by Lin Carter
CHAPTER 20 — Duel to the Death
What happened next was such a surprise to Phoenicia Mulligan that the blond girl actually forgot to be scared!
Because, even as she uttered a stifled shriek, another figure appeared in the blue-lit chamber. It seemed to materialize abruptly, as if by magic. It was only a moment later that Fooey saw from whence it had so swiftly sprung. For there was another cave-entrance on the far side of the chamber.
The figure which sprang out of the second tunnel was none other than that of Prince Zarkon. Phoenicia sagged limply against the side of the cave, gustily heaving a sigh of heart-felt relief. Never in all her days had she been as glad to see someone as she was to see the Ultimate Man at that moment.
Catching the expression in her eyes — sensing that another stranger had intruded into its hidden sanctum — the ogre turned slowly to see Zarkon emerge into sight.
The man in gunmetal gray poised for only an instant on the brink of the pit. Then he sprang across it to the farther side with an agility that would have done credit to the skills of a veteran acrobat.
The monster whirled about clumsily, paws reaching for Zarkon. But the Man of Mysteries was no longer there. Ducking lithely beneath the groping paws of the volcano monster, the Prince darted to the wall of the cave. There leaned a variety of metal tools which Phoenicia Mulligan had not as yet had time to so much as notice.
Pickaxes, long-handled pincers, and pronged implements the girl did not recognize were there in a row, as well as power-drills and core-samplers and an ordinary shovel.
This last was the nearest to Zarkon. The Man from Tomorrow snatched it up and whirled it in the ogre’s face, driving the monster back, step by stumbling step.
But two could play at this particular game, it seemed. For in its lurching, clumsy retreat the ogre came within reach of the tools, too; one of which it picked up in its thick paws.
Brandishing the heavy tool, the monster now came at Zarkon.
Phoenicia’s heart was in her throat as she saw that the murder monster had now armed itself with a pickax!
It swung the ax at Zarkon. Again he glided aside, as agile and elusive as a wisp of smoke.
But Phoenicia uttered a frightened gasp, and put her knuckles to her mouth and hit them. For if but one of those savage, swinging blows ever connected, the ax which the ogre was wielding could crush Zarkon’s skull like an eggshell under a hammer.
Zarkon retreated, step by step, until he could go no farther.
Then, lifting his shovel in a two-handed grip across his chest, he began using it to protect himself with, employing the metal tool like a quarterstaff.
Blow after blow of the great ax he caught, fended off, glanced aside. But still the monster pressed forward, driving Zarkon back inch by inch, swinging the heavy pickax in merciless swipes.
Within mere moments the ogre had Zarkon cornered against the entrance to the tunnel which led back the way Phoenicia had come into the crater.
To retreat into the hole, the Ultimate Man would have had to relinquish his only defense, for the shovel was too long to fit into the entrance.
Phoenicia crouched against the wall, her heart pounding, helpless to intervene in this grim duel to the death.
This was the astonishing tableau upon which Scorchy Muldoon and Señor Luis Gonzalez stumbled half-a-second later. They emerged from the second tunnel only a few moments after Zarkon did. The Man from Tomorrow, obviously, had been only moments before them. Obviously, the Prince had concealed himself just within the entrance to the second tunnel and had been standing there for some time, observing the actions of the volcano ogre without letting himself be seen.
It had been the danger to Phoenicia Mulligan which had drawn Prince Zarkon out of hiding. Seeing the monster charging at the girl, the man in gunmetal gray had sprung to her defense. And now Zarkon himself was in danger. He could retreat no farther from the savage swings of the deadly pickax, and he could not enter the tunnel without putting down his only means of defense, thus exposing himself to the death-dealing ax.
So he did the one thing possible —
He stepped forward, directly into the monster’s path! Blocking the pickax with the shovel-handle, Zarkon reversed his grip on the tool suddenly, and gave the monster a ringing clout alongside the head with the edge of the shovel-blade.
The ringing blow would have cracked a grizzly’s skull or brained a gorilla. However, it hardly even dazed the man in the monster-suit; he lurched back only a single step, shaking his head dizzily, as if to clear his wits, then came forward again.
But that single step backwards was all that Prince Zarkon needed to put into action the plan his swift wits had conjured up.
He sprang to the brink of the ledge — teetered there for the tiniest fraction of a second — and in the next instant, he had launched himself into space!
Phoenicia Mulligan shrieked!
The pit was at its widest here. The girl could see that Prince Zarkon could not possibly leap across to the ledge on the farther side of the chamber. He could only fall into the pit where that mysterious mass of gray metal glowed with its eerie, uncanny, greenish-yellow radiance. And somehow she guessed that that gruesome radiation was — deadly.
But Zarkon neither fell into the pit of glowing metal nor attempted to reach the farther side of the ledge which circled the walls of the round chamber.
Instead, he had sprung up into the air. Legs bent into a crouch, his muscles like coiled steel springs, launched the Man of Marvels up into the air.
His upstretched hands brushed against the metal-shielded wire by which current was fed into the mercury-vapor lamp which hung suspended from a rocky projection of the roof.
Brushed — slipped — and clung!
Now Zarkon dangled by his fingertips alone, swinging above the pit of glowing metal.
Recovering from the blow of the shovel, which had only momentarily stunned it, the ogre lumbered to the brink of the ledge and swung back the pickax for a blow that would slay or cripple Zarkon.
But that blow never landed.
Instead, two unexpected things happened almost within the same instant.
Nick Naldini, looking somewhat disheveled and considerably singed, stuck his head into the chamber from the crater tunnel, took in the situation at one astounded glance, and fired his air-pistol at the ogre.
He instinctively did not even try to hit the monster, knowing its immunity to bullets. Instead he aimed a shot at the handle of the ax. The rubber bullet could not cut through the metal handle, but it packed enough wallop to knock the tool out of the ogre’s clutches.
At virtually the same moment, Señor Luis Gonzalez, leaning around Scorchy, fired his huge revolver directly at the ogre’s featureless face.
It is quite likely that the excited little detective did not take careful aim, not having either the time or the coolness of mind to have done so. His shot, then, was a remarkably lucky one. It caught the volcano devil in the one vulnerable spot in its entire shielded body — the eye.
Transparent shielding tinkled and broke.
Scarlet dribbled down over the faceless helmet.
The monster flailed its arms once, then sagged backward and fell heavily against the wall of the chamber, and moved no more.
Stunned silence ensued. Zarkon swung across the roof of the cavern, swinging hand over hand along the length of the steel-armored power-cable, which was attached to the rocky roof by deep-sunk steel brackets. He jumped down on the far side of the ledge and came around to where the monster lay, motionless, blood dripping down its blank visage from the punctured eye-slit.
Scorchy Muldoon and Señor Luis Gonzalez came crowding at his heels, breathless with excitement.
As Nick Naldini and Phoenicia Mulligan came up, Zarkon knelt by the monster and probed with careful fingers around the base of the monster’s neckless head.
There was a metallic clink.
Taking hold of the stony head in both hands, Zarkon twisted. The head
turned; gleaming metal grooves were now revealed.
“Holy Houdini!” Nick breathed. “It’s a helmet of some kind!”
In the next moment the lanky vaudevillian sucked his breath between his teeth, staring with amazement.
Zarkon lifted the helmet off so they could all see the features of the man who had worn it.
CHAPTER 21 — The Ogre Unmasked
They crowded around the figure which lay sprawled and lifeless on the rocky ledge. As they recognized the identity of the man who had worn the monster-suit, a different expression appeared on the face of each.
Señor Luis Gonzalez sucked wind between his gold inlaid teeth, then huffed his breath out slowly, making his straggly mustache flutter. The dwarfish little detective in the loud checked suit looked completely baffled. His popeyes flickered from one to another of his companions, as if hoping to find therein legible the answer to the questions that filled him with amazement.
As for Scorchy Muldoon, the bantamweight boxer was blank-faced with astonishment. His mouth framed a silent whistle. He shook his head numbly, as if to jog his wits back to functioning.
“I don’t get it,” the little Irishman complained. “Jeepers, he was about th’ last guy on the whole blamed island I woulda guessed t’ be the monster!”
Zarkon said nothing. His stern features, usually impassive, looked gloomy. With hooded eyes he looked down at the dead man, and the expression in those magnetic black eyes was not one of satisfaction.
The Man of Mysteries came from a world and age in which human life, indescribably precious, was growing ever more rare as the race dwindled towards extinction. The leader of Omega strove always to preserve life, not to waste it; even the lives of criminals he spared, whenever possible. He preferred for such men to pay the price of their crimes in accordance with the penalties of law. He never enjoyed executions, even those which were accidental.
Of them all, it was only upon the features of Phoenicia Mulligan that sorrow and pity could readily be discerned. Her lush lips trembled, and a tear hung like a dewdrop from thick lashes.
This was a natural reaction. It was only to be expected of the girl.
For the dead man at their feet was her former fiancé, John James Jones.
Stripping off the protective suit, the Omega men and Señor Luis Gonzalez lugged the dead man out of the cave. They took the other tunnel, the one which led out onto the side of the mountain, rather than the one which opened upon the inner wall of the crater. It would have been quite a feat to lug the corpse up that narrow crater ledge.
Depositing their burden on the mountain slope which overlooked the cabin in which the dead man had lived for the past six months, Zarkon contacted Ace Harrigan on his belt radio and asked him to request of Señor Valdez some native boys to help transport the body back to the village of Tarapaho. They waited for the bearers to arrive, discussing the recent events among themselves.
Scorchy wanted to know why Johnny Jones had dressed up in the monster suit.
“Wuz he tryin’ to scare ivverbody off, er what?” asked the belligerent bantamweight of his chief.
Zarkon shook his head. “Being mistaken for the legendary fire-devil was not part of the original plan at all,” said the Man from Tomorrow briefly. “The suit was worn as protection against the blistering heat of the lava-bed on the floor of the crater. It’s a special garment, made of polymerized spun-glass fiber, using the principle of vacuum-bubble insulation. Heat-suits of this nature are worn in smelting plants, steel mills, and the like. In fact, Jones probably filched this one from one of the Pacific Mining and Minerals steel mills back on the mainland.”*
[* A fact later confirmed by Braxton T. Crawley, who acknowledged that an experimental heat-resistant suit had vanished from PM & M’s research laboratory during the same weekend that John James Jones was in San Francisco, after filing his survey report on the mineral resources of Rangatoa, asking Phoenicia Mulligan to marry him, and getting his walking papers from her Uncle. A fire, then believed accidental, destroyed the inventor’s notes and specifications for the suit and was believed to have consumed the working model itself. The inventor himself had recently died in an auto accident.]
Scorchy looked bewildered. “But, chief, the dang thing was fixed up t’look like it wuz made o’stone!”
“Not so, Scorchy,” said Zarkon. “The outer surface of the suit turns brown upon prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, that’s all. And a coating of lava ‘scum’ adhered to it because Jones wore it down in the lava-bed while surveying the extent of the lode.”
“You mean a guy in this-here suit could actually wade through molten lava, chief?” demanded Nick Naldini, with pardonable skepticism.
Zarkon indicated that it was quite possible to do so.
“In fact, such protective garments are worn in steel mills because they can resist the most excessive temperatures — even splattering liquid steel,” he affirmed.
“What ees thees lode, Preence?” inquired the Luzonian detective.
“It’s an almost-one-hundred-per-cent-pure deposit of radium, weighing half a ton or slightly more,” answered Zarkon. “The largest radium deposit ever discovered, it is worth many millions — especially because it is something like ninety-seven-per-cent-pure radium metal. Most radium discovered up to now has been in extremely impure states, found mixed with pitchblende. To extract and refine the radioactive substance is costly, very dangerous to the health of the workers, and a lengthy and time-consuming process.”
“Cripes, chief, I didn’t think they wuz much call f’r radium, anymore,” muttered Scorchy.
“Not so,” Zarkon said quietly. “Its use in medical research, in the prevention of cancerous tissue growth, and a variety of industrial processes make it still very much in demand. Radium as pure as this can be virtually used ‘as is,’ it only requires being melted into ingot form. I would estimate the value of the deposit as being in the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty-two million dollars.”
“But what the heck’s radium doing on a volcanic island?” demanded Scorchy. “Dunno much about geology, but ivverthing out here’s either coral atolls or volcanic — igneous, isn’t that th’ word? Never heard a radium being found in th’ Pacific before!”
Zarkon agreed.
“I cannot say for certain,” he murmured, “but I expect that when competent geologists get a chance to examine the site, they will confirm my suspicions that the radium came from an enormous meteorite which struck the island in prehistoric times, lodging within the wall of the crater. That would explain the lack of impurities in the deposit, for one thing. Passage through the atmosphere burnt up the contaminating minerals by simple friction. Radium, in such pure metallic form, has an extraordinarily high melting point.”
The notion of a meteorite made of pure radium fascinated the Irish fighter. His eyes glistened at the very thought.
“Jeez,” he breathed. “No wonder Johnny Jones wanted t’ keep the secret all t’ his lonesome. Say, chief — did he find the meteorite when he was here before, when he wuz workin’ f’r PM and M? Or only after he quit and came out here, hopin’ t’ find his fortune?”
“We shall probably never know the answer to that question, Scorchy,” said Zarkon.
The native boys arrived, carrying a crude stretcher upon which to transport the body back to the village.
Once back in Tarapaho, everybody clustered around, wide-eyed with curiosity. There were more questions to answer, and Prince Zarkon had to repeat a lot of the information he had already imparted to Nick Naldini, Scorchy Muldoon, and Señor Luis Gonzalez.
Finally, the crowd was dispersed by Señor Valdez, who served a very late lunch to his guests on the veranda of the trading-post, which had only been slightly damaged in the fire. Phoenicia Mulligan absented herself, pleading lack of appetite.
After the meal, over tea, the Omega men discussed the mystery.
“I bet the chief was onto Johnny Jones from the first,” Doc Jenkins grinned knowingly. Tu
rning to Braxton T. Crawley, he said: “Chief, here, usually keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t let on. But at any point in one o’ these shindigs of ours, he’s about three jumps ahead a the rest of us. How’s about it, chief?”
Zarkon shook his head. “Not from the first, no, Doc. But I had an inkling of the truth from the night he came stumbling into the feast on the beach and collapsed.”
“Huh?” Menlo Parker spoke up, incredulous. “Howzzat?”
“As soon as I examined him, I was puzzled,” Zarkon explained. “Exhaustion, shock, and exposure can certainly waste a man dreadfully. But not to such an extreme extent, or in such a short time. Especially when one is young, robust, and healthy, as John James Jones reputedly was.”
“I don’t getcha, chief,” complained Menlo peevishly. “What was the kid sick of, then?”
Zarkon looked solemn, and his even tones were somber and thoughtful as he replied to the skinny scientist’s query.
“He was suffering from prolonged and repeated exposure to an unshielded, powerful source of radioactivity,” said the Lord of the Unknown. “That was the only explanation for his emaciated condition.”
“Radiation poisonin’?” barked Scorchy with amazement in his voice. “Cripes, chief, I thought this guy wuz a geologist! How come he din’t know th’ danger o’ that deadly stuff?”
“He did,” commented Zarkon, broodingly. “But human nature got in the way of his caution. He made the perfectly logical mistake of assuming the heat-suit, with which he could wade through molten lava in complete comfort and safety, was sufficient protection against radioactivity. It isn’t, of course. Polymerized spun-glass fiber affords not the slightest protection against radiation. For six months, more or less, John James Jones had been killing himself bit by bit, while gloating over his deadly treasure....”