Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 013 - Meteor Menace

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The Meteor Menace
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter 1. THE SNARE
? Chapter 2. THE COCKNEY
? Chapter 3. THE BRONZE MAN
? Chapter 4. THE BLUE GLARE
? Chapter 5. TERROR'S HAND
? Chapter 6. THE COCKNEY VISITOR
? Chapter 7. THE DISAPPEARANCE IN TIBET
? Chapter 8. BLUE MADNESS
? Chapter 9. THE AWAKENING
? Chapter 10. SOME UNREMEMBERED PROMISES
? Chapter 11. SCHEMERS
? Chapter 12. THE PHANTOM MO-GWEI
? Chapter 13. PROFESSOR STANLEY
? Chapter 14. THE STANLEY STORY
? Chapter 15. RAE CONFESSES
? Chapter 16. THE TRICK
? Chapter 17. BLUE TERROR
? Chapter 18. THE DEVIL'S NEST
? Chapter 19. THE METEOR THAT FAILED
? Chapter 20. THE BLUE PIT
? Chapter 21. THE FANCIEST LIAR
Chapter 1. THE SNARE
THERE is a theory among scientists that the ancestors of the Indians of North and South America came
from Asia.
This probably explained how "Saturday" Loo could don a bright-colored blanket poncho, mingle with a
crowd in Antofagasta, Chile, and pass himself off as a native son of the Andes.
Saturday Loo's poncho was not a disguise, exclusively. It concealed an object which resembled a
single-shot pistol, with a barrel large enough to accommodate shotgun cartridges. The poncho also hid a
long rope, six pairs of handcuffs, a gas mask, and an assortment of tear-gas bombs.
Safety first was a fetish with Saturday Loo. The shotgun-sized implement, which was a Very pistol firing
a slug that would burst into a smoke puff high in the air, should set machinery in motion to settle the
business at hand. But there was always the chance of a slipup. Hence the rope, handcuffs, and tear gas to
fall back upon.
Taking care not to bump into any one, which might call attention to what he carried under his poncho,
Saturday Loo worked forward.
At least two hundred thousand Chilean citizens were gathered on this hill outside Antofagasta. The center
of attention was a high speakers' rostrum of temporary construction. Everybody was pushing and
elbowing to get closer to the rostrum, although great loudspeakers of a public-address system were
scattered everywhere, and should guarantee all hearing what was to be said.
"Puerco!" gritted a man who had been elbowed. "Pig! Why do you shove?"
"I want to see the bronze man at close range," said the one who had done the elbowing, unabashed.
That seemed to be the thought every one had. They wanted to see the bronze man.
Back of the speakers' rostrum towered a structure which, once it was completed, would undoubtedly be
the largest building in Antofagasta. It was possibly half finished. Its architecture was plain and substantial.
A great sign hanging over the freshly mortared bricks read:
EL HONOR DE DOC SAVAGE
In case there should be any one unable to read Spanish, the legend was elaborated below in English:
THIS FREE HOSPITAL ERECTED IN HONOR OF DOC SAVAGE
The building was being dedicated. The crowd was here for the ceremony, and to see the bronze man.
The bronze man was Doc Savage, that giant, mysterious worker of miracles about whom all Chile was
agog.
IN make-up, the crowd ranged from austere grandees of Castilian descent, who had driven to the
ceremony in shiny American limousines, to stocky brown Aymaran Indians from far back in the Andes
mountains, who probably had come to town driving a string of llamas. The resemblance of these latter to
Asiatics was startling.
Saturday Loo was an Asiatic, so he passed among them without drawing attention. To be exact,
Saturday Loo was a Tibetan.
As many as one fourth of the Tibetan men become monks or holy men, with a very strict code of morals.
Saturday Loo had never been tempted in that direction. A more thorough rogue than he could not be
found between the Himalaya Mountains and the Gobi Desert.
Saturday Loo made directly for a cluster of poncho-clad men who hardly seemed to share the
enthusiasm of the crowd about the bronze man. These also resembled Aymaran Indians, but were swart
Asiatics.
"My children," Saturday Loo hailed them grandly, "make less long the expressions on your faces. One
would think you were going to your respective funerals."
"If there should be an error, our fate may be exactly that," mumbled a man.
"Aye," agreed another. "I have beard that this bronze man, this Doc Savage, is very dangerous."
"They say those who molest the bronze man disappear and are never heard from again," offered a third.
"He is indeed what Yankees call 'hell-on-wheels.'"
"Look what he did here in Chile."
"Two hundred thousand people have come to catch a glimpse of him. That proves he is a great man, and
dangerous to molest."
"The gun which makes the loudest report does not always shoot the hardest," quoted Saturday Loo.
"You are children scaring each other with ghost stories. Stop it! This great crowd only makes our work
the easier."
The conversation was carried on in a Tibetan dialect, which none of the surrounding Chileans
understood. In addition, voices were kept low.
Saturday Loo stared narrowly at his assistants. He could see that his words had not relieved them a great
deal. Several times, the tobacco-colored men rolled uneasy glances upward. They squirmed, and tried
not to let their chief see these overhead stares.
The skyward gazing came to Saturday Loo's attention, however. He understood what was really making
his helpers uneasy.
"So that is it!" he snapped. His voice, however, was a bit shrill.
The Tibetans shifted their shoulders under the ponchos, but said nothing.
"You fear the blue meteor!" Saturday Loo accused.
"Aye," one fellow mumbled admission. "We fear it."
"Suppose the blue meteor could not be controlled," said another, and shuddered visibly. "You all know
what would happen to us in that case."
In the general exchange of looks which followed this statement, Saturday Loo joined. They were
hardened rogues, yet mention of the blue meteor had conjured up a stark terror within their souls.
Whatever the mysterious blue meteor was, these men obviously feared it more than they dreaded the
possibility of being, after death, sent back to earth in the form of rabbits, which, in some Tibetans, is their
idea of going to hell.
"We will draw away a safe distance," Saturday Loo said hoarsely. "Inside this blanket of a thing which I
am wearing is a signal gun. When the bronze man appears, I am to discharge the weapon into the sky."
"And the blue meteor will come?" asked a man.
"Aye. And the blue meteor will come."
They moved through the crowd. Not wishing to attract attention, they curbed a natural inclination to
elbow people out of their path, and only jostled gently.
"How far is a safe distance?" asked one Tibetan.
"A very great distance!" muttered another.
"Two hundred yards, in this case," said Saturday Loo.
"But the blue meteor has been known to affect men for miles - "
"Two hundred yards!" snapped Saturday Loo. "This time, it is not powerful."
AS the villainous Saturday Loo and his fellow miscreants worked out of the crowd and took up a
position in the shade of a rickety stand selling beer, fruit and empanadas, or meat pies, there was one
person who watched them intently.
The observer was a young woman; and in her gaze was fear, loathing, and a growing horror.
The young lady herself was in turn the focus of no little attention, for she was possibly the most exquisite
thing in femininity that Antofagasta had seen recently.
Once sure the Tibetans would not see her, she squeezed rapidly through the crowd toward the speaking
rostrum. Desperation was in her brown eyes, and she nibbled nervously at the inside of entrancing Cupid
lips.
She was taller than many of the Chileans, even the men, and she gazed anxiously over heads toward the
rostrum.
Chilean senoritas, those of pure Castilian descent, are noted for the comeliness of their figures, but more
than one envious eye followed the girl who was working her way feverishly toward the speaking stand.
The tall Venus had hair about the hue of rich mahogany, which was in marked contrast to the tresses of
the surrounding senoritas.
She reached the Vicinity of the rostrum and glanced anxiously about. She was an American herself, and
apparently searching for Yankee faces. Seeing none, she accosted a Chilean.
"I must find Doc Savage," she gasped. "It's on a vitally important matter. Where can I locate him?"
"No sabe el Ingles," replied the Chilean.
The young woman shook her head and nipped her lips in exasperation. She did not speak Spanish. She
supposed the fellow had told her that he did not understand English. She continued her search for a
Yankee - and found two of them a moment later.
They were such an incongruous pair that she stopped and stared.
ONE of the Yanks looked as if an immediate ancestor had been a three-hundred-pound gorilla. His
great, corded, red-bristled arms were nearly long enough to permit him to walk on all fours without
stooping.
He had an enormous mouth, a tuft of a nose, which apparently had been pounded by many fists, and little
eyes almost lost in pits of gristle. His ears were shapeless, and one was perforated with a hole the size of
a lead pencil - an opening which could have been made by a bullet.
The hair on his nubbin of a head, as coarse as rusty shingle nails, and of about the same hue, seemed an
extension of his shaggy eyebrows. This gave one the impression of a skull with no room provided for
brains.
The girl looking on did not yet know it, but this apish giant was Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair, one of
the world's greatest chemists, former lieutenant colonel in the U. S. army, and at present one of a group
of five men associated with Doc Savage in his worldwide adventures.
The anthropoid-like Monk carried a large box under an arm. One end of this was fitted with a screened
ventilating hole. From the box came grunting sounds.
Monk was leering at his companion.
The other was a perfectly dressed wasp of a man, by far the most impeccably clad personage in the
crowd of two hundred thousand or so. He had a prominent nose, bright eyes, and the large, mobile
mouth of a trained orator.
In both hands he gripped a slender, black cane. With this, he seemed about to strike the human ape
before him.
"You fuzzy accident!" he snarled. "You hairy missing link!"
Some of the dapper gentleman's colleagues in New York might have been shocked at his performance,
for he was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, considered one of the most astute lawyers
Harvard had ever turned out.
He was also commonly called "Ham," and was one of Doc Savage's group of five men.
Ham's cane, which was harmless enough to the eye, was actually a sword cane.
Ham was also - he probably would have died rather than admit it - the best friend of the apish Monk. He
would have freely sacrificed his own life for Monk's well-being, should that be necessary. Monk would
also do the same for Ham.
An observer would have sworn the pair were perpetually on the point of slaughtering each other.
"You bobble of nature!" Ham continued vitriolically. "You overgrown, bob-tailed jungle denizen."
Monk leered blissfully at Ham. From the box under the apish chemist's arm came a series of piggy grunts
and shrilling squeals.
"You only brought that blasted pig along to get in my hair," Ham growled.
"Where d'you get that stuff, you loud-dressin' shyster?" Monk grunted. "I'll take Habeas Corpus
wherever I daggone - "
Monk swallowed the rest. His pleasantly ugly face became somewhat blank. His little eyes glistened in
their pits of gristle.
A vision whom Monk would have taken oath was the prettiest girl in the world, had confronted them.
"CAN you gentlemen tell me where Doc Savage may be found?" asked the young woman.
Monk and Ham stared, tongue-tied. The girl's beauty had taken the wind from their sails.
"Darn it!" the young woman said disgustedly, apparently addressing herself. "I thought you looked like
men who could speak English. I guess you cannot."
Monk and Ham hastily ceased staring, and registered some embarrassment.
"I hope you will overlook the bad manners of my hairy friend, here," Ham told the beauty politely. "Monk
used to be the wild man in a circus, and he got the habit of looking at everybody as if he wanted to eat
them."
"He's a liar, miss," Monk put in hastily. "He's got a wife and thirteen children. His offspring are all
half-witted, like their father."
Instead of smiling at what Monk and Ham intended to he humor that would break the ice, the young lady
seemed distressed. When she spoke, there was brittle fear in her voice.
"If you know where I can find Doc Savage, please tell me," she pleaded in a strained voice.
Monk and Ham sobered.
"Is your business with Doc important?" Ham asked sharply.
"Extremely!"
The chemist and the lawyer exchanged glances. The girl sounded as if she were in earnest.
"Does Doc Savage know you?" Monk queried.
"Rae Stanley is my name. My father is Professor Elmont Stanley. Mr. Savage does not know me, but he
has probably heard of my father."
"What do you want to see Doc about?"
Attractive Rae Stanley shook her head. "That must be strictly between Doc Savage and myself."
"In inquiring about Doc, how did you happen to pick on us?" Monk asked curiously.
"You were the first men I saw who looked as if they might be able to speak English," Rae explained.
"Then you didn't know we're two of Doc's outfit?" The girl's brown eyes widened. Her exquisite features
showed delight.
"This is a break!" she ejaculated. "I can give my warning to you, then go back to my quarters. I am in
danger every minute that I am away."
This caused Monk and Ham to register intense curiosity and bewilderment.
"You're risking something to come here and warn Doc?" Ham demanded.
"My life," said Rae Stanley.
"What do you want to warn Doc against?"
The girl moistened her lips and glanced upward. There was a nervousness in her manner which indicated
that she would not have been surprised had some menace been lurking above.
"The blue meteor!" she said rapidly. "I came to warn - oh-h-h-there's Shrops!"
Her words changed into a scream which put teeth on edge. She clapped both hands over her mouth, as if
to make a lid that would keep the sound back. Stark horror had come suddenly into her eyes. She spun
and fled.
"She saw some guy named Shrops behind us," Ham barked.
Both he and Monk turned to scrutinize the crowd.
Chapter 2. THE COCKNEY
WITHIN range of Monk's and Ham's eyes was a heterogeneous collection of humanity. Swart Andean
Indians and Cholag, or mixed bloods, made up the bulk of the crowd, but there were also Chileans as
white-skinned as Swedes. There were scores of Yankees, these for the most part being engineers
connected with Chile's great nitrate industry.
One man caught the attention of Monk and Ham. This fellow did not stand many feet distant, and he was
facing directly toward them.
He was an apple of a man. His body was a plump apple equipped with arms and legs, and his head
another ruddy apple. He wore a fawn-colored lap-over vest, striped trousers, and a gray derby. The
derby was hardly a headgear for tropical wear.
He seemed rotund and amiable, except for his mouth, which was reminiscent of a bear trap.
He saw Monk and Ham centering their attention on him, and promptly spoke. He had a strong Cockney
accent.
"Wot 'appened?"
"That's what we want to know," Monk grunted.
"The girl acted 'arf barmy," said the Cockney. "She must o' seen somethin' behind me to scare 'er bad."
The Cockney turned, lifted on tiptoe, and peered over the heads of the crowd. Then he settled back on
his feet and shook his head.
"Hi bloody well don't see nothin' corkscrewey."
"Is your name Shrops?" Ham asked the Cockney.
"Blimey, no!"
Speaking from the corner of his enormous mouth, so that only Ham could hear, Monk said: "Let's go get
that girl."
Ham gave the handle of his cane a slight twist, an act which prepared the hidden sword for a quick
draw.
"O. K. Come on!"
The Cockney watched them as they shoved through the crowd. He even stood on tiptoe to keep them in
sight.
Gorillalike Monk, glancing back, noted the Cockney's curiosity. He growled: "I wonder if he could be
Shrops?"
"What makes you wonder that?" Ham demanded.
"Well, he's gawking - "
"Anybody would gawk, after the way that girl acted!" Ham shouldered lustily at poncho-clad Indians,
and did not hesitate to whack an occasional son of the Andes with the sword cane. But he was not
making much progress in the throng.
"Get behind me!" Monk ordered. "Let a guy go through this crowd who knows how to do it."
Carrying the case containing his pet pig high over his head with one hand, and using the other to move
people out of the way as if they were stalks in a ripe grain field, Monk plowed through the assemblage.
Ham kept close at Monk's heels, craning his neck. Being taller than Monk, Ham could peer over the
crowd. Brown- eyed, mahogany-haired Rae Stanley should have been easy to locate. She was taller than
the Chileans.
Her head, however, was not visible above the sea of mantiflas, flat straw hats, and colored knit caps.
"Blast it!" Ham grunted. "She's ducked out of sight."
They veered to the right, and when the young woman did not materialize, worked in a circle. Nowhere
did they see the attractive bit of femininity who had claimed she had a warning for Doc Savage.
"Let's go back and talk to that Cockney," Monk growled. "There was somethin' suspicious about that
mug!"
Monk and Ham furrowed their way back to the spot where they had left the Cockney. Reaching the
vicinity, they halted to stare about disgustedly.
"He's skipped!" Monk grunted.
"I'll bet he really was Shrops!" Ham said thoughtfully. A soft hissing came from the public address
loud-speakers, which were mounted atop poles. The amplifiers had been switched on.
Monk grasped Ham's elbow. "Have you forgotten that Doc sent you here to make a speech?"
Ham objected. "But that girl has something important - "
"We may be able to spot her from the rostrum," Monk interrupted. "Come on!"
The huge, hairy chemist, and the slender, immaculate lawyer worked toward the speakers' platform.
A STIFF-BACKED, official-looking Chilean gentleman marched up and positioned himself in front of
the bank of microphones which fed the public-address system. Waving his arms in the animated fashion
to which Latins are addicted, he began to speak.
"We still hope that this bronze wonder man, who is the hero of all Chile, will appear at our ceremony," he
said in flowery Spanish. "As you all know, however, this heroic gentleman is not one who likes to accept
public acclaim in person. Therefore, he informed me he would not be present."
A profound silence settled over the crowd. The human sea seemed to have frozen, with the exception of
one spot, where Monk and Ham were elbowing a path.
"While we wait, hoping that he will come," continued the Chilean spellbinder, "I am going to give you a
few facts about this mighty personage to whom Chile owes more than can ever be repaid."
Monk and Ham exchanged glances, and Monk grinned. "I wonder how much this speechmaker really
knows about Doc?"
The orator continued: "The bronze man, Doc Savage, is an individual, the like of whom the world has
never before seen. He is a superman, a colossus of brawn and brain who has been trained scientifically
from the day of his birth to follow his present career."
The speaker paused to let that sink in, then went on: "Doc Savage, by a routine of daily exercise, pursued
each day since childhood, has acquired an almost fantastic muscular development, a physical strength
beside which that of Samson would pale.
"In addition, it is said that no one ever studied as intensively or as widely as has Doc Savage. This has
equipped him with a knowledge which borders on the profound on every subject. Doc Savage is a rare
combination of muscular strength and mental perfection.
"Hm-m-m!" Monk grunted thoughtfully, juggling his pet pig's box. "Some of this crowd may think that
bird is laying it on thick, but he's not. He isn't even exaggerating, and that's probably something he don't
suspect, himself."
"This unusual training was to fit Doc Savage for a unique profession," the speaker went on. "He rights
wrongs and punishes evildoers, traveling to the far corners of the earth to accomplish these things. His
most recent accomplishment was here in Chile, when he wiped out a gang of fiends who were seeking to
get control of the Chilean nitrate industry in order to supply ingredients for explosives to a European
nation which contemplates war."
Monk and Ham mounted the rostrum steps, looking about in an endeavor to locate the Cockney and
pretty Rae Stanley.
"Doc Savage refused remuneration for his services," continued the Chilean speaker. "But he requested
that a hospital be erected to offer free medical and surgical service to the poor of Chile, and a trust fund
established to insure its operation for many years. The hospital construction has started, and we are here
now to dedicate it. We hope Doc Savage will appear
Ham stepped forward, indicated that he wished to address the crowd, and the Chilean orator stepped
back politely.
"I have an unpleasant duty to perform," Ham said in clear, perfect Spanish. "You good people have all
heard that Doc Savage is one of those scarce individuals, a genuinely modest man. It embarrasses him to
play the hero in public. For that reason, he will not appear on this platform to-day."
A disappointed murmur arose from the crowd as they understood they were not to glimpse the famous
man of bronze.
"Look, Ham!" Monk snapped. "Over there by the hospital corner!"
MONK'S words impinged against the microphones, and all of the two hundred thousand or so people
present must have heard the ejaculation. Countless necks craned, eyes seeking the corner of the hospital
building.
A girl, tall and exquisitely beautiful, with hair the hue of mahogany, was struggling with several swarthy,
broad-faced men.
"It's Rae Stanley!" Ham barked.
Monk was already lumbering across the speaking rostrum, holding the box containing his pig over his
head with both hands. Ham leaped after the hairy chemist. They hammered heels down the rostrum
steps.
Monk put his head down, hunched his shoulders, and hit the crowd like a torpedo. Ham trod his wake,
fending off Chileans who resented being shoved, and showed it by lustily swinging their fists.
Hands suddenly seized Ham's ankles and jerked. He went down.
An avalanche of moon-faced, stocky men piled up on the lawyer.
"Hey, Monk!" Ham howled.
Monk spun and saw what was happening. He lowered his pig case carefully, then leaped into the fight,
emitting a bawling roar. Monk was ordinarily quiet, but his fights were howling bedlams.
Monk's hirsute hands clamped on the necks of two of Ham's assailants, and banged their heads together.
The pair became magically limp, their arms and legs hanging like strings.
Ham managed to sit up. His sword cane, whipping about, glinted like a sliver of solidified sunlight. The
steel leaped at a brown man.
The man threw himself madly backward, but saw he was going to be too late. His eyes protruded, and a
scream ripped past his teeth. Mentally, he could feel that glittering steel blade already fixed in his pumping
heart.
Ham turned the blade aside, however. Doc Savage and his men had a policy of never directly taking
human life.
The blade merely opened a a small gash in the squat man's shoulder. But a surprising thing happened. His
eyes closed slowly and his arms dropped to his sides. The man seemed to go to sleep on his feet. He fell
heavily, blindly to the ground.
The tip of Ham's sword cane was covered with a drug, a tiny quantity of which in a wound was sufficient
to produce instant unconsciousness.
The dark attackers cursed viciously in their native tongue and rattled orders at each other. Monk and
Ham spoke many languages, and could recognize others.
"Tibetans!" Ham snapped.
Monk opened his mouth to make some reply. There was a sharp report, not unlike a handclap. Monk
closed his mouth and a vacant expression came into his eyes. His legs hinged at the knees.
A Tibetan had struck him from behind with a heavy revolver.
Ham, staring at the fallen Monk, saw a gun clubbing for his own head. He tried to dodge, but too late,
and cart-wheels of colored fire spun in his eyeballs as the weapon landed.
Ham sank in what seemed like a pleasantly warm sea of black ink.
The Tibetans gathered up Monk, Ham, and their own unconscious companions. They even took the case
holding the pig, Habeas Corpus. Then they moved through the crowd. Their menacing guns opened a
path.
AT the corner of the hospital building, the seizure of pretty Rae Stanley had been effected as thoroughly
as had the downfall of Monk and Ham.
The young woman apparently had no weapon except her small fists and the sharp toes of her slippers,
but she managed to draw several roars of pain from her assailants before they overpowered her.
Saturday Loo was in personal charge of the gang.
摘要：

TheMeteorMenaceADocSavageAdventurebyKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?Chapter1.THESNARE?Chapter2.THECOCKNEY?Chapter3.THEBRONZEMAN?Chapter4.THEBLUEGLARE?Chapter5.TERROR'SHAND?Chapter6.THECOCKNEYVISITOR?Chapter7.THEDISAPPEARANCEINTIBET?Chapter8.BLUEMADNESS?Ch...

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