarking to Vance here that the club seems deserted today. Usually you will find Cranston or Wentworth lounging in a corner, but today the place is empty.”
“I believe Cranston is still in San Francisco,” murmured Zarkon. “I was supposed to meet Colonel Renwick here. Have either of you seen him?”
Vance nodded, his pince-nez gleaming. “One of Savage’s team, isn’t he? The engineer? He looked in a moment ago; you will probably find him in the bar.”
Zarkon made his thanks and entered the bar, a low-ceilinged room, cozy and dark, with a huge fireplace at one end and old oil portraits of former members along the walls above the tables. There he spied the man he had come to consult, chatting with a tall, well-dressed man with gray-shot temples and smooth, dark hair with whom Zarkon was slightly acquainted. This person was a wealthy man-about-town named Van Loan.
Zarkon strolled up to the bar and introduced himself to Colonel Renwick, nodding to Van Loan.
“Oh, hiya, Prince! Been lookin’ all over for ya. Guess I was a little early,” boomed the big engineer in a hearty voice, shaking hands.
“It was kind of you to come,” smiled Zarkon. “Have you two gentlemen introduced yourselves? Mr. Richard Curtis Van Loan, Colonel John Renwick. Dick, may I order you another of whatever you were drinking?”
Van Loan shook his head with a quiet smile. “Thank you, but no. I was just killing time, waiting for my guest to arrive. I was supposed to have an early dinner with my father’s old friend Frank Havens, the newspaper publisher. And here he is now! I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your business. It was a pleasure to meet you, Renwick.”
“Same here,” boomed the big man, shaking hands. As Van Loan left the bar to meet his guest, Zarkon took his
stool. Renwick was a huge, cheerful man who topped Zarkon by some two inches and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds of bone and beef. He had a tanned, weather-beaten face under a tousled shock of gray hair, and the most enormous pair of hands you could find for twenty states around. They were ham-sized mitts of solid gristle, big enough to fit quart buckets. This feature, and the fact that while his voice was cheerful his face wore an expression of permanent and abiding gloom, made him stick out in a crowd, whose members probably would not have recognized him for the famous adventurer, traveler, and civil engineer he was. Dams, railways, tunnels, and bridges the world over bore his name, however.
“Howja know I was in town, anyway?” he asked cheerfully, after a long guzzle into his martini glass. “I been retired for years, y’know; got me a big ranch out in Wyoming now, an’ hardly ever get t’ town.”
“Yes, I know.” Zarkon smiled. “But your friend Brooks once mentioned the fact that you and your former colleagues still get together for an annual reunion dinner whose date, I believe, is tomorrow.”
“Holy Cow, you hit it on th’ nose!” boomed the glumfaced giant happily. “Betcha don’t know why that particular date, though!”
“Yes, I do,” said Zarkon with a rare chuckle. “It marks the occasion, back in 1918, when you first met your friends. You were all prisoners of war together in a German camp, the Loki stalag, near the end of the First World War....”
“Holy Cow,” rumbled the big engineer. “Sounds like ol’ Ham’s been shooting off his mouth! I better tell him t’ hush up before he gives away all our secrets! Say, what’d’ja wanna see me about, anyway, Prince?”
“Rangatoa Island in the Luzon group,” said Zarkon. “Weren’t you out there recently on a mining survey?”
“Sure was,” boomed Renwick, lighting up a big cigar. “Retired or not, they sometimes coax me off th’ ranch by danglin’ enough money under my nose! Big minin’ outfit wanted a survey of them islands t’ see if there was anything out there worth a big operation. Nothin’ on Rangatoa, though, but some baxterite deposits; an’ not enough baxterite to get excited about, either. Found some decent manganese lodes on couple o’ the bigger islands, but th’ company decided not to dig. See, you’d hafta deepen th’ channels between them islands to get the big ore-ships in, and that’d cost ya more’n th’ metals’d be worth.”
“I see,” nodded Zarkon. “What was the name of the firm that hired you to perform the survey?”
“Outfit called Pacific Mining and Minerals,” answered Renwick. “Guy in charge is a comical geezer name of Braxton T. Crawley. They got an office in San Francisco, another in Honolulu, and a small one in Mantilla. Not much out in the Luzons, y’know; mostly igneous rock out there — islands are volcanic in origin.”
Glancing at his watch, the big man tossed down the rest of his drink. “Say, I gotta be gettin’ along now, Prince, if that’s all I can tell ya.”
A tall man with military posture and dignified gray temples entered the bar shortly after this. Spotting Zarkon, he strode over and introduced himself and they shook hands. Rear Admiral Donald A. Winslow, now retired, declined Zarkon’s offer of a drink, suggesting coffee instead. They went into the study and took chairs by the window where Vance and Benson had sat earlier, and Zarkon summoned an attendant, ordering coffee for two. Then he wasted no time in broaching the subject of his interest.
“Weren’t you in the Pacific during the war, Admiral?” he inquired. “I seem to recall that you were engaged in the battle off Mantilla Bay. I’m particularly interested in a small island to the south, called Rangatoa; any firsthand information you can tell me about the place would be appreciated.”
Don Winslow sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “I had command of the Exeter during that engagement, yes,” he said. “And, now that you mention it, at one point we were moored off an island named Rangatoa. I recall sending some parties ashore for reconnaissance, just to be sure we didn’t have any of the enemy holed up there.” With brisk, well-chosen words, the Admiral related what he knew of the island, which was mostly negative; that is, outside of a small village composed mainly of native fishermen with a sprinkling of individuals of mixed Spanish descent, there was nothing at all on the island, save for the jungles, a stretch of swamp, and the volcanic mountain itself, which dominated the entire central portion of the tiny isle. There were no other villages or settlements and never had been.
Zarkon asked a number of questions, few of which Admiral Winslow was able to answer with any certainty or in any sort of concrete detail. Realizing that he wasn’t being of much help, the Admiral shrugged self-deprecatingly, and apologized.
“I’m afraid I’m not being very useful to you, Prince Zarkon,” he grinned. “The fact of the matter is, there simply isn’t anything on Rangatoa that is of any real interest to anybody; few people live there, and not much of importance has ever happened there; at least, nothing that I know about.”
“That’s quite all right,” Zarkon said. “You’ve been of help, actually: just knowing there’s nothing much there is to have learned something about the place. Everything I can find out concerning Rangatoa may come in handy. We’re going out there soon, and I have always found that it comes in handy to learn as much as possible about a certain locale before visiting it. But I want to make certain of one thing before I let you go. It is a definite fact that you discovered no secret Japanese installations on the island? No underground bunkers or gun-emplacements or storage facilities? No hidden base of any kind?”
“None whatsoever,” said Winslow in a positive tone. “The soil, I remember, was of very hard-packed clay over solid rock. It would have been tremendously difficult to have hollowed out any installations underground. And the islanders themselves assured us at the time that no Japanese landings had ever been made on the island.”
Leaving the Cobalt Club, Zarkon called his lieutenants on the mobile radiophone unit with which his car was equipped, learning that, as he had instructed, they had already made the trip to the secret airbase on Long Island and were loading up the plane. Chandra Lal had packed Prince Zarkon’s gear and belongings for him and they were already on the aircraft. So the Prince, instead of returning to Omega headquarters, drove across one of the midtown bridges to the island and headed for the airfield where his men awaited him.
Most of the planes used by Omega were stored on the little island in the middle of the river. There also the Omega men moored their seagoing craft, which included a powerful luxury yacht which had the firepower of a pocket battleship, although you would never have suspected it from a look at the superbly designed craft, and an atomic submarine, the Captain Nemo, which was believed to be the world’s only privately owned submersible thus powered with nuclear engines.
But the big, long-distance plane needed more of a run-way than the limited size of Omega Island could afford; hence, the necessity of a land-based airfield. Since the Omega organization, insofar as it was possible to do so, concealed all details of its operations from the public, to insure its safety from the cunning criminals who were the enemies against which Omega had been created as opposition, the location and purpose of the airbase had to be kept secret.
The field itself, which was located in a largely uninhabited part of Long Island, had been built back in the 1930s by a wealthy, adventure-loving, energetic businesswoman who had parlayed her exclusive Park Avenue beauty salon — Patricia, Incorporated — into a multimillion-dollar business. Liking the idea of a private airfield, she built one, disguising the fact with signs which falsely identified the place as the “Norpen Lumber Company.” When she married and sold her beauty salon, she was easily persuaded to sell the private airfield as well, which Zarkon had purchased as a home for the Skyrocket. The experimental superplane was then being constructed, according to Zarkon’s design, by the Hazzard Laboratories out on College Point, Long Island, the same firm which had built his special helicopter, the Silver Ghost, to his own specifications.
The ride out to the so-cal
led Norpen Lumber Company was dull and uneventful. So Zarkon decided to let the big car drive itself while he mentally reviewed the data which had thus far been gathered on the island of Rangatoa. Perhaps I should explain here that the big limousine Zarkon was using for this trip was another one of his experimental vehicles, called Greyhound. The powerful car packed underneath its hood a super-miniaturized radar guidance system, robot pilot, and traffic computer, hooked up together in such a way that Greyhound could scan the highway with its electronic senses and drive itself automatically.
The miracle automobile, however, usually could not cope with the tangled traffic of Knickerbocker City’s busy streets. Even a computer, Zarkon learned ruefully, was unable to figure out how to negotiate the metropolitan rush-hour traffic. Here, on a lonely stretch of Long Island highway, on the other hand, Greyhound’s “robot-chauffeur” functioned perfectly.
Turning off the highway at the Norpen Lumber Company sign, the sleek gray limousine followed a dirt road through thick stands of trees carefully situated to block all views of the secret airbase. At this point Zarkon shut off the computer and regained manual control of the auto.
He found his men all set and ready to go. Sunset flamed red beyond the trees which concealed the hills to the west, but the field was brilliantly, if unobtrusively, lit by ground-level banks of floodlights which would turn themselves off automatically, once the great rocket-plane had cleared the end of the runway.
Parking Greyhound in one of the seemingly-dilapidated outbuildings, whose rusty walls of flimsy-looking corrugated iron concealed walls as thick as those of a bank vault, he joined his friends on the field.
“All packed up and fueled and ready to go, chief,” grinned Ace Harrigan. The famous aviator, naturally, would serve as their pilot during the flight, although any of the others could spell him at the controls if needed. They were all expert pilots and were equally adept behind the wheel of every other kind of vehicle, except for Scorchy Muldoon. That is to say, the peppery little redhead could fly a plane or maneuver a boat with the best of them, but when it came to cars, the feisty bantam-weight was about as useless as a polar bear in the Sahara, and as much out of his domain. It was a standing joke among Prince Zarkon’s lieutenants that Scorchy couldn’t drive a car for more than thirty yards without running into something — even if he had to climb up on the sidewalk in order to find something to hit.