“Such things can’t be!” Monk gasped as the huge flying monster passed over them.

But Monk
wasn’t crazy—the monster was a pterodactyl—and alive! From out of the past it came, and it led
Doc Savage and his pals to a land that time forgot, a fantastic valley in which evolution had
stopped a million years ago, but where crime was just beginning!

THE TIME TERROR

A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Published in Doc Savage Magazine, January 1943

DOC SAVAGE AND HIS AIDES

Clark Savage, Jr.—better known as Doc Savage—is one of the outstanding personalities of the
world, which he travels from one end to the other, righting wrongs, helping the oppressed, and
often punishing evildoers—though never taking a life if there is any other way out. Doc’s “col-
lege,” for instance, is a scientific institution in upstate New York where he sends all captured
crooks, who, through expert treatment, and sometimes involved operations—for Doc Savage is
one of the world’s most skilled surgeons—are made to forget all their vicious past and start life
anew as useful and decent citizens. Doc’s companions couldn’t be better if they’d been made to
order. HAM—Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the shrewdest lawyer Harvard ever
turned out, a faultless dresser, and an efficient fighter with his unusual drug-tipped sword-cane.
MONK—Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, one of the world’s foremost chemists,
and tougher than tough in a scrap. RENNY—Colonel John Renwick, at the top of the engineer-
ing profession. LONG TOM—Major Thomas J. Roberts, a veritable wizard in the field of electric-
ity. JOHNNY—William Harper Littlejohn, renowned geologist and archaeologist.
They’re the perfect group of altruistic adventurers.
2 DOC SAVAGE
THE TIME TERROR 3
4 DOC SAVAGE

Chapter I “I guess you’re right,” said the skinny

MYSTERY ABOUT NO NEWS man disconsolately. “I’m afraid this is unfor-
tunate. You see, the odor is defiant to water
THE first hint of big things to come was and very difficult to wash off, so you may not
when Onie Morton fell over the milk bottle. be able to remove it successfully for a while.”
This was a very innocent thing that Onie let out an indignant yell.
could happen to anybody. So innocent, in “You mean I won’t be able to wash this
fact, that no one noticed it was too innocent. stink off me so I can go to work today?” he
Not at first. bellowed.
Onie Morton lived in the Bronx with a “I fear so,” said the tall man.
red-headed wife who liked to sleep late, and And he was right.
every morning Onie went promptly to work at
seven ten. His late-sleeping wife of course
never took in the milk before he went to work, ONIE MORTON worked for Doc Sav-
which meant that taking in the morning milk age. Onie was a news condenser, which was
was the last thing Onie did before he went to a term invented for his job. Doc Savage
work. This morning Onie took in the morning maintained an elaborate set-up of specialists
milk as usual, placing it in the refrigerator. whereby the news from all parts of the world,
This must have thrown him off guard which came into his office on leased wire
on the milk situation, because he wasn’t ex- printers and by special telephone and cabled
pecting any more milk in front of his door, missives from special correspondents, was
and so he came backing out as usual, and he gathered and condensed each day.
fell over more milk in bottles in front of the The idea of gathering and condensing
door. Then he bumped into the skinny man in this news was so that it could be presented
the gray suit. to Doc Savage in a form brief enough for his
It was a stinking mess. quick examination. Doc Savage was very
“Whew!” said Onie Morton. “Phew! busy. In addition to pursuing his rather
Whew! Phooie! What is that stuff?” strange profession—distinctly strange, in
The skinny man in the gray suit had fact—of righting wrongs and punishing evil-
been carrying a package, and this had doers in the far corners of the earth, or of
popped like a rotten egg, spewing over Onie. sticking his nose into other people’s business,
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” exclaimed the as his enemies referred to it, Doc Savage
skinny man. “Gosh, I’m sorry.” was a scientist and experimenter of note.
“Phew! Pheweeee!” said Onie Morton. Doc Savage liked to look at the news in
“What is that junk?” brief to keep in touch with things, and to pick
“Perfume.” out items which needed his specialized kind
“Perfume?” of attention. He could go over these items
“Yes,” said the skinny man. and smell trouble.
“It’s a hell of a smelling perfume, ” said “Goes over them as if they was tracks
Onie Morton. “Phew!” and he was a bloodhound, and smells trou-
The skinny man in the gray suit nodded ble,” was the way Monk Mayfair expressed it.
sadly. “Yes, I’m afraid it is. At least that’s The daily news digest was really quite
what the people I have been trying to sell it to an important thing in. Doc Savage’s routine,
keep telling me.” He shook his head gloomily. and he had handpicked his specialists who
“I gues s I’m wrong. I thought it was a very did the news-condensing with care.
lovely and distinctive odor.” Onie Morton, who had had the accident
“It’s distinctive, all right,” said Onie. with the milk bottle and the stinking perfume,
“And a skunk might think it is lovely. But what was one of the news condensers.
about the people in the office where I’m sup- Which had a lot to do with it.
posed to work today?”
“Maybe they’ll like the odor where you
work.” LIEUTENANT COLONEL ANDREW
Onie scowled. “Brother, who you kid- BLODGETT MAYFAIR, the eminent indus-
ding?” trial chemist whose name would be in the
history books of chemical development, and
who looked like a hairy ape out of Darwin, sat
 THE TIME TERROR 5

in Doc Savage’s eighty-sixth-floor headquar- “Having troubles?” Ham asked hope-

ters in a midtown skyscraper and took a tele- fully.
phone call from Onie Morton. One look at “Yes,” Monk said, “and you don’t have
Lieutenant Colonel Mayfair and you knew to be so damned happy about it.”
why people who had never seen him before “I hope they’re big troubles,” said Ham.
automatically called him Monk. He also had a “Well, they’re not very,” Monk told him.
ridiculous small boy voice. Hearing him when “This just seems to be a tough morning on
he was mad was funnier than listening to Hit- our news condensers. Two of them woke up
ler speak with a Yiddish accent. feeling sick. The girl of another one suddenly
decided she wanted to marry him, and no
day would do but today. And Onie Morton
just called up to say he wouldn’t be down. ”
“That’s four who won’t be at work to-
day.”
“Sure.”
“We only have four news condensers
employed.”
“Sure.”
“With nobody at work, there won’t be
any condensed-news report today.”
“Your deduction,” said Monk, “seems
elementary to me. Although doubtless it
could be a strain on a legal brain.”
“Oh, you realized the facts I just men-
tioned?” said Ham.
“Yes.”
“I seem to have underestimated your
intelligence,” Ham apologized. “But not very
much, probably.”
“I think I’ll kill you about ten o’clock,”
Monk said thoughtfully.
“If you condense that news report
yourself,” Ham said, “you may not have time
for any murders. You going to do that? Con-
dense the report yourself, I mean?”
Monk Mayfair was one of a group of “Naw, it ain’t that important today,”
five assistants who worked closely with Doc Monk said.
Savage. The five were Doc’s lieutenants. Which was one of the biggest wrong
One of Monk’s headaches was the news- statements of his life.
condensing service. Which was why Onie
Morton called Monk.
“Sure, sure, Onie,” said Monk into the SO milk bottles, perfume, girls who de-
telephone. “I get it. You fell over a milk bottle cided to get married, and uncondensed news
and bumped into a package and got some reports got no attention until nine o’clock that
stinking stuff on you. It won’t wash off, so you night. The skinny man in the gray suit should
don’t want to come to work. That’ll be all right. also be included in the items which did not
No, I guess we won’t dock your pay unless it get attention until nine that evening.
gets to be a habit.” Nine o’clock was when Doc Savage
Monk hung up. “Oh, for the life of Ri- showed up.
ley,” he said. Doc Savage, a giant of a man with
“What would you call the life of Riley?” bronzed skin and flake-gold eyes, which
asked Ham Brooks, the eminent Harvard were unusual characteristics, had spent the
lawyer and lover of fine clothes. day sitting on a war-strategy board in Wash-
“Don’t start riding me this early,” Monk ington. Doc was not happy, as a whole, with
warned. “This ain’t my day to be rode. ” his part in the war. Sitting on boards was all
right; somebody had to do it.
6 DOC SAVAGE

It had been pointed out—firmly, too—to Ham said, “You don’t think you over-
Doc, that he was doing more good to the looked anything today, do you, Monk?”
country performing the kind of work he had “I won’t answer that,” Monk snarled. “I
been performing for years. More good than ain’t no lawyer—I can’t talk without thinkin’.”
he would be if he walked into battles making
a target of himself. He did not agree. But he
had been having the same luck as the aver- TWENTY minutes later Monk put down
age guy in disagreeing with generals. the telephone with an idiotic expression.
He was not in a happy temper when he “Doc,” he said sickly.
arrived at his office, but he was a man who “Yes?”
did not show how he felt. He dug around in “Onie Morton, our news condenser,
the stuff on his desk. bumped into a man carrying a jug of perfume.
“Where,” he asked gently, “is the con- The man was a skinny guy in a gray suit.”
densed-news report?” “Yes,” Doc said.
“Oh, there wasn’t any today,” Monk “The news condenser who got mar-
Mayfair said. “It seemed to be an unlucky day ried,” Monk continued, “got married because
for our condensers because none of them his girl took a sudden notion that today was
got down to work. They’ll be back tomorrow, the only day that’d do. The girl took that no-
all but the one who got married. I told him he tion because a man paid her five hundred
could have a few days off.” dollars to do it. She wasn’t to tell her boy
Doc Savage said nothing for a moment. friend about the five hundred, but she got
He leaned back in his chair. A small, trilling ashamed and did it. The guy who gave her
sound came into the room, faintly audible, a the five hundred was a skinny guy in a gray
tiny note that defied exact description. It had suit.”
an exotic quality. “Yes,” Doc said.
Monk sat up straight and looked star- “The other two news condensers didn’t
tled. Because the sound was a small uncon- show up,” Monk added, “because they got up
scious thing which Doc Savage did in mo- this morning feeling sick. They were sick at
ments of mental excitement. The sound al- their stomachs. Both of them had dinner last
most invariably meant something was wrong. night with—”
“Unlucky day,” Doc Savage remarked “A skinny guy in a gray suit,” Ham put
thoughtfully. in.
“Yes,” Monk said. “But there didn’t “You keep out of this, Ham,” Monk said.
seem to be anything unusual about what “Or my second mistake for the day may be to
happened to our different news condensers.” yank a leg off you.”
Doc Savage said, “Quite a coincidence, Doc Savage stood up. His bronze face
all four of them failing to show up for work the was without expression, and there was no
same day.” noticeable disapproval in his tone as he said,
“Well, they all had good explanations. “Monk, get a very full description of the man
And they’re honest men. We can trust them in the gray suit, the thin man. Work up a
all.” drawing of the fellow, then have the news
“During the past year,” Doc said, “only condensers add any details they can re-
two of the news condensers have been ab- member. Have several thousand copies of
sent for any reason whatever.” the drawing and description made and put in
“That’s right,” Monk admitted. the hands of the police, taxi drivers, railway
Monk was beginning to look alarmed. ticket agents, conductors, train porters, and
“Suppose,” suggested Doc Savage, bus employees. Get them in the hands of
“you check with the news condensers and subway guards, toll men at the bridges, and
see if there could possibly be anything filling-station employees. Don’t miss the air-
amiss.” ports. Better offer a reward for the man’s ap-
“I sure will,” Monk said hastily. prehension, a reward substantial enough to
Monk noticed that Ham Brooks was get results. Say five hundred dollars.”
grinning at him. Monk scowled. It would hurt Monk nodded.
him if he had made a mistake. Ham would rib “Gosh. Doc, I’m sorry,” he muttered.
him, probably. Ham Brooks made no remarks to Monk.
It was not the time for remarks.
 THE TIME TERROR 7

Doc said, “Ham, get the rest of the men Chapter II

together. We have to go through the news DEATH AND A CLEAR SKY
report ourselves. There is something in it to-
day that we were not supposed to see. That WILLIAM HARPER “JOHNNY”
is a logical conclusion because the thin man LITTLEJOHN joined them at midnight and
in the gray suit went to a lot of trouble to see helped with the examination of the day’s
that we would not get a condensed-news news report.
report today. We will see if we can find this “A cabalistically obreptitious anagram-
item he was trying to keep from us.” matism,” Johnny remarked calmly.
Ham said, “I’ll have to do all that myself, Johnny was a very long and incredibly
Doc.” thin man and nobody looked surprised at
“Why? Where are Renny, Long Tom these words. Most of Johnny’s words were
and Johnny?” as lengthy grammatical specimens as he was
“Johnny, the archaeologist and geolo- a long human. He wore clothes which fit him
gist, is giving an important demonstration at the way a circus tent would fit its center pole
the museum tonight,” Ham explained. “He if all the other poles fell down. He carried a
can help us as soon as he’s through. But monocle; once he had needed it, but Doc
Long Tom and Renny left for Europe by had operated on the bad eye and now the
plane this morning. Combination electrical monocle was a magnifier. Professors with
and mechanical engineering job the British long beards were amazed at his knowledge
government had for them.” Ham came over of archaeology and geology.
and went through the papers on Doc’s desk, Monk Mayfair also joined the hunt.
selected one. “Here’s the explanation they Monk had succeeded in getting a composite
left for you.” picture of the skinny man in the gray suit who
Doc examined the document which his had caused the nonappearance of all the
two assistants, Long Tom Roberts and news condensers, and had distributed them
Renny Renwick, had left. The paper ex- as Doc had directed.
plained that they would be in England several It was Doc Savage, though, who found
weeks, probably, as part of the war problem. the item someone hadn’t wanted them to see.
Not because he was suspicious of the It was:
note, but because he made a practice of try-
ing never to overlook any possibility, Doc got
PLANE IS MANGLED
on the telephone. He called the British war
IN CANADIAN CRASH
mission. Yes, Renny and Long Tom had
been asked to go to England. Could Doc talk
Trapper Lake, Northwest Mackenzie,
to them by telephone? Well, it was irregular,
but it could be arranged. However, the man Canada—The wreckage of an airplane which
at the Washington war mission, himself, had had been strangely mangled was found by an
put them on the transatlantic plane. Indian trapper near here last night.
Doc was satisfied that the thin man in The nationality of the plane was not
the gray suit had nothing to do with the ab- learned at once. But Henry Muskrat, the trapper
sence of Renny and Long Tom. who found it, stated that it had the appearance
“Have to sift the news report our- of having been torn and crushed to fragments
selves,” he said. after it crashed. What caused the damage is not
“What about asking Pat to help?” Ham known. There was some panic among supersti-
inquired. tious Indians who claimed a supernatural mon-
Pat was Patricia Savage, a cousin to ster of the werewolf type had wrought the dam-
Doc, a young lady who was extremely attrac- age, but these reports are, of course, discounted.
tive and extremely avid for adventure. A report that red-painted pieces of fabric
“No Pat,” Doc said. covering were part of a Japanese rising-sun
“You don’t want Pat rung in on this?” emblem on the plane were also believed inac-
“May we be preserved from Pat,” Doc curate. Authorities point out there would be no
said fervently.
reason for a Japanese plane flying over this
section.
8 DOC SAVAGE

Monk Mayfair finished reading the item A buzzer sounded and a small light
and said, “You think that is it, Doc?” flashed, indicating they had a visitor. Monk
The bronze man was not too positive. arose and went to the door. He came back
“It is the only likely thing which has turned looking sheepish.
up.” “Well, the circus is in town,” he said.
“How’ll we check to make sure?” Everybody knew what he meant.
“Telegraph,” Doc said, “to the Mounted “Pat,” Doc said.
Police official in charge at Trapper Lake. Ask Patricia Savage came in gayly and said,
for full details.” “This is nice. The welcome mat out as usual.”
Monk said, “Why not use the radio?
We have powerful equipment and we could
get direct or nearly direct contact. The
Mounted Police stations have radio up
there—”
“Telegraph,” Doc said.
“Sure,” Monk said. “As you say. Only I
thought—”
“And then use the radio, too,” Doc said.
“But keep the two separate. On second
thought, wait an hour before you start using
the radio.”
“Telegraph first, then use the radio?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it,” Monk said, puzzled. “But
I pulled one bonehead play, so I ain’t asking
no questions.”

THEY got an answer to their telegram

in forty-five minutes, which was remarkably
good service.
The reply said:

REPORTS OF MYSTERY SUR-

She was a tall, well-made girl, exceed-
ROUNDING PLANE CRASH AR E ingly perfect of form, with the same bronze
GROSSLY EXAGGERATED. PLANE BE- coloration of skin and hair, and a touch of the
LONGED TO BUSH FLIER NAMED CURLY same gold in her eyes as Doc Savage. She
JONES, WHO JUMPED WITH PARACHUTE was a cousin, one of Doc’s few living blood
AFTER OIL LINE BROKE. PILOT JONES kin, and for a livelihood she operated an ul-
LANDED SAFELY AND REACHED TRAP- tra-swanky beauty establishment for the Park
PER LAKE THIS MORNING. Avenue clientele. She charged umpteen
CORPORAL OSGOOD, prices at the place.
NORTHWEST MOUNTED POLICE. Doc glanced at the clock. It was almost
two in the morning.
Ham Brooks examined this and sighed. “Up rather late, aren’t you, Pat?” the
“Well, there doesn’t seem to have been any bronze man asked idly. “Been to the opera,
skeleton in that closet,” he remarked. or something?”
“Untesselated and unclinquant,” re- “A prize fight is more her speed,” Monk
marked Johnny. muttered.
“What?” “You’ve got something there,” Pat told
“I just said it was simple,” explained Monk. “However, you are both wrong. And
Johnny. you know very well you’re wrong.”
“Too bad you couldn’t use simple Doc Savage sighed.
words to say so,” complained Ham. Pat added, “What about the skinny
man in the gray suit?”
 THE TIME TERROR 9

“How did you find out about him?” Doc “What’s right?” Pat asked. “What’d he
asked. say?”
“Oh, I’ve got a friend on the police “I think he said we might be wrong,”
force,” Pat said. “He called me up and told Monk explained. “But he hopes we aren’t.”
me you had put out a circular with a pencil
drawing of a man on it, and his description,
and an offer of five hundred dollars if he WHEN the telephone whistled, every-
could be located. I knew something was up.” one jumped. It actually whistled, because it
“So now you think you are going to join was the instrument attached to a high-
in the excitement?” frequency buzzer, which meant it was the
“I do. And how!” unlisted number called only by people who
“There is no excitement,” Doc said. were closely associated with them.
“I’ll stick around.” Monk picked up the instrument.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. . . . Yes. . . .
Yes. . . . O. K.”
HAM BROOKS came into the room. He He hung up.
was excited. “I’ve been on the radio, in con- “A very agreeable conversation, your
tact with the Mounted Police post at Trapper end of it,” Ham said.
Lake, the way you wanted,” he told Doc. Monk was excited. “That was Onie
“And I’m beginning to find worms in the ap- Morton,” yelled the homely chemist. “What do
ples.” you think! The skinny guy in the gray suit is
He handed Doc Savage a message. It at Onie Morton’s place now. Onie wants us to
said: come up. ” Monk grinned. “Onie has got the
guy tied hand and foot.”
PLANE MERELY HIT HILL AND There was a concerted rush for the ha-
CRASHED. NOTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT track, then for the door, Pat with them.
IT. BODY OF PILOT WAS FOUND IN But Doc got in Pat’s way and said, “Pat,
WRECKAGE. PLANE WAS OWNED BY this is once you do not mix in it. You stay
MINING COMPANY. NOTHING ABOUT here. You are not going to have anything to
CASE TO WARRANT YOUR INTEREST. do with this.”
CORPORAL OSGOOD, Pat sniffed.
“Listen, we’ve been over that before,”
MOUNTED POLICE.
she said. “Let’s not have an argument—”
Monk said, “But the other message “Right, let’s not have an argument,”
said a bush flier was the pilot and that he Doc said.
was alive.” The bronze man grasped Pat’s arm.
“That,” Ham agreed, “is what I meant He hauled her across the room.
by finding worms.” “Hey, what’re you doing?” Pat cried,
Pat stared at them. “You mean one of alarmed.
the messages is a fake?” Doc Savage shoved Pat into the library.
Doc Savage answered her quietly. He fastened both doors, locking Pat in the
“Both of them, no doubt,” he said. place.
“You mean somebody doesn’t want us Through the closed and locked door,
up there?” Pat asked. “Doesn’t want us in- Doc said, “Think it over, young lady.”
vestigating that plane crash?” The bronze man looked pleased with
Doc nodded. himself as he rode down in the private high-
Pat said, “I’m in favor of investigating it speed elevator and climbed into a car in their
then.” She looked very pleased. “If somebody private basement garage. Monk, Ham and
is going to all this trouble to keep us from Johnny did not look exactly displeased, either.
fooling around with the thing I would say it Ham chuckled and said, “She’s a lot of
might be interesting. ” fun, but these things are too dangerous for a
“A dubitative arbitrament,” Johnny re - girl. True, she hasn’t been hurt in any of them
marked. yet, but she’s been lucky as a cat.”
“That’s right,” Monk agreed. Monk grinned complacently. “Now, if
we could get rid of that chimp, Chemistry,” he
said. “We would have some peace.”
10 DOC SAVAGE

Chemistry was Ham Brooks’ pet chim- “Now why’d he send us up here on a
panzee. Monk detested the animal because wild-goose chase?” Monk pondered.
of the startling physical resemblance it bore,
on a reduced scale, to himself, to Monk. In
order to irritate Monk, Ham made a habit of PATRICIA SAVAGE could have an-
taking the animal along whenever possible. swered that question. She was apprehen-
The car was equipped with emergency sively examining the muzzle of a gun in the
red lights and a police siren. They used these hands of a very skinny man who wore a gray
sparingly and got uptown at a good speed. In suit. There was some kind of a gimcrack on
the Bronx, they drove directly to Onie Mor- the end of the pistol, a thing about the size of
ton’s modest apartment. a condensed-milk can, but longer, which Pat
Onie Morton met them at the door. A presumed was a homemade silencer.
strong odor still surrounded Onie. Pat had just managed to pick the lock
“Where,” Monk asked, “is he?” of the library door which Doc Savage had
“Is who?” fastened on her. She had stepped out into
“The long drink in the gray suit.” the reception room in time to hear a loud
“I don’t know what you’re talking blast and see the main door open wide, its
about,” Onie said. special lock destroyed by some powerful ex-
Monk blanched. “Didn’t you just tele- plosive. A thin man in a gray suit was stand-
phone me you had him prisoner?” he bel- ing in the doorway, watching her like a cat
lowed. watches a mouse.
“No, ” Onie said. “Of course not.” “Oh!” Pat said when he showed her the
“You don’t have him here?” gun.
“No. ” “Anybody else home?” asked the thin
“It was a trick!” Monk howled. “We’ve man.
been tricked.” He had a rather peculiar accent, as if
Onie Morton rubbed his jaw and his he was American and had learned to speak
eyes narrowed. “Say, you say somebody the American language in his youth, but
telephoned you? Was it on the private- since then had spent much of his life speak-
number line?” ing another tongue.
“Yes.” “What’s the idea?” Pat demanded, ig -
“In that case,” said Onie, “I can tell you noring his question.
how he got the private-telephone number.” The thin man jerked his gun at the door.
“How?” “Out. And don’t push any buttons or pull any
“Half an hour ago a voice called up and levers. I understand the place is full of-them.”
said it was the numbers clerk at the tele- Pat saw that he meant it, and decided
phone office,” Onie explained. “The voice not to fool with him. The fellow was scared.
said the exchanges were being changed They went out into the corridor. The man
around because of the war situation, and that wrapped his gun in a large brown paper,
private numbers were being changed. He making a package of it, but keeping his hand
said your private number would have to be in the package, holding the gun. His hands
changed, and he sounded so authentic and shook while he was doing this.
reasonable that before we got done talking I “I will be very glad to get out of here,”
had mentioned your private number. He he assured Pat. “You have no idea what
didn’t even ask me for it. I asked him if the courage it takes to walk into a place about
new number was taking the place of your old which you have heard so much.”
one, and I told him what the old one was. “If you get out of here with a whole
What a sucker I was!” hide,” Pat said encouragingly, “you will be
“What a sucker we all are!” Monk one of the few who have.”
howled. “Oh, I will get out all right,” the man
Doc Savage asked quietly, “Could it said.
have been the thin man in the gray suit?” “If you do you won’t get far.”
“Come to think of it,” said Onie Morton, “I think I will,” the man said. “I am very
“it sure could have been. It sounded just like clever, you see. Ring for the elevator.”
him, only I didn’t think of that at the time.” Pat took a step back from him, extend-
ing a hand to push the elevator call button.
 THE TIME TERROR 11

She seemed to turn her ankle. She cried out,

not loudly, and sank to a knee, grimacing.
She reached around and clutched her ankle,
and the chic and expensive shoe she was
wearing on her right foot.

“I . . . I twisted my ankle,” she said. “Then one of your fingers might make
The thin man was looking at her terribly an excellent souvenir, ” the thin man said
and had the package containing the gun grimly. “He can compare it with your finger-
thrust out. prints and thus be quite sure it is really your
Pat stood up. She was scared. “I can finger. ”
still walk all right,” she said. Pat began to feel sick. He wasn’t fool-
She rang for the elevator. ing.
The elevator came and took them “You see,” continued the thin man, “I
down to the street. The thin man smiled affa- needed someone to have with me, someone
bly and rather terribly at Pat during the entire whose safety would persuade Mr. Savage to
trip down. He walked beside her, not touch- spare me his interest. I decoyed them up-
ing her, but telling her where to go. Finally town, figuring they would leave one or more
they reached a car. It was a non-descript of their number behind. It was an agreeable
machine, a coupé, very old, with tires none surprise to find they had left such an attrac-
too good. tive member behind.” He chortled wolfishly at
They did not get in the machine. n I- his little humor.
stead, the skinny man removed a suitcase Pat didn’t feel like laughing.
from the car. It was a very new suitcase.
“You can carry this some of the time,”
he told Pat, “if you want to be polite. ” Chapter III
“We’re taking a trip?” Pat suggested. NEW GADGET
“A long trip,” the man said. “Out of town,
in fact. Far away from here, young lady.” DOC SAVAGE, Monk, Ham and
“Oh,” Pat said. “Doc won’t like that, do Johnny Littlejohn returned to headquarters
you think?” and discovered Pat was gone and the main
“You can send him a souvenir to let door wide open.
him know how you are getting along.” Doc examined the library-door lock.
“Souvenir?” Pat was puzzled. “Picked from the inside,” he said. He in-
“Does Mr. Savage have your finger- spected the damage to the outer lock and
prints?” the skinny man asked. made briefly the small trilling sound that was
“Why, yes.” his unconscious habit, the thing which always
meant something unexpected had happened.
12 DOC SAVAGE

“That’s a new and very dangerous ex- Doc Savage nodded. “That might be a
plosive,” he said of the outer lock. good idea. Perhaps this can be best illus-
Ham lost color. He emitted an appre- trated by a reverse explanation. You have
hensive gasp and dashed out to question the seen the small luminous markers used to
elevator operators. mark electric light pull chains, the kind which
He looked anything but placid when he glow after they are exposed to light.”
came back. “Oh, sure, luminous paint,” Ham said.
“Pat left with the skinny guy in gray!” “You expose it to light and it shines for a
Ham explained grimly. “The thin guy had a while. ”
package and kept his hand in it. That means “All right,” Doc said. “In Pat’s shoe heel
he had a gun in the package. He was kid- there is a plaque of radio-active compound of
napping Pat.” our own creation. The heel is a high one and
Monk Mayfair said violently, “That’s the inside of the heel, adjacent to the instep,
why we were decoyed uptown. He figured has to be pressed to release the spring cover
we’d leave somebody here. And he’d grab over the plaque. The thing resembles a
whoever it was.” watch. Press the catch and the lid flies up—
Ham nodded. “We got it all figured out,” inside the heel, of course.”
he said. “Now what do we do?” Ham was astounded. “When did this
They discovered that Doc Savage had happen?”
left them. The bronze man had gone into the Doc said, “Pat has been helping me
laboratory. They followed to see what he was experiment with the stuff for some time.” The
doing, and found him putting some apparatus bronze man grimaced. “It was a mistaken
together. The device was a large thing, and hope that she would think she was making
at first Monk thought it was some kind of a herself useful and leave us alone.”
gadget for finding buried treasure, one of “Maybe Pat wasn’t wearing the trick
those things you carry around over the shoes!”
ground, watching for a meter needle to move “She was,” Doc said.
or for a note from a loudspeaker to change. Ham said, “Just what does this radio-
Doc Savage said regretfully, “We have active stuff in the shoe heel do?”
not been able to get the apparatus in a com- “It affects its surroundings like ordinary
pact form as yet.” light affects ordinary luminous paint,” Doc
Monk looked at the contraption. explained. “In other words, any material
“What does it do?” he asked. “Walk, which the shoe heel has approached closely
talk or sing?” will for a time—not for very long, unfortu-
Doc Savage explained it patiently. nately—be itself mildly radio-active. ”
“Being a chemist, you are familiar with The bronze man touched the appara-
radio-activity,” he said. tus. “This,” he said, “is really the key to the
“You mean,” said Monk, “the property whole thing. It is an electroscope of enor-
of spontaneously emitting radiations of a mous sensitivity, reacting into an amplifier,
special character which are able to penetrate which in turn is connected to a meter. When
through matter opaque to ordinary light.” brought near a spot where Pat has walked
“I didn’t know Monk knew such words,” with the trick shoes, the needle will register.”
Ham said. Ham looked vacant.
Doc said, “Yes, that kind of radio- “I’m all mixed up,” he said. “Let’s see
activity is what I mean. But going deeper into the thing work.”
it, you know that the atoms of certain heavy Doc Savage carried the contraption out
elements are not permanently stable, but into the hall. Near the elevators, the needle
break up with explosive violence and great gave a jump.
emission of energy, leading to the formation “Pat turned on the gadget in her heel
of new and different elements which usually here,” he said. “She could do that by pretend-
have a limited life.” ing to stumble and twist her ankle.”
Ham Brooks looked desperate. “Look,
if this is an explanation of that gadget, why
not let all of us in on it. I don’t understand a AN hour later, Ham Brooks was willing
word you’re saying.” to admit that the machine had some value.
“It’s marvelous!” he exploded.
 THE TIME TERROR 13

They had trailed Pat to a subway sta- wood and came out almost immediately in a
tion, to an express platform, northbound. meadow.
They had worked every express station on At the meadow edge, under the trees,
the route, eventually finding where Pat had there was a scattering of leafy boughs which
quitted the train. From there, Pat had gone to had been chopped from trees nearby.
a rent -a-car agency. Doc Savage inspected the branches.
“Sure,” they had been told. “Long guy He gave attention to the ground.
and girl rented car. Speedy drove ‘em. Ain’t “A plane was concealed here,” he said.
back yet.” It was evident on further examination
Speedy came back soon, though. that the plane had lately rolled across the
“Sure,” he said. “Guy and girl seemed meadow and taken the air.
mad at each other. I took them upstate fifty “He got away with Pat,” Ham said.
miles and let them out in the country.” “This is getting worse.”
“In the country!” Monk exploded. “You Monk had measured the width of the
mean away from any town?” plane tracks and had found a spot where the
“There wasn’t even a house close.” ship had rested for some time, so that the
“Take us to the spot,” Doc directed. tail-wheel mark was also discernible. By
They were on their way now. Speedy, measuring these and by examining the spot
the driver, looking back at them, seemed to where bushes had been shoved in the
have the impression they were crazy. He had ground as a part of the concealment of the
not recognized Doc Savage. ship, Monk announced that it was a mono-
Monk was tinkering with the apparatus plane, single-motored—the oil drippage from
and enthusiastically declaring that he could the engine gave him the motor information—
detect movement of the meter needle at in- and that it was a large ship which could make
tervals. a flight of considerable distance.
Ham said dryly, “Pat being in here Monk added, “Here seems to be where
doubtless charged the car floor boards, you Pat sat on the ground while he was clearing
homely goon. ” the brush away from the plane. I guess she
“Huh?” Monk was embarrassed at was tied.”
overlooking such a simple point. Doc Savage went over and looked at
“You’re slipping,” Ham jeered. the spot.
Monk tried being pathetic. “Listen, I’m “Have you disturbed anything here?”
so worried about Pat I don’t know what I’m Doc asked.
doing. Poor kid, she doesn’t know what this “No. ”
is all about, and to be caught like that.” Doc indicated a number of small twigs
“We’re doing our best,” Ham said. on the ground. “Have you touched these?”
“Well, it’s about to drive me out of my “No. ” Monk eyed the twigs. “Hey, these
mind,” Monk muttered. could have been broken up and arranged by
“I can’t figure anybody wanting to stay Pat!”
in a mind like yours,” Ham said unkindly. Then Monk’s jaw sagged.
That started a quarrel that lasted the “Blazes!” he yelled. “This guy is taking
next thirty miles. her to Trapper Lake, that place in Canada
“Here it is,” Speedy said. where the crashed plane was torn up so
“Wait for us,” Doc told him. mysteriously.”
“It’ll cost you while I’m waiting,” said Ham came running over. “How’d you
Speedy, who obviously didn’t want to wait. figure that out?”
“Speedy,” said Monk ominously, “if you “A long pile of twigs,” Monk said. “Then
ain’t here when we get back ’Ill hang your a short pile, a long one and two short ones.
legs in one tree and your arms in another.” You know your radio code, don’t you?”
“T and L,” Ham said. “She couldn’t
It was a barren, infertile, thickly have meant anything but Trapper Lake.”
wooded flat country in which they found Doc Savage went back to the car.
themselves. “Get us to town as quickly as you can,”
Doc Savage, using his apparatus, at he said. “The Hudson River water front op-
once picked up Pat’s trail. This led through a posite the midtown area. Big building, brick,
14 DOC SAVAGE

which looks like a warehouse but is large

enough to be a plane hangar.”

Chapter IV “Had a pet wolf once that could lick the

THE DEVIL OF TRAPPER LAKE whole pack of ‘em,” he explained. “Used to
paint my wolf red to worry ‘em. Got ‘em
scared to death of red. You can show ‘em
WHEN Johnny Littlejohn saw Trapper
Lake he was shocked into using small words your tongue and they’ll run.” He put out a
and said, “A thousand miles from nowhere.” hand. “My name is Osgood. Corporal Os-
good, the law in these parts.”
This was an exaggeration. The place
was only three hundred and sixty-five miles Doc Savage identified himself. Corpo-
from anywhere, somewhat more than that ral Osgood invited them up to his quarters for
coffee. It had been a long, tiresome flight
from a railroad or a paved highway, or even
any kind of a road at all. To get into Trapper from New York and they accepted with ap-
Lake you used power canoe or airplane. preciation.
The Trapper Lake settlement was built
There was water transportation all the way,
although the water in places was shallow. entirely of logs. Small logs, because it was
But air was by far the easier medium. There not a region of large forest trees. Roofing
material was sod which supported a plentiful
was a wide, smooth meadow behind the trad-
ing post and Mounted Police station, and it growth of weeds as well as grass. Fireplaces
offered an excellent landing spot, although it were very large in most of the cabins, and
piles of firewood, already prepared for the
was wise to be sure there was not a caribou
or a stray moose grazing on it. winter, were in all cases larger than the cab-
Trapper Lake was inhabited by a ins they were to warm.
Corporal Osgood apparently had em-
Mounty, a fur trader, his wife, two half-grown
children of the fur traders, five white men ployed his spare time turning out a very com-
who had grown too old to trap, about a hun- fortable supply of rustic furniture. The post
radio outfit occupied a prominent place in a
dred Indians during the slack summer sea-
son, and what seemed like approximately a corner.
million dogs. “I understand you had a plane crash in
the neighborhood a few days ago,” Doc be-
Monk and Ham had brought along their
pets. Monk had his pet pig, Habeas Corpus, gan.
and Ham had brought Chemistry, the chimp. The corporal nodded. “We had some-
thing. You never saw a plane tore up like that
These two animals had one encounter with
the horde of sled dogs, which were more one is. And the marks on the ground!”
fierce than wolves, after which the surprised “We telegraphed you and wire-lessed
you,” Doc explained. “Your answers did not
dogs retired in a circle to bark as if the world
was coming to an end. exactly agree.”
An exceedingly wide, and he wasn’t Corporal Osgood opened and closed
his mouth.
short either, Mounty came out to see what
was happening. He had upstanding red hair “I didn’t get any message from you,” he
and a grin that was sunshine. said. “I didn’t answer any either.”
“You did not?”
“Welcome to the end of creation, who-
ever you are,” he said cheerfully. “No. ” The Mounty indicated the radio.
He took off his red dress coat and “Set went to pot two days ago. Current sup-
ply blew up. Can’t send or receive.”
threw it at the dogs, and all of them ran.
 THE TIME TERROR 15

Doc Savage went over and examined “He says he saw a thing about as high
the apparatus. as he was, but wider, and that the thing could
“Tampered with,’’ he suggested. spread out. He claimed it could spread out
“Well, that’s what I thought,” the officer twenty or thirty feet, and it made a hell of a
admitted. “But who would tamper with my hissing noise and chased him. He said it
radio up here? Nobody would have any rea- chased him without any noise and he fell
son to do that, that I can think of. I decided I down and it went right over him. If he hadn’t
must be wrong. ” fallen down it would’ve got him, he claims. It
Doc Savage said quietly, “With your didn’t come back.”
radio out of commission, another outfit could “Anyone else have a story like that?”
be set up and tuned to the same wave-length “Not as far as I know. One of them
near here—and receive any messages ni - claimed he saw a big black shadow over the
tended for you as well as transmit faked an- trees, making a hissing noise.”
swers.” “Was Two Trout’s monster black?”
Corporal Osgood scratched his head. “Yes, and it hissed, too.”
“Got something to do with that torn-up Doc Savage studied Corporal Osgood
plane, eh?” he asked. thoughtfully. “You really think there is some-
“We are afraid so.” thing to this, don’t you?”
“Could be.” Corporal Osgood nodded uncomforta-
Doc asked, “Have you heard any air- bly. “I sure do. Maybe I’m getting bush silly,
planes since the crash, or seen any?” or something.”
Corporal Osgood nodded. “Sure have. ” “Would you like to take us to the spot
where the plane was torn up?”
“I sure would,” said the corporal fer-
THERE was no accurate information vently. “The thing is beginning to work on my
about how many planes had been heard, or nanny.”
when. Corporal Osgood thought it might be
only one ship which had come and gone a
time or two. THE mangled plane fragments were
“The Indians heard it,” he said, “and located in a small glade which had once
the Indians are scared out of their shirts. been the bed of a landlocked lake, but which
They went out to look at the place where that was now dry and grown high with rank grass.
plane crashed and none of them have been All around was the flat, uninteresting bush
able to sleep since. They’re reviving old leg- country, much of it semi-swamp. There were
ends.” no hills, mountains or tall trees, nothing to
“What kind of legends?” break the infernal monotony. Trapper Lake—
“Oh, stuff about loup-garous and the lake which gave the settlement its
werewolves. Most of them have French blood, name—was approximately three miles dis-
and the Frenchmen used to tell a lot of hair- tant.
raising stories about werewolves and mon- “Here you are,” said Corporal Osgood.
sters. The Frenchmen were probably kidding, Doc Savage made a circuit of the
but it built up a legend among the Indians. meadow, examining the tall grass. The place
They’re always seeing something. This gives had been trampled somewhat by the Indians
them an excuse.” and by Corporal Osgood on his previous vi s-
Doc Savage studied the officer intently. its, but there was still evidence which showed
“Have they seen a loup-garou since the Doc Savage that the plane had managed to
crash.” put its landing gear on the ground near the
“Brother, have they!” middle of the meadow.
“Mind telling us about it?” Every indication was that the plane had
“Well, an old boy named Tw o Trout landed, and had not had much speed when it
saw it, he claims.” Corporal Osgood looked crashed into the brush at the other end of the
sheepish. “You’ll think I’m nuts, believing that meadow.
old Indian. Well, I don’t believe him. Only he The plane, by this reasoning, should
was so earnest about it he had me about half not have been greatly damaged.
going.” Furthermore, had the ship hit with
“What did he see?” enough force to demolish it as completely as
16 DOC SAVAGE

it was demolished, the wreckage would have “Well, that red paint on that piece of
been strewn over a great area. Pieces of it metal skin.”
should have been hanging on the brush for at Doc continued his examination.
least a quarter of a mile. “You were about fifty percent right,” he
Yet the entire wreckage of the craft said.
was in an area of forty feet. “What do you mean?” asked the corpo-
But it was incredibly mangled. Ripped ral.
and torn, wrenched and twisted. Skin metal “The plane,” Doc said, “seems to be
and girders knotted up in wads like tinfoil and partly Japanese manufacture and partly
wire. American. To be more exact, it seems to be
Monk whistled. a Japanese light bomber which has been
“If I was twenty feet high, and crazy,” wrecked, and rebuilt with parts from an
he said, “I would be able to do about this kind American ship of approximately the same
of thing.” size.”
Ham remarked that all Monk needed, “A wrecked Japanese bomber rebuilt
really, was to be twenty feet high; he was with parts of an American plane,” Corporal
already equipped for the rest of it. But Ham Osgood muttered. “What would such a ship
managed to get little enthusiasm into the in- be doing in this neck of the woods?”
sult. He was impressed, awed. “You think of easy questions,” Monk
Doc Savage asked Corporal Osgood, told him.
“You said something about marks on the Doc Savage continued his search. He
ground?” made wider circles, examining the soft
“Over here.” ground. He found some tracks. The tracks
The marks were in an area about ten had been made by two persons, a man and a
feet across where the grass was mashed woman, although he was not quite sure
down, and the earth torn and marked with about the woman. The running stride of
senseless pits and grooves. Nearby, at the women was usually different from that of men,
edge of the spot, was a tangle of control but in this case there was not much differ-
wires and fuselage frame. ence.
Ham said, “I hate to say what it looks The woman had not been Pat, because
like to me.” the tracks were at least three days old. It was
“I figured,” said Corporal Osgood, “that three days ago, as nearly as they could cal-
the monster got tangled up in this mess of culate, that the plane had crashed. The man
wire and stuff while he was tearing up the and woman—girl, for she was young, proba-
plane. He flopped over here in a rage to get bly—had run away from the meadow in great
loose from the stuff. Of course, I knew I was haste.
crazy if I thought that.” They both wore moccasins, but the
“That makes two of us,” Ham said, “be- marks in the soft earth showed that they
cause I’m thinking the same thing. And it is a were not the type of moccasins the local In-
crazy possibility.” dians wore.
“I’ll be superamalgamated,” said big- Doc Savage followed the man and the
worded Johnny. “Where did the thing go? girl a short distance, far enough to make sure
Where are its tracks?” that they were trying to get away from the
meadow with all haste possible. He also
noted that the fugitives had kept under the
THERE were no tracks, it developed. foliage of the bush whenever possible, as if
Not monster tracks, at least. There were they were trying to hide from something
many human footprints, but selecting alien overhead.
prints among these would be an extended Doc went back to the mangled plane.
task. Johnny Littlejohn was holding some-
Doc Savage went back to the plane thing. He had found it in the plane wreckage.
and began going over the wreckage more Johnny was so agitated he used small
closely. words.
“What gave you the idea it might be a “Doc,” he gasped. “Did you notice
Japanese plane?” he asked Corporal Os- this?”
good.
 THE TIME TERROR 17

It was a piece of thong with which two that the monotony was really broken around
parts of the plane had been lashed together, the place.
and Doc admitted he had noticed it. So the corporal did not exactly throw
“What is it?” Johnny exploded. his hat in the air when Doc Savage said,
Monk came over, looked at the lashing “Corporal, without being able to explain ex-
and asked, “What are you laying eggs about? actly what this is all about, I have the feeling
That’s just a piece of rawhide.” that our plane should be guarded and
Johnny stared at the thing he was hold- guarded heavily. Will you assemble a group
ing. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. of the Indians you can trust, all of them pos-
“Well, what does it look like?” Monk sible, and guard the ship. ”
asked him. “These Indians are kind of practical,”
“It’s a piece of hide,” Johnny said, “but said the corporal. “They will want to get paid.”
it is a quarter of an inch thick and it is an “They will be paid,” Doc assured him.
aves-type epidermis.” He produced a roll of bills, asked, “Can you
“What the heck’s an aves-type epider- take care of it out of this?”
mis?” Corporal Osgood counted the roll and
“Bird skin.” admitted he could, and have a bit of change
Monk bloated a little. “You mean to left to buy the House of Parliament, if Doc
stand there with your bug eyes and tell me wanted that, too.
that is a piece of bird hide a quarter of an He departed.
inch thick?” Doc said, “There is a trail leading away
Johnny nodded. “Indubitably.” from here. Two people. Man and a girl.”
“You couldn’t be stubbing your toe?” “Pat!” Ham gasped.
Johnny, with some indignation, said, “I “No, ” Doc said.
believe I know the skin of a bird when I see “Do you suppose Pat is around here
one. This is a small fragment, but there is anywhere now?” Ham demanded.
plainly discernible the trace of the lower um- Doc said, “It is quite possible we got
bilicus of the quill, which indicates this is not here ahead of the ship carrying Pat and the
a pre-plumulae feather, but a fully developed skinny man in the gray suit.”
plume. Ham lifted his head involuntarily and
“Furthermore,” continued Johnny, listened, but there was no plane sound in the
“there are traces of epitrichium, flattened sky.
cells overlying the malpighian layer, cylindri- Doc Savage began the job of following
cal, with—” the trail which he had located. This led to the
“That’s enough,” Monk said hastily. “If north. After they had gone perhaps a hun-
you can put it in words like that I’ll take your dred yards the bronze man halted suddenly.
guess on it.” The homely chemist scratched He indicated marks—small pits—in the
his head. “Bird, huh. Quarter of an inch skin. ground.
Hm-m-m.” Monk said, “I’ve seen marks like that
Ham Brooks made a wild gesture but too often not to know what they are. Ma-
said nothing. chine-gun bullets.”
Corporal Osgood scratched his head. “I He examined the course of the lead,
kinda hoped you guys would clear up the the distance between the slugs.
mystery,” he said. “Not make it worse.” “The nose gun from an airplane,” he
said.
Doc Savage indicated other bullet
Chapter V marks and pointed out, “But these look as if
THE STRONG GIRL they came from a cockpit gun from the way
they are bunched.”
CORPORAL OSGOOD was enthusias- They did some digging, eventually
tic about the affair in spite of his voiced mis- came up with sample bullets from each. Doc
givings. It was not often that he had company scrutinized them.
from the outside world, still more seldom that “From the nose or wing-mounted gun,
the company was interesting, and less often Japanese,” he said. “From the cockpit gun,
American.”
18 DOC SAVAGE

Ham scratched his head. “That plane “They’re sure scared of something,”
back there was a mixture of Japanese and Johnny remarked.
American,” he reminded. They waited. They seemed to be
It was also obvious, they decided, that somewhat at an impasse, unable to do much
the man and girl they were following had more without the certainty of being discov-
taken cover under a fallen log while the plane ered.
was diving and firing upon them. The two had Then one of the white guards shouted
left the imprints of their bodies in the near to the other.
mud under the log. “Niles,” he bellowed. “Oh, Niles!”
“What do you know!” Ham said. “The “Yeah?” shouted Niles.
guy seems to have dressed in skin clothes, a “When did Saki say Shorty would get
la Daniel Boone.” here with the plane and the Savage girl?”
“The girl,” Monk remarked with enthu- Niles bellowed back, “About an hour,
siasm, “seems to have been dressed in no should be. Maybe longer. Shorty got chased
more than the law allows.” by a Canadian army plane and had to make
They went on. After they had pro- a detour to pick up gasoline at an airport
gressed another half mile through the bog where there wasn’t a radio. ”
and brush, following the trail without trouble, “O. K.,” yelled the other. “I’m getting
but fighting mosquitoes continuously, Monk damned tired of this watching.”
remarked, “I wouldn’t say she was so smart.” “Seen anything of the pet?”
He swatted another mosquito. “No, and that ain’t half of it.”
They fell silent.
“Americans,” Ham remarked.
A PLANE stood at the edge of the lake. Monk pondered aloud, “What’d they
It was in a bay. The bay seemed to be mean by the pet?”
shallow, with a solid bottom. They had driven “Looks like it must be whatever they’re
four stakes into the bay bottom, and to these standing around watching for with the four
had staked the plane, as far as they could machine guns,” Ham told him.
get the craft from any shore, with its nose Doc Savage changed his position a
pointed toward the open lake. few times, examining the plane. The craft,
Some distance from the plane, be- large and powerful, was an American naval
tween it and the shore in all four directions, craft. But he could distinguish evidence of
they had erected four platforms just above repairs of quite extensive nature having been
the water. They had made these of poles. made to the ship. And some of the replaced
There were machine guns mounted on the parts looked as if they had come off a Japa-
platforms. nese ship.
There was a man on guard on each The machine guns on the platforms
platform, and the alertness of these men was were two Japanese and two Americans. He
surprising. The tense, avid manner with thought the wing-mounted guns of the plane,
which they scanned the surroundings was the ones controlled mechanically from the
hard to credit. cockpit, were Japanese. They had evidently
It was no temporary alertness, either. been installed to replace the original Ameri-
Doc and his aides lay in the brush and can guns. It was hard to be sure at that dis-
watched. The four watchmen did not slacken tance.
their vigilance for a moment. It began getting dark. Doc examined
“Japs,” Monk whispered. the sky. There were some clouds, and the
“Yes, but look at what they’re wearing,” night would be dark, what there was of it.
Ham breathed. This far north the night would be very short at
He meant the skin garments which the this time of the year.
four guards were wearing. The outfits were He went back to Monk, Ham and
not too well fashioned, and they were made Johnny.
from some type of crudely tanned hide. “You fellows be ready to create a di-
At the end of about an hour the four version if necessary,” he said. “I am going to
guards were relieved by four others. Two of try to get out to their plane.”
these latter were white men, tall fellows. The
astonishing alertness continued.
 THE TIME TERROR 19

THE project was not as hare-brained assistance than anything else. Th e skin suits
as it sounded. There was actually not much the men were wearing were moist and
risk during the first part of the trip. The smelled.
bronze man had brought along—his men had He found that two Japanese were
the same equipment—one of the tiny port- crouched on each wing of the plane. They
able gas masks which had a self-contained had rifles.
oxygen supply so that it also served as a div- Their alertness was the alertness of
ing “lung.” He fitted the mouthpiece of this terror.
between his teeth and put its clip on his nos- Doc was wondering how he could get
trils. into the plane without being observed when
The swampy growth extended into the the problem solved itself.
water at a number of points, so it was not Or, rather, things happened that made
hard to get into the bay without being ob- boarding the craft the least of his troubles.
served. He used a good-sized rock to keep Plane sound came out of the southern
himself under, and took a compass bearing night. It approached rapidly, for the ship was
on his luminous wrist compass. The lake wa- a fast one. With a booming roar the plane
ter, fortunately, was not clear. came down over the bay.
He took his time so as not to create a One of the Japanese tilted a search-
commotion in the water. light upward and hurriedly replaced the con-
Near the end of the trip the water sud- densing beam. The light impaled the newly
denly lightened to the color of cream over his arrived ship.
head and remained that way. The reason for The craft howling overhead was, Doc
the light color of the water was evident when concluded, the ship containing Pat and the
he reached the plane and came up cau- skinny man in gray.
tiously beside the fuselage. They had turned He was thinking that when a terrific
on searchlights. These were powerful—the fight broke out aboard the plane beside
landing lights of the plane—and they had which he crouched.
removed the condensing lenses so that the
lights threw a great diffused glow instead of
beams. THE fight began suddenly with two fig-
The object was obviously to light up the ures piling out of the cabin upon two of the
surroundings as much as possible. Japanese. The attackers were a man and a
The guards were still alert at their ma- girl. The man was past middle age and wore
chine guns on the platforms. skin garments. The girl was young and
Doc moved along the side of the plane, shapely in a very lithe fashion and wore, as
listening, using his ears, his nostrils. Monk had enthusiastically guessed, no more
Strangely enough, his nostrils were of more
20 DOC SAVAGE

than the law allowed. Certainly she did not The two Japanese whom the remark-
wear enough to interfere with her fighting. able girl had hurled into the lake got the wa-
Her fighting was something extraordi- ter out of their lungs and swam to the wing,
nary. She was upon the two Japanese like a climbed onto it and aided in getting Calvin
cat. She got them both at once. She lifted Western out of the water, shouting, “Ki wo
them. They howled in agony. She hurled tsukeros!” to each other. The Japanese
them bodily over the top of the cabin—the words for being careful.
ship was a low-wing type—upon the two They were very concerned over Calvin
Japanese crouching on the other side. Western’s injury.
She tossed them easily, as if they were “Through the shoulder,” said one of
bags of rags. It was a feat which Doc, who them, examining the wound. “The shock, in
was speechlessly amazed, doubted if he his weakened condition, has made him
could have done himself. senseless. We must take care of him.”
The girl then went into the water. She “Get him in the cabin. We must treat
entered with a sliding speed that was more his wound. His life is very important to us.”
animal than human. The last part of this conversation led
The old man—he looked older than he Doc Savage to decide not to interfere just
was—lacked her speed by a great deal. She now. The men on the gun platforms were too
did all that while he was getting onto the wing alert now. The moment he climbed on the
and piling into the water. plane wing they would riddle him.
Doc had a chance to examine the He remained where he was, listening
man’s face. It was familiar. for more words that might tell him something
“Western!” Doc called. “Calvin West- additional. He spoke and understood go-jio-
ern!” on, the so-called fifty sounds of the Japanese
The man in the water turned hurriedly. language fluently.
“Savage?” he gasped. Then one of the platform guns cut
“Yes,” Doc said. loose in a gobbling burst. The tracer bullets
“I was trying to reach you,” Calvin reached like a red-hot wire for the girl. They
Western gasped. “They shot my plane had sighted her.
down—” She had covered an astounding dis-
One of the Japanese appeared on top tance under water.
of the plane cabin. He had a pistol. He
leaned down and shot Calvin Western.
Calvin Western instantly threw up his Chapter VI
arms and sank. MONK AND THE DEVIL
“Yoku deki mashita!” the Japanese
said, lowering his gun. THEY did not hit the girl with the ma-
A second Japanese appeared beside chine-gun burst. She popped her head above
the first. He was angry. Very angry. the surface, got air, and was under again in
“Kore de wa idenai!” he screamed. an instant. Doc thought of a hunted wild thing.
“This won’t do! You had your orders not to Two of the Japanese who had taken
shoot him,” he added, shrieking in Japanese. Calvin Western into the plane cabin now
“But he was escaping,” said the one popped out again.
who had shot Calvin Western. “Western was talking to someone in
“Atsukamashii!” snarled the other, the water just before he was shot,” one yelled.
“Fool!” “I heard him.”
He struck the man who had shot Calvin “To Ga,” the other said.
Western, knocking him unconscious. “You are sure?”
Then the Japanese dived into the lake “They escaped together. Who else
and brought up Calvin Western. The water could it have been?”
was not over neck deep here. The man “Naruhodo!” said the other. “That is
hauled Western to the plane wing. good.”
“Kochira ye oide nasai!” he squawled Doc Savage was glad he had caught
at his companions. “Come here! Help me get that part of the conversation.
this man aboard.” They did not know he was about.
 THE TIME TERROR 21

The plane which had arrived, and And then, over the top of the bush,
passed overhead, now came back. Its speed something came flopping and convulsing. A
was much slower, just above landing speed, darkly hideous object. The thing which the
and evidently the wing flaps were set. Indian named Two Trout had seen, the thing
The Japanese on the wing above that was as high as a man, and as wide, and
Doc’s head were delighted. yet which could spread out to a width of
“Goran nasai!” one exclaimed joyfully. twenty feet, and which hissed.
“Look! It is Shorty. Everything is good. He is It was the “pet” to which the American
here. Now we can go back.” machine gunners on the platforms had re-
The machine gun interrupted again, ferred.
hammering out fiercely at the escaping girl. Twenty feet was a conservative esti-
Its bullets knocked spray high in the air, went mate of how far the thing could spread itself.
skipping off into the sky with the whanging of It was somewhat more than that.
breaking fiddle strings. It was the reason the machine guns
But again they missed the girl. She were on the platforms.
was far enough out of the flood-light glare It was also the reason why Doc hur-
when she came up this time to be a poor tar- riedly submerged and swam back to the
get. shore.
“The girl!” snarled one of the Japanese
above Doc. “That Ga! What about her? She
is escaping.” LIEUTENANT COLONEL ANDREW
The other swore. “It is unfortunate, but BLODGETT MONK MAYFAIR was standing
not a disaster.” beside a bush when he heard something that
“She is escaping. If she gets in the could be steam escaping, but of course
bush we will never capture her. Not even if wasn’t, overhead. He looked upward. “Gra-
we dared stick around and spend the neces- cious!” he said, which was the mildest ex-
sary time.” clamation he had used in a long time. He
“It is no disaster, I tell you,” retorted his couldn’t move. Astonishment riveted him to
companion. “She does not speak any known the spot.
language.” Johnny and Ham were beside him and
“Well, that is true. No one could under- Johnny said, “I’ll be super-sup-sup—” and
stand her.” couldn’t finish his favorite big word. Ham said
“And a girl like Ga—you know what nothing. He was speechless.
these stupid Canadians and Americans The thing flopped overhead.
would think when they found her.” It went fast, and it stank. It had the
“A wild woman.” stink of a carnivora, of a meat -eater, of a
“Exactly.” The Japanese laughed, a beast. The smell of a lion cage that had not
rather startling sound, because Japanese did been cleaned.
not often laugh. “They would be closer to the The flying thing did not see them. It
truth than they dreamed, too,” he added. went on. It headed for one of the machine-
Doc Savage, in the shadow under the gun platforms. The gun on the platform
wing, close to the fuselage so that he hoped ripped and chattered, and the flying thing
to be mistaken for a part of the plane if any- gave a louder hiss than ever.
one looked at the spot where he was hiding, It pounced on the gun platform and it
began to wonder about this girl, Ga. What did was almost like an explosion. The destruction
they mean—wild woman? She was remark- was amazing. The thing ripped and tore with
able, anyway. What little he had seen of her incredible violence. Pieces of platform, parts
proved that. of the gunner’s body, flew into the air.
The plane in the air circled again. It Then the thing lifted, made for the sec-
was preparing for a landing on the cove, ob- ond platform.
viously. On the floats, one of the men had Monk blurted, “That’s what tore up the
indicated wind direction by flashing a flash- airplane. That thing!”
light. “What is it?” Ham Brooks gasped.
The plane came in more slowly than Johnny made gurglings. He seemed to
before. know what the thing was. But he was too ex-
cited to make words.
22 DOC SAVAGE

The two pets, the pig, Habeas Corpus, know they had to pry him off the topmost
and the chimp, Chemistry, shot out of sight branch of the tallest tree in the neighborhood.
into a bush. They were terrified. They did not He felt that way now, and he could smell the
get that scared easily. stink of the flying thing, and that did not help.
Monk got rid of his paralysis and When he laid down it was an accident.
crowded out where he could see what hap- It was a fall. He practically buried himself in
pened. mud. But he turned instinctively so that he hit
The flying thing dived for a second gun on shoulder and back, face upward. He al-
platform. But here something a little different ways fell that way, and Ham claimed it was
happened. an indication of the nearness of Monk’s tree-
The gunner had rigged up some kind of climbing ancestry, an instinct inherited, the
dummy. He threw this over the muzzle of his way African warthogs always turn around
gun at the last moment and himself dived into and back into their holes, no matter how
the lake water. closely pursued.
The flying thing, deceived, grabbed the He was looking square at the thing
dummy. It seemed satisfied with what it had. when it exploded.
It arose with the dummy, flopping and con- Literal truth was that the dummy the
vulsing in the air like a harridan body to thing was carrying did the exploding. They
which was attached great dark sheets of rub- had planted explosive in the dummy. That
ber. was the object of trying to give the dummy to
The man who had swapped himself for the flying harridan, the attempt which had
the dummy yelled, “Stop shooting! Everybody succeeded.
stand still! Maybe it’ll keep the dummy long The blast was terrific. Its effects were
enough to do some good!” plainly discernible because on the plane they
The machine guns were instantly stilled. had turned one of the searchlight beams on
The plane flown by the skinny man in the flying object, and were following it, keep-
the gray suit had swerved hurriedly away ing track of it.
from the bay. The man had seen the flying The blast did what any other terrific ex-
thing. plosion would do—scattered the flying mon-
Monk watched the thing. strosity over a considerable amount of land-
“That devil,” Monk blurted, “is coming scape.
this way.” Monk was hammered somewhat
deeper into the mud. He was indeed glad
that the dummy had not contained shrapnel,
JOHNNY LITTLEJOHN gave a brittle but only high explosive.
order. “Run,” he said. “And scatter. If it sees He watched pieces of the monster fly
you, flop on the ground and lie still.” around in the blaze of light from the search-
He sounded as if he knew what he was light. The searchlight kept glowing, and there
talking about. They obeyed. was enough illumination to show the sur-
Monk took out toward the south. He roundings.
kept both hands out in front and went over Monk carefully spotted points where
bushes and through them. He left pieces of fragments of the monster fell. He was very
hide and clothing hanging on the brush. He curious about the thing.
was frankly scared. Confident they could not see him
He was not afraid of being heard. The through the bush, he extricated himself from
airplane motor was making a great frightened the mud and began hunting for fragments of
noise in an effort to get the plane away. the what-is-it.
Monk never did know whether the fly- The piece he found seemed to be a
ing thing saw him, or whether it flew after him fragment of wing. He noticed that it, or its
by accident. Whatever happened, he swore stump, was bloody. The blood reassured him
his hair should have turned white. in a way; the thing had been an actual living
Flop on the ground and lie still was organism. In another way, the discovery that
something of which Monk never thought. It the thing had been flesh and blood was most
reminded him of the time he shot his first unnerving. It made his hair want to stand on
bear, or tried to. He was very small. He never end.
knew what happened to the bear. But he did
 THE TIME TERROR 23

He expected the wing to be heavy. He “I’m trying to tell you,” Monk explained,
nearly fell on his back when he picked it up. It “that you and I seem to be mad at the same
was light. Remarkably light, although not fan- people.”
tastically so. It was merely that he had wit- The girl spoke. It sounded like she said
nessed the astounding violence with which about a dozen words.
the thing had disposed of the machine gun- “Eh?” Monk said. “I didn’t get it. Do you
ner on his platform and he had expected speak English?”
something different. The girl seemed defeated. She made a
In general it felt like a framework—the gesture admonishing silence. The plane was
wing—of duralumin tubing to which was at- coming close.
tached a great sheet of rubber similar to the After the ship had howled overhead
rubber in a good inner tube. with a great noise—it was a good thing they
The girl came out of the bush then. got better cover, because a flare popped out
of the plane and spewed incredible white
light over the region—Monk crawled away
MONK was not exactly proud of his re- from the spot. He hurried. The girl followed.
action to her appearance. He was all drawn The plane came back and made a tight,
out, like a string that had been about to snap, howling bank over the spot. The flare died
and hadn’t. Instinct purely caused him to out. The plane pulled away, climbing a little,
make a jump for the girl, as if she was an made a wide circle to give the pilot time to
enemy. adjust his eyes to the darkness again, then
He was less proud of what it got him. came in and landed on the little lake bay.
He was seized. He was hit twice so fast and Shorty seemed quite familiar with the
hard that it seemed impossible. He was bay. He ran the plane in close to shore and
slammed down on the ground, the girl was beached it gently on a sandbar.
on his back, and had his neck in a grip. From Monk Mayfair found Ham and Johnny
the kind of grip she had, she wasn’t playing. in the darkness.
“Ouch!” he said. “Hey!” “Ps-s-t!” Monk warned. “I’ve collected a
She relaxed her clutch slightly then. trophy.”
Apparently she had expected to recognize “Who is it?” Johnny asked.
his voice and had not. “A girl,” Monk explained.
“Lay off the neck,” Monk said as calmly “It would be,” Ham said dryly. “Can you
as he could manage. “They’re hard to re- imagine Monk collecting anything but a
place, kinda.” woman. Him with a wife and thirteen kids
The girl felt around and got a fistful of already at home.”
coarse grass. She scrubbed the mud off Monk sneered audibly at Ham. “You’re
Monk’s face. Then, in the light that diffused wasting your breath telling that old lie. I don’t
down through the bush from the searchlight think she understands English.”
beam, she examined Monk. Doc Savage joined them then. He did it
She seemed startled. quietly. The diving “lung” gave his face a gro-
While she was staring at Monk, the tesque appearance.
plane which contained Shorty and—they Monk noticed that the girl seemed to
hoped—Pat Savage, came buzzing back. It have known that Doc Savage was near them
was going to pass directly overhead at a low a long time before he appeared. Her senses
altitude. seemed extraordinarily keen.
As soon as he saw there was danger Doc said, “Quiet. Let’s see what hap-
of their being discovered from the plane, pens.”
Monk made frantic gestures indicating they
should get under better cover. The girl un-
derstood. She let him up and they got under THE thin man in the gray suit bounded
shelter. out of his plane as soon as it grounded gently
Monk was much relieved. She was a on the sandbar. He had managed the
friend, then. grounding expertly, letting the breeze drift the
“Thanks,” he said. “Guess we had our plane backward upon the bar, so that the
wires crossed.” motors could pull it off without trouble. He
She said nothing. had cut the motors. He was a small figure
24 DOC SAVAGE

standing beside the big amphibian and wav- Ham said, “I can make a guess, Doc.”
ing his arms. “It’s incredible,” Johnny said. “Utterly
“Ahoy Saki!” he yelled. incredible, and absolutely unbelievable.”
“Yes,” answered one of the Japanese. “I picked up a wing of the thing, then
“This is Saki. Was it destroyed?” got excited and dropped it,” Monk said. “The
“Blown to pieces,” Shorty bellowed wing was plenty believable. It was genuine,
back. “I could see the pieces scattered all right. The thing was bloody. And you could
around in the light of the flare.” tell from the look and the feel that it wasn’t no
“Hijo ni yorokobimasu,” Saki said. “I am fake. And the smell of it! I didn’t know those
delighted. It is good. The thing has had us in things smelled.”
terror ever since you left.” Doc Savage said quietly, “You fellows
“It hung around here then?” can imagine what kind of a place the thing
“Yes. We saw it at a distance three might have come from. And from what Saki
times. Often enough to worry us.” just said they are going back to the place
Saki then shouted some orders and the with Calvin Western. Shall we go back with
searchlights were doused. The three survi v- them?”
ing machine gunners on the platforms began They were thoughtful. “That might not
dismantling their weapons. Without the be so much fun,” Monk said at last. “But I’m
searchlights it was quite dark. willing to take a crack at it if the others are. ”
Saki yelled, “Did that man, Doc Savage, Johnny was more enthusiastic. “I’d give
learn of this?” half my life, actually, to see such a place,” he
“He sure did,” said Shorty disgustedly. said.
“Did you manage him?” “All right,” Doc Savage told them.
“That,” said Shorty, “is a long story. “Shorty just left his plane. We will get aboard
You better come over here and ’Ill tell you it and see what we can do about the thing
about it.” from there on.”
“You come out here,” Saki said with the Ham asked, “What about the girl Monk
manner of a Japanese who could order an collected?”
American around and was proud of it. “She is probably an inhabitant of the
Shorty objected, “I got a prisoner place,” Doc said. “We will take her. She may
aboard.” be of considerable help.”
“Who?” “If the place has got many citizens like
“A girl named Pat Savage. She’s a the little pet that just blew up,” Monk said,
cousin of Doc Savage.” “we’ll need all the help running around
“Why?” loose.”
“Well,” said Shorty, “I figured she would The girl had stood by without any sign
keep Doc Savage off our neck if we got in a that she understood a word they said. Now,
fight.” when Doc Savage touched her arm, and in-
“Tie her tightly,” Saki ordered, “then dicated by simple signs that they wished her
knock her unconscious. And come over here to accompany them, and that silence was
and tell me the story.” imperative, she examined the bronze man as
“O. K.,” Shorty said with not much closely as the darkness would permit.
grace. “Have we got the time?” But she came with them.
“We have Calvin Western a prisoner
aboard,” snapped Saki, “so we can return at
our leisure.” Chapter VII
Doc Savage grouped his three aides THE UNKNOWN
closely in the darkness. He kept his words
low, a whispering that blended with the slight PATRICIA SAVAGE was glad to see
noise the night breeze made in the bush. them. Pat was too stiff from being tied so
Doc said, “You fellows all saw that fly- long and too dazed from the blow which
ing thing?” Shorty must have struck her to move for a
They had. “I saw almost too much of while after they took the cords off her. Monk
it,” Monk whispered. and Ham got down and rubbed her arms and
“You guessed what it was?” Doc asked. throat.
“I think I know,” Monk admitted.
 THE TIME TERROR 25

Doc went back into the plane cabin but The Japanese blanched. “You,” he said.
no one else was aboard. He returned to the “You were ordered. ”
cockpit. The escape hatch was open and he “Yes, but you do it,” Shorty told him, “or
could hear the murmur of Shorty and Saki it don’t get done. I’ll tell Saki you refused to
talking. Murmur was all he could catch. do it, and Saki won’t be happy about that.
Pat revived enough to say, “That Saki is one of them guys without any morals
skinny guy! He’s a cold fish. Watch him.” that they talk about.”
“He hurt you?” Monk asked. “Baka iu-na!” the Japanese gasped.
“My dignity,” Pat said. “And after we left “No!”
New York and got over Canada an army Pat settled the argument by heaving up
plane chased us. I guess it was an army and getting the little Japanese by the throat.
plane. Anyway, they put a machine-gun burst
through the back of the cabin before he got
away.” SHE managed to hold him silent. Doc
“Scare you?” Savage came out of the cockpit and took
“I don’t mind admitting it did,” Pat said. Shorty. Monk and the others piled over the
Doc Savage gave a quiet warning for gasoline drums. The cabin was full of silent
caution. Shorty was coming back, he said. fight for a minute. Then the Japanese and
They had better conceal themselves. Pat Shorty were senseless.
was to lie on the cabin floor where she had “See if they heard us,” Doc said.
been, with the cords replaced around her Monk and Ham thrust their heads out
wrists and ankles, and around her body, but of the hatch, poised to dodge back if a
not tied. Did she think she could grab Shorty searchlight came on.
and silence him long enough for Doc and the “Nothing alarming,” Monk reported.
others to get their hands on him? “Sounds like they’re loading the machine
“I can try with plenty of enthusiasm,” guns into the other plane.”
Pat said. Johnny was busy with the cords which
The aft section of the plane cabin was had secured Pat. There was an abundance
loaded with gasoline drums, carefully lashed of these, and he divided them, tying both
to prevent shifting. There was time to slip the Shorty and the Nipponese. He contributed
lashings and move some of the drums for- half of his shirt to make a gag for each one.
ward, making a space behind in which they Pat was on her feet and rubbing her
could crouch. Monk, Ham and Johnny re- wrists.
mained there with the pig and the chimp. Doc “Things are looking up,” she said
got down in the cockpit, concealed behind cheerfully. “Say, what was all the shooting
the seats for pilot and co-pilot. awhile ago. Shorty was all excited. Scared
The thin man climbed into the ship. His out of his wits for a while.”
clothes were drenched and he was grumbling. “He was scared, all right,” Monk said,
One of the Japanese came with him. “of something that was flying around.”
They walked back and stood looking “What?”
down at Pat. No one answered because the motors
Shorty said, “I don’t like it, kid. I don’t of the other plane burst into life. Their sound
like it a little bit. We’re supposed to knock drummed in waves across the cove and fire
you off. Saki doesn’t figure we need you.” poured from the exhaust stacks like red silk.
Pat said nothing. She was not close Doc Savage climbed hastily into the
enough to grab the man. Anyway, there were cockpit of Shorty’s ship. He started the motor.
two of them now. It was hot, took the spark instantly.
“I like everything about it but this,” “How is our gas?” Johnny asked.
Shorty added. “But I ain’t no woman killer.” “Tanks almost full,” Doc said.
The Japanese said harshly, “Shoot Pat said, “Shorty landed in some little
her!” bush place less than an hour ago and made
He was not much more comfortable them fill everything.”
than Shorty about the task. The other plane rammed the white
Shorty glared at him. “Listen, my little beams of its lights out ahead and began to
superman, you can have the job yourself.” move.
26 DOC SAVAGE

Doc said, “We will have to take the get away with this trick we are pulling. Then
chance that we were supposed to follow.” we can have a kind of verbal roundup.”
He gave their own motor enough gas “Sure.”
to pull them free of the sandbar. They moved The bronze man continued to climb
forward. No one said anything. They had their plane. It soon became evident that their
taken off in seaplanes innumerable times, but ship was faster than the other craft, which
there is something about a take-off that was the larger one. He throttled back a little
makes it a moment of silence. in order not to get too close. But he could not
Pat watched the strange girl during the get far behind because the darkness was
take-off. deceptive.
The girl had very blond hair, and it cer- The ship ahead had not switched on its
tainly needed the attention of a good beauty navigation lights, so that it was only a decep-
parlor. What wave it had was natural. Its tex- tive shape slashing the night. Doc became
ture was fine, though. And the girl’s features more and more certain that they were not
were not coarse, although there was nothing going to be able to follow the other craft with-
doll-faced about them. The strange girl was, out lights.
as a whole, a rather beautiful amazon of a He switched on the radio apparatus.
creature. While the tubes were warming he re -
The girl was no veteran in an airplane, membered carefully how Shorty’s voice had
Pat could see. She was as frightened as an sounded. He tried several imitations of the
animal, but controlling herself. fellow’s tone and accent.
“There’s no danger,” Pat told her. “Doc Pat said, “That sounds enough like him
can make one of these things turn hand- to fool anybody.”
springs and never ruffle your hair.” Doc picked up the radio microphone.
The other girl seemed more satisfied Imitating Shorty’s voice, he said, “My
by the friendly tone than by the words. compass is going bad. You will have to turn
She said something in a language on your navigation lights so that I can follow
completely unintelligible to Pat. you.”
Pat hesitated, then went forward. She They held their breaths.
asked Doc, “Where did the blonde menace Navigation lights of the ship ahead
come from?” came on.
“Monk collected her, ” Doc said. “You worked that!” Pat said delightedly.
“I imagined he had. But who is she? The plane was not equipped with any
Where did she come from?” gadgets for passenger comfort. Obviously
“You will probably be surprised,” Doc the craft was a bomber. But there was an
said. automatic pilot which would take over
He sounded as if he meant it. straight-and-level flight, and Doc turned con-
trol over to the gadget as soon as it seemed
safe.
HAM BROOKS joined Doc Savage as “The prisoners awake yet?” he called.
soon as they were off the lake surface and “They’re awake.” Ham reported. “But
following the other plane in a long climb into they’re not exactly sounding off like phono-
the north. Ham was worried. graphs.”
“Doc,” he said. “The only weapons Doc Savage went back. He put the
we’ve got are the ones we’re packing. We hooded beam of a flashlight on the faces of
might be able to use more. We have plenty the two captives.
back there in our plane.” “Going to talk to us?” he asked Shorty.
Doc shook his head. “To go back Shorty said at once, but bitterly, “About
would draw suspicion to ourselves.” the weather, the stock market, the chances
“I guess it would,” Ham admitted. “But of the Dodgers. But that’s all.”
I’d sure like to be better heeled.” He hesi- Doc said, “It might be easier on you if
tated. “That thing that was flying around, that you talked.”
pet, was the thing that tore up the other plane, Shorty showed his teeth in a grimace
wasn’t it?” that meant nothing except that he had made
Doc nodded. “Apparently. But let’s hold up his mind. “The hell with you, ” he said. “I
the talk a few minutes. See if we are going to don’t like being outsmarted the way you’ve
 THE TIME TERROR 27

outsmarted me. I thought I had done the best Doc nodded.

job on you that I had ever done in my life. My Ham said, “Doc, how does the story
feelings are hurt.” seem to shape up to you?”
Doc did not argue with him. He knew They did not really expect the bronze
quite positively that nothing less than truth man to answer. He was usually very reluctant
serum, of which they had none, would per- about voicing theories or guesses. But he
suade Shorty to tell anything. surprised them.
Doc asked the Japanese, “Your “Apparently, Calvin Western was flying
name?” south toward New York in a plane,” Doc said.
“Hashigo, ” said the Japanese. “The plane was a very modern bomber, but
“How do you feel about talking?” had been damaged previously and patched
“Arigato, Yoshirnasho,” the Japanese together with parts from another ship. It was
said, and that was the last word he spoke for a Japanese light bomber patched up with
hours. parts from an American bomber.
Ham, who did not speak Japanese, “Pursuing Calvin Western, ” Doc con-
asked, “What’d he say?” tinued, “were Saki and his men, including
“No, thank you,” Doc translated. Shorty and Hashigo, here. Near Trapper
Doc Savage went back to the cockpit. Lake they overhauled Calvin Western and
It was not safe for him to be away from the shot his plane down, or forced it to crash.
controls for long because the plane ahead, Calvin Western’s ship made what ordinarily
even with its flying lights, was not an easy would have been a safe crash landing. Calvin
thing to follow. Not against the dancing aura Western and this girl here—the girl’s name is
of the Borealis, now lancing high into the po- Ga, incidentally—were able to get out of the
lar sky. damaged plane. They fled into the bush. Saki
“It would be a good idea,” Doc said, “if and his men—they were in two planes—fired
we had a summary, a verbal roundup, of upon them with machine guns.”
what we know. This thing has become more Doc was silent a moment.
complicated and a little confusing.” “But Calvin Western was carrying
Monk said, “That is what I was think- something in the light bomber,” he added.
ing.” “Something incredible. Something he might
have been bringing to New York to show us,
in order to convince us that what he had to
“THERE is a man named Calvin West- tell us was the truth. This thing was lashed
ern in that plane ahead,” Doc Savage ex- tightly in the plane. It was lashed with control
plained. “He is a prisoner. He is also an ac- wires from another plane, an American ship.”
quaintance of mine.” Doc looked at his aides. “That is partly
They looked at him with astonishment. a guess,” He said. “But it is probably accu-
It was the first they had heard of Calvin rate. In the wreckage of Calvin Western’s
Western. plane there was a surplus quantity of control
The name had a meaning to Monk, for wires, and these were lashed together and
Monk popped his hands together and said, tied in knots as if they had been used for
“Wait a minute, I know a Calvin Western. The bindings.”
Calvin Western I know is a chemist, a greater Ham nodded, said, “I kind of noticed
chemist than I ever hope to be. ” that myself.”
“That is the one,” Doc said. “The crash of Calvin Western’s plane
“What is he doing in Saki’s plane?” freed this thing he had for a cargo,” Doc said.
Monk demanded. “It got away. It was in a strange environment.
“A prisoner, who seems to have a It remained in the neighborhood. That Indian,
value to them,” Doc Savage said. “They are Two Trout, saw it around and thought it was
anxious to keep him alive. That means he a loup-garou because it looked like nothing
has a value to them, either because he he had imagined was on this earth.”
knows something they wish to know, or for Pat put in, “Then Saki’s planes landed
some other reason.” on this bay and they caught Calvin Western
Monk scratched his head, said, “I take and Ga, here?”
it Calvin Western is the reason we’re mixed Doc Savage said that was probably
up in this?” what had happened.
28 DOC SAVAGE

The planes were moaning into the “Wait a minute! Those messages were differ-
north at more than normal cruising speed, ent. They must have landed a man at the
which meant around three hundred miles an nearest telegraph office to intercept tele-
hour. It was getting cold. grams.”
It had not been exactly hot at Trapper “Probably,” Doc agreed.
Lake, but it had been above freezing, which Ham Brooks said, “That seems to clear
was the heat of the summer for Trapper Lake. up the picture, as much of it as we can see.
But now the temperature was well below Shorty’s scheme fizzled, and so he grabbed
freezing, probably close to zero. The plane Pat as a hostage and lit out here. He didn’t
cabin was equipped with a heater, one of the expect us to follow.”
few gestures toward luxury which the bomber Monk growled. “We got here and they
carried. And below them already there was killed that flying thing that had been in Calvin
snow and perpetual ice. The way they were Western’s plane. Now they’re headed back
going soon they would be over the Arctic Sea, where they came from.” Monk peered at
and if they held their course then, out into the them uneasily. “You suppose there’ll be more
great section north of Bering that was of them flying babies in the place?”
marked unexplored on all maps. No one ventured an opinion.
Doc Savage continued his summary.
“Saki and his men must have known
Calvin Western was coming to us for help,” IT got still colder. They were over
Doc said. “And after they caught him, Calvin Beaufort Sea, over the pack ice. The air was
Western doubtless scared them. Western is clear. Night had gone and there was no haze.
clever. He wanted us to help. So he would try The pack ice below was an expanse of white
to scare Saki into thinking we had learned, or without beginning or end, with e f w leads of
might learn, what was going on. open water. They were like blue steel where
“The upshot of that,” Doc continued, they appeared, almost black against the
“was that Saki sent the very clever Shorty white of the ice.
here, to New York to sidetrack us. Shorty did Johnny looked at the thermometer and
so. He was very skillful. He surmised that a voiced his inevitable, “I’ll be superamalga-
news story of the crash of Calvin Western’s mated.” He looked at the girl, Ga, who was
plane might be filed and might attract our dressed for a tropical jungle. “It’s forty below
attention. He found out a great deal about us outside,” he said. “If we crack up down there
in a hurry, found out about our news- we’d freeze to death.”
condensing methods. How he did that is a Ham had been watching the ice
mystery—” through a pair of glasses which he had found.
Pat interrupted. “If we have to land down there we won’t need
“Shorty had underworld contacts in to worry about freezing, ” he said, impressed
New York, Doc,” Pat said. “He mentioned by the dog-fang nature of the ice pack.
that once, boastingly, while we were flying up Pat went to Ga.
here. He used those contacts to get a great “Cold?” she asked.
deal of information about you. He was proud The girl looked at her. Ga was fright-
of his skill and speed.” ened, the way a person with a limitless cour-
Doc Savage thought of the complicated age can become frightened.
and ingenious scheme which Shorty had Pat got blankets—they were Japanese
evolved to keep them from getting the days army blankets—and wrapped them around
news report, and afterward in his efforts to Ga. Ga was grateful. She said something in
thwart them, efforts which had climaxed in her not unmusical, but completely mystifying
the successful seizure of Pat. language. Her tone was friendly.
“He was clever,” Doc said. Pat pointed a finger at herself. “Pat,”
Monk put in, “They put Corporal Os- she said carefully and distinctly. “Pat.” She
good’s radio on the kibosh so he couldn’t pointed her finger at the other girl, said, “Ga.”
answer. Then they used their own radio, the Ga broke into a smile. She touched
one in the plane yonder, in place of the cor- herself. “Ga,” she said.
poral’s outfit. That’s how they received our “Now we’re getting some place,” Pat
messages of inquiry and sent the fake an- said. “I’m going to see what we can work out
swers.” Monk hesitated, scratched his head. in the way of a mutual language. ”
 THE TIME TERROR 29

“Good idea,” Doc Savage agreed. He Doc Savage nodded in agreement.

went back to the controls, to the interminable “We are over what is popularly supposed to
business of following Saki’s plane out into the be a great waste of ice, where there would
unknown waste of the arctic. be no sharp change in temperature,” he said.
“As a matter of fact the temperature outside
the plane has not varied more than five de-
Chapter VIII grees in the last six hours.”
A WORLD LOST “Funny,” Monk said, frowning at the
clouds.
IT was hours later, long enough after- The clouds had heaved up now like a
ward for them to have become astonishingly mountain chain. The height of the mass was
hungry, when Johnny Littlejohn put the bin- about what they had estimated before, five to
oculars on the horizon ahead and said, “A six thousand feet. The width of the mass, as
Sisypheanly onerous obstruence.” nearly as they could estimate, which was
“I guess you mean trouble,” Monk said. within ten miles or so of correct, appeared to
“Gimme those glasses a minute.” The be about forty miles. Farther on the cloud
homely chemist put the binoculars to his bank might be either more wide or more nar-
eyes, frowned. “Clouds,” he said. “That’ll row.
make it tough, following those guys ahead. ” The plane ahead climbed sharply. It
Doc Savage made no comment. But he was evident that the craft was going over the
went back and ripped Shorty’s gray coat off clouds.
and tore it up the back, and put his arms “Get down,” Doc warned a second time.
through the sleeves. While he sat in the seat “We are going to have to pull up close to
it would do. He also put on Shorty’s hat. them.”
“The rest of you keep down,” he Monk asked, “You think this batch of
warned. clouds is their destination?”
The plane ahead had slowed up in or- Doc said, “We will soon know. ”
der to allow the distance between the two The clouds were under them, packed
craft to close. thick and dark it seemed, although actually
More slowly than they had expected, they were probably far from being as impene-
the cloud bank ahead heaved up. It grew, trable or as opaque as they seemed. The
magnifying itself, until they suddenly realized planes dropped lower over the nodular
that the cloud bank stood at least six thou- masses. The ship ahead seemed to know
sand feet in the sky, packed like soiled cotton. where it was going.
Doc Savage, who had studied meteor- Then Saki’s plane suddenly upended
ology extensively, and who was familiar with its tail and dived into the mass of cloud.
arctic weather conditions, eyed the cloud Doc Savage then made one of the few
bank. serious—and stupid, he thought—mistakes
of his life. He dived his own plane into the
clouds. He did exactly what the other ship
(Doc Savage maintains a hideout in the
had done—except that he did not wait to
remote arctic, west of Greenland, a spot called
reach the spot where the other plane had
his Fortress of Solitude, to which he goes dived.
whenever he has free time for intensive work He went down into the clouds.
and study and experiment.)

“Monk,” he said. “You have seen arctic AND suddenly a mass of rock fanged
cloud formation. Strike you as being anything out of the abyss of vapor. It was astounding.
peculiar about those clouds?” The earth should have been five thousand
Monk admitted he had been thinking feet below. And it should have been a great
something of the sort. “Those are clouds mass of flat ice.
caused by a sharp differential in temperature, But here in the sky was rock, and they
warm and moist air hitting very cold air sud- hit it.
denly and condensing,” he explained. “I They hit lightly. Doc gave the motors
hardly expected anything of the kind in this everything, hauled back on the controls. But
section.” they hit anyway. A s-s-sick! noise. A propeller
30 DOC SAVAGE

blade. Badly bent. There was a roaring, and When they had stopped, Monk looked
a shaking as if a monster had hold of the ship at Doc Savage and asked, “Bad?”
as the unbalanced blade whirled. Doc shut “Not good,” the bronze man said. “As
off that motor, cut it, got it stopped. He far as the plane is concerned we might as
worked with the stabilizer and the controls, well have hit a cliff.”
getting the plane back in trim, getting it away They got out, climbing from the cabin
from the stone peak which they had hit. hatch and stepping onto the wing and fuse-
Monk bellowed, “Other motor’s going, lage. The grass was very much like bamboo,
Doc! Vibration ripped loose an oil line!” being round and about half an inch in thick-
The bronze man said nothing, but he ness near the base. Also very tough. The
had seen the dark oil sheeting over the motor stuff had literally ripped the skin off the plane.
housing. “Savage,” said Shorty, inside the plane.
They had to land now. “Yes?”
Ham said, “Great grief! I wonder if “You had better dismantle the machine
there’s any parachutes. “Has anybody guns on this ship and get them so you can
looked?” fire them by hand,” Shorty said.
On the floor, Shorty said, “No need of Monk asked him, “What’s the idea?”
wasting your time. There are none. ” “You’ll probably find out,” Shorty said.
Monk swooped upon the gaunt, ex-
tremely tall Shorty and barked, “We came
down into the clouds. We hit what looked like IT made no one any easier of mind
a rock peak.” when Doc Savage took Shorty’s advice. The
“You came down too soon,” Shorty cockpit mounted guns—the one in the gun-
said. “You hit the rim.” ner’s blister was not difficult to dismantle.
“Rim?” The others, the big .50-caliber guns, were
“The edge, the lip,” Shorty said. more difficult, and heavy.
“There’s a ring of high peaks around the While the others were working on the
place. Like a crater rim, only it probably isn’t. guns, Doc Savage stepped out on the wing
I don’t think the place was ever a volcano.” to inspect their surroundings.
“Oh,” Monk said. “Just what is it like—” There was more light than he had ex-
Doc Savage called sharply, “Get hold pected, and it was evident that the clouds
of something, everybody! Pad yourselves all were only a thin layer. Furthermore, there
you can. We are going to hit!” would probably be even more light farther
The bomber was no great shakes as a from the mountain range where the heights
glider, and the best Doc had been able to do did not shut off, partially at least, the light
by holding it at its flattest angle of flight was from the low-lying arctic sun.
to keep from hitting the rapidly sloping sides There was, however, a kind of fog in
of the mountain ring which they had hit. Now the place. It was not possible to see an ob-
he was nearing the bottom, or at least less ject the size of a man at a distance much
precipitous territory, and they would have to greater than two hundred yards. The fog
land. made the place somewhat uncanny.
Crash, more likely. Doc Savage went into the plane cabin.
There was no area fit for a landing. He seized Shorty and hauled him outside.
There was only vegetation, and strange stuff “Shorty your name?” Doc asked.
at that. Plants which seemed to be about fif- The man shrugged. “Shorty is as per-
teen feet high, and like grass. manent a name as any.”
Doc Savage set the wing flaps at full, “All right, Shorty,” Doc Savage said.
retarding speed of the ship as much as pos- “On your advice, on your honest advice, may
sible. He flattened off, leveled, did a stall, and depend our lives, including your own.”
they came down in a landing that could not Shorty stared at him. “That’s good
have been better—except that the grasslike sense.”
plants proved to be as tough and springy as “What does the place offer in the way
bamboo, and no place for a landing, except of natural protection? Caves, or anything like
where their necks were concerned. It was not that?”
dangerous. But it left the plane so that it
would never fly again. The noise was terrific.
 THE TIME TERROR 31

“A few caves,” Shorty said. “They’re In order to be able to retrace their

the best. The thorn thickets help. But there route without trouble if it became necessary,
are no thorns this far out toward the edge.” they placed frequent markings by thrusting
“We are on the edge of it, then?” twigs into the ground, pointing the direction of
“That’s right.” the back trail.
“Very dangerous here?” The Japanese, Hashigo, walked sul-
“Not too much. Keep your eyes open. lenly with them. He would say nothing. Ham
One thing bad, though, is the fact that the caught Hashigo looking longingly at one of
things out here seem to be more intelligent the machine guns and said, “You make one
than the ones in toward the center.” false move, my little descendant of an ape,
Doc Savage was silent for a moment. and we’ll kick you out to shift for yourself.”
“We are going to have to trust you,” he said. Hashigo looked frightened at that.
“I can be trusted, ” Shorty said. “But I’m Doc Savage noted that the girl, Ga,
not a dope. The first chance I get to do my- seemed at home now. She did not know the
self some good I’ll do it. I just tell you that as exact lay of the ground, it appeared, but she
a warning. I’m not to be trusted. I could give knew the general character of the vegetation
you my word of honor, but the minute I got a they were likely to encounter.
chance to do myself some good I’d do it. I’ve They came upon a path through the
always been that way. I’m not proud of it.” harsh, reedy grass that was actually a little
“Think we could trust you with a gun?” like forcing a way through iron rods thrust
Doc asked. into the earth. Monk started to follow this
“I doubt it. I would rather have a good path, which was wide, and very hard, so hard
strong flashlight. You got one?” that it did not bear traces of the feet of what-
“I think there are three in the plane.” ever had made it.
“Give me one. Take the other two “Wan, wan!” Ga said excitedly, and
yourself. They’re better than guns.” gestured away from the path.
Monk, sticking his head out of the Pat said, “The word wan means no, in
plane, had listened to the last part of the their language. Better stay off the path,
conversation. “What do you mean, flashlight Monk.”
better than a gun?” Monk looked at Shorty. “Know what
“They think the light is fire. Most of made this path, long-fellow?” he asked.
them, the ones that are able to get scared, “No, ” Shorty said. “I don’t know too
are afraid of fire. ” much about this place myself.”
Monk scratched his head. “This sounds Monk snorted. “Well, if you think I’m
like a great place.” going to bat my brains out on this grass—and
Doc Savage lowered his voice so that it’s not my idea of grass either—you’re mis-
the Japanese could not hear, and asked, taken.”
“What about Hashigo?” “You’ve just demonstrated you haven’t
Shorty grinned. He whispered, “Thanks any brains,” Ham said.
for not letting him hear you ask me that. I Monk took the path anyway.
wouldn’t trust him. You can do as you like. His pet pig, Habeas Corpus, however,
Hashigo’s code of honor seems to be about followed Doc Savage and the others as they
the same as Saki’s—double-cross you as entered the grass and began a laborious
much as he can.” progress parallel to the trail, but some dis-
“Thank you,” Doc said. tance away from it.
He gave Shorty one of the flashlights. Monk had quite a cheerful time on the
easy going of the trail. He got some distance
ahead of them, scouting.
HAVING dismantled two of the ma- Then there was a howl from Monk. It
chine guns—one .30 caliber and one .50 was an unearthly howl. An impressed howl.
caliber, the latter quite heavy—and burdened An air raid siren could not have done better.
themselves with ammunition, they quitted the They scrambled madly for the trail, got
plane. near enough it to see Monk coming at full
As they moved away from the ship, speed.
Doc warned, “Keep closely together.” Behind Monk, not far enough behind
for his comfort, came a large animal. This
32 DOC SAVAGE

animal had about the height of a tall horse, Chapter IX

but considerable more width and certainly BACK INTO TIME
several tons of weight. Its ears were small, it
had a pronounced hump back of the neck, DOC SAVAGE stood silent, listening,
and dark hair which reached the ground. It for some time. His sensitive ears picked up
had two tusks, spiral in shape, turning up- sounds, but they were not the sounds of a
ward and outward, and about ten feet in plane. They were bestial sounds, the sounds
length. The animal was equipped with a long of animals, without being the sounds of any
elephant trunk which was extended hopefully, animals found in zoos.
between the tusks, for Monk. “The plane must have landed,” he said.
“Saki’s plane, I mean.”
(It has been, and still is, our policy to “I never heard the other ship after we
avoid the fantastic and the impossible in fiction. crashed into the peak,” Pat said.
It is almost invariably true that nothing appears Johnny the archaeologist, was jumping
in the Doc Savage stories which has not already around excitedly, berating everybody be-
been accomplished by scientists, at least upon a cause he didn’t happen to have a camera. “A
laboratory scale. For that reason, all dinosaurs picture of that mammoth would be worth a
and mammals appearing in this story are drawn fortune,” he kept explaining. “It was a genu-
with scientific correctness. They are dinosaurs ine woolly mammoth. The undercoat was
and mammals whic h existed on earth during the yellowish brown wool, and the longer hair
Pleistocene, the Palaeolithic, and other time was in patches on cheeks, flanks and so on.
periods. Years of research by the author and It had the short, high, pointed skull of a genu-
other authorities were expended in order to ine mammoth. Oh, if I only had a picture of
gather scientific data which is presented in this it.”
story.) “You can have my picture of it,” Monk
said. “It’s a picture I don’t think I’ll ever be
“Help!” Monk squawled. able to get out of my mind. ”
Doc Savage pitched forward. He had a Johnny finally worked himself up into
flashlight, a powerful five-cell hand search- such a frothing excitement that he waved his
light. He stabbed the beam at the monster arms.
pursuing Monk. “It was a genuine pterodactyl, after all!”
The light terrified the animal. It veered he yelled.
off to the right of the trail, seemed to forget all “What was? I thought you just said
about Monk, and went away like a rampaging mammoth—”
engine, snorting, the hard, brittle grass crack- “I mean that flying thing back at Trap-
ing like bones. per Lake,” Johnny said. “The thing they blew
Monk stopped running, plunged into up with the explosive in the dummy. The
the grass and fell down, panting. thing Calvin Western brought out of here in
“What was that thing?” he gasped. his plane. A pterodactyl! Think of it! If I ever
“A woolly mammoth, ” Doc Savage said. get out of here I’m going to organize an ex-
“It had teeth ten feet long!” Monk ex- pedition to go to Trapper Lake and find the
ploded. “Boy, what choppers! They reached bones of that thing. I hope the wolves don’t
out for me like spears—hey ! Hey, wait a min- scatter them too much. They’re priceless.”
ute. What’d you say that was?” “Pterodactyl?” Monk was puzzled. “You
“Mammoth. Woolly mammoth.” mean one of them flying what-is-its they had
Monk’s face went blank. “Mammoths around in prehistoric times?”
disappeared off this earth a billion years “Exactly. A prehistoric pterodactyl.”
ago,” he said. Monk began to get as excited as
“It was a mammoth, all right,” Shorty Johnny. “You mean Calvin Western brought
put in dryly. “About the most harmless thing a pterodactyl out of here?”
you’ll find in this place.” “Of course. You’ve known that since
“Most harmless, eh?” Monk said. “In we left Trapper Lake, haven’t you?”
that case I’m open to an offer to leave this “Yes, but I didn’t believe it,” Monk
place right now.” yelled. “I figured there was a string to it
somewhere. I figured we’d find a guy who
 THE TIME TERROR 33

had found out how to grow one of the things They came to a thicket of thorns. The
from an egg he’d found, or something.” thorn bushes were enormous, a hundred feet
Shorty laughed. “They hatch from eggs high, with thorns that were a yard in length,
every day around here, ” he said. some of them. The bushes grew in a great
“You mean this place is running loose tangle, almost a matted protection overhead.
with such things?” “These were the thorns I was telling
Shorty nodded. “Such things,” he said, you about,” Shorty said.
“is a mild description.” Ga now asserted herself, definitely, for
the first time. She stopped them. She stood
and harangued them in her language, saw
WHEN the excitement had subsided, they did not understand, and gave it up. She
except for Johnny, they continued ahead. then made it clear that they should stop—
Johnny did not come back to earth at all. It business of standing still—and eat—business
was as if his archaeological and geological of eating—and get some sleep—eyes closed.
leash had been slipped, and he was loose in Doc Savage said, “It is a good idea. All
a wonder garden of science. He dashed of us are tired.”
hither and yon, almost hysterical, collecting “But what’re we gonna eat?” Monk
specimens. Every bush, every different plant asked.
and grass he saw, he clutched up for a
specimen. He measured mammoth tracks,
other prints which he found. He tried to GA seemed to have the answer to that,
memorize the measurements. “I just know I’ll also. She looked them over and made more
forget this,” he wailed. He became so bur- signs indicating that she wished one of them
dened down with specimens that he could to accompany her on a hunting trip. She se-
not carry them all, then howled like a kid los- lected Monk for this.
ing candy when he had to discard them. “No doubt on the strength of your
“The idea,” Ham said. “A grown-up mammoth performance,” Ham said unkindly.
man.” Monk was not enthusiastic.
Shorty said dryly, “I felt the same way, “Me go hunting with her?” Monk said. “I
first time I got in here.” dunno about that.” He peered at the sur-
“The specimens would be worth a lot of rounding jungle. “I sure dunno.”
money, I guess,” Ham admitted. “First time I ever saw you hang back
“It’s not worth as much as something when a pretty girl suggested a walk,” Ham
else here,” Shorty said—then looked as if he said.
wished he hadn’t spoken. “Yeah,” Monk growled. “Suppose you
“What do you mean?” Ham asked. go.”
“Nothing, ” Shorty said. “She didn’t ask me,” Ham assured him.
“You said—” “And am I glad!”
“I know what I said,” Shorty told him Monk did some more muttering but
grimly. “And it’s all I’m going to say. It was was ashamed to back down. “All right, give
too much.” me a flashlight and a machine gun,” he said.
Doc Savage heard the conversation “And if anybody has got any hand grenades
but made no comment. The course they were or anything, I’ll take them, too.”
following was taking them steadily downward, Ga, however, put a stop to the ma-
and the vegetation was changing. It was be- chine-gun toting. She grasped a thorn bough,
coming more lush, and rapidly approaching swung upward, avoiding the long stickers.
the tropical. The grass, the great rank stuff bounced acrobatically to another branch,
which had ruined their plane, had been a then back to the ground.
harsh product of a fairly cold climate. “She means,” Pat translated, “that
Now they were entering jungle. Not you’ll be burdened down too much with the
jungle in the accepted African sense, yet it heavy machine gun. She wants you to travel
didn’t differ greatly, except that everything light.”
which grew here was on a more immense “So you can run,” Ham said maliciously.
scale. And the vegetation was coarse, its “Nuts to you,” Monk snarled. “If a girl
color pale, as if it did not get much sunlight. isn’t afraid, I’m not—very.”
He went off with Ga.
34 DOC SAVAGE

As soon as Monk was gone, Ham Shorty shrugged. “That’s right. He was
Brooks reversed himself. He became con- doing industrial research—which he wasn’t,
cerned. Actually, as everyone knew, Ham of course. Industrial research was just a
thought a great deal of Monk, and worried name that could mean anything. He was spy-
like a hen with an only chick when there was ing. Spying is a better word. He was doing
a prospect of Monk getting in trouble that research on poison gas, finding out what gas
might be serious. the Japs were making, what they had on
“You think it was safe, letting Monk go hand, and if they intended to use it. General
off alone with that girl—that cavewoman?” stuff about poison gas.”
Ham demanded. Shorty stopped talking, looked uncom-
Pat shook her head. “I think Monk will fortable.
be safe. In fact I’ve noticed Ga casting “I was helping him,” he confessed,
thoughtful looks at Monk. I think she’s falling naming the thing that was making him un-
for him.” comfortable. “There were five of us. Me, and
Ham became indignant. them two white guys who are with Saki now,
“That homely gossoon,” he said, “must and two more who got killed when we landed
hypnotize the women or something. I don’t here.”
understand his power.” Shorty was grim for a moment, contin-
ued. “Well, what made us leave Japan was a
simple thing. We got found out. We made it
DOC SAVAGE asked Shorty, “Safe to to a place on one of the northern Japanese
have a fire?” islands where a light American navy bomber
“Probably,” Shorty said. “It couldn’t be picked us up.
seen far through the haze.” “The Japs had chased us. They lit out
Shorty seemed flattered that he had after us in Japanese planes. They chased us
been consulted. He obviously had a high into the Pacific, out to sea. They kept after us.
opinion of Doc Savage, a high-enough opin- You see, the Japanese figured we had a lot
ion that he was proud of being asked for an of important material, including poison-gas
opinion by the bronze man. Shorty helped samples, and specimens of protective masks,
get the fire going, gathering wood and a par- which we did. That stuff was something they
ticularly rank type of moss which burned like didn’t want the United States to have.”
straw and made an excellent kindling me- He looked at Doc Savage.
dium. “Those gas secrets aren’t any good
After the fire was burning they now, ” he said. “That’s not what all this trouble
stretched out on the ground and rested, wait- is about. This stuff I’m telling you about hap-
ing for Ga and Monk to return with whatever pened more than a year ago. The American
Ga had gone after for food. government knows about it, because it has
Doc Savage sat near Shorty. been used. They started using it in China. ”
“I take it,” he told Shorty, “that there are Doc Savage nodded. “Are you working
things you will talk about and things you up to telling me that the Japanese bombers
won’t.” chased you into the unexplored section of the
Shorty looked at the bronze man arctic?”
thoughtfully. “You take it right.” “That’s it.”
“Is Calvin Western one of the subjects “It must have been a long chase.”
you won’t talk about?” “It was.”
“Yes, and no.” “How did you happen to land here?”
Doc said, “What I want to know is how “We saw the clouds,” Shorty explained.
Calvin Western came to land here. What ‘The clouds hang over this place always, you
heading does that come under?” know. That’s why it hasn’t been discovered
“I don’t mind telling you how he got before, we decided. The warm air from the pit,
here,” Shorty said. “Calvin Western is a here, rises up and hits the cold air, and the
chemist, and he was in a certain foreign moisture in it condenses to form the moisture
country before the war started.” particles that make up clouds.”
“I understood he was in Japan,” Doc Doc Savage made a gesture of agree-
said. ment, was silent.
 THE TIME TERROR 35

Shorty finished, “Well, our pilot saw the coarse, as if belonging to an early phase of
clouds. The Jap planes were close. Every- rabbit development. But they were unques-
body on our plane needed sleep. So we tionably rabbits.
dived into the clouds, hoping to shake the Johnny Littlejohn, the archaeologist,
Japs.” said, “Rabbits were one of the prehistoric life
He grimaced. “We got down under the forms which are about the same today as
clouds and found there was land below. So they were then.”
the pilot set the ship down. We knew we
couldn’t whip those Japs. There were three (Johnny’s statement concerning the evo-
plane loads of them. Japanese navy men. So lution of the common rabbit is the one consid-
we landed. And they found us. They came ered correct by scientists. In prehistoric times,
right after us. the rabbit developed with such creatures as the
“Then they landed themselves,” he Imperial Elephant with its enormous cow-horn
concluded, “and every one of their planes tusks, and the Gigantic Bison, technically
was damaged in one way or another. They known as latifrons, which commonly had a
thought it was grass on which they were spread of horns of several feet. The elephant,
landing and it turned out to be moss. And the
the mammoth, the prehistoric bison, have dis-
damned dinosaurs finished ruining the ships
appeared, victims of environment, but the rab-
before they could be gotten to safety. We
were isolated here.” bit is a survivor. According to fossilized speci-
“You repaired the planes?” mens, it is about the same physically today as it
“Eventually.” was then.)
“How did Calvin Western escape?”
“He stole one of the planes. He and Monk tossed his rabbits down trium-
that girl, Ga. She’s quite a girl, Ga is. She’s phantly.
one of the natives. A palaeolithic woman, or “Who can make a rabbit stew?” he de-
something like that.” manded.
“Not palaeolithic,” Doc Savage said. Ham grudgingly took over the job of
“She is a little too high a type for that age. ” cook, which he mentioned forcefully was not
Shorty shrugged. “Well, she’s good in going to be any permanent duty for him.
her environment, anyway.” Doc Savage watched Ga with consid-
He looked at Doc. erable interest, wondering if she was accus-
“My story ends here,” he said. tomed to having her food cooked. Apparently
she was.
The rabbits were not bad. They were
WHEN Monk Mayfair and Ga returned, not tough. They tasted a little more like beef
Monk was elated. Gone were his earlier fears. than rabbit, which Monk claimed was Ham’s
Monk was carrying two gray animals by cooking.
their ears. Later they slept. They were very tired.
“Jackrabbits!” he announced.
Ham Brooks gasped. “Rabbits?”
“Yeah.” Chapter X
“What’d you do—get scared and start AS MAN BEGAN
running and run over them before they could
get out of your way?” Ham asked. SLEEPING was not completely a sim-
Monk sneered at the insult. “They just ple matter, particularly when night came on.
sit there. One of us stands in front of them With the advent of darkness, short as the
and waves arms and holds their attention. arctic night was, the multiple carnivora and
Then the other one just walks up behind dinosaur life in the place swung into action.
them and pops them one with a rock. Some The uproar was something fantastic.
rabbit hunting, I say.” “Like the sound track of a movie, run
The rabbits, and they undeniably were backward very fast,” Ham said in awe.
rabbits, were somewhat larger than any of Consequently, they lay awake listening
the species which Ham had ever seen. Their to the strange noises that were like flutes,
fur was thick and woolly, and their eyes trumpets, deep-voiced violins, and the tac-
rather colorless. They were somewhat tacs kids use on windows on Halloween night.
36 DOC SAVAGE

There was one particular animal sound that Ham said disgustedly, “The animals
fascinated Monk. It was, he claimed, as if here have got the funniest dispositions. You
something was beating a drum about twenty can’t tell what they’re going to do at all.”
feet across. Johnny said, “Just figure on them doing
It was not all show, either. what anything with little or no brains would do.
Ga collected a number of long sticks, Most of them have embryonic brains, and
around the ends of which she tied the stringy some of the brain matter is not even a brain
moss that would burn like straw. This made at all, but brain tissue that is part of the spinal
great firebrands. She kept these in readiness cord.”
and kept the fire blazing brightly. “Never mind the lecture, ” Monk said.
With pantomime they could not help “What was that thing that just went through
understanding, she showed them that, if any here.”
dinosaurs came dangerously close, they Johnny looked at Doc Savage. “Doc,
were to seize the torches and frighten the would you say it was a creodont?”
monsters away. She seemed very worried. “Apparently,” Doc admitted.
There was no doubt but that the nights here “Creodont? What’s that?” Monk de-
were terrible things. manded.
“If this ain’t a darned bad dream,” Monk “One of the very first of the carnivorous
complained, “I hope I never have one.” mammals,” Johnny said. “Killer animals, such
“Man began,” Doc reminded him, “in as the wolf, lion, bear and so on, which
tougher times than these.” evolved from the creodont are called carni-
Monk had lost his appetite for sleep. vora.”
He got up and promised to stoke the fire
while the others napped. This was agreeable, (The creodont was the root stock from
and Monk took over. which other branches of killer mammals
Monk had been on duty about half an evolved, as Johnny Littlejohn stated. They were
hour when he discovered a pair of large fire- large. The explorer, Roy Chapman Andrews,
balls in the nearby darkness. Eyes. They found the fossilized skull of a creodont in Asia
weren’t as large as they looked, probably. which was thirty-four inches long.)
Monk studied them, guessed their distance
apart, estimated the size of the creature from “Then it’d eat a man?”
that, and was soothed. “Huh, another rabbit,” “It certainly would.”
or something. “What’d it just go barging straight
He picked up a clod and threw it at the through the camp like that for?”
eyes. “Because it didn’t have brains enough
The next instant Monk was jabbing to chase anybody. It has an embryonic
torches into the fire and howling for every- brain.”
body to climb trees. “Monk should be able to understand
The eyes of the animal were close to- embryonic brains,” Ham said.
gether, but it wasn’t small. It was about the “This is a poor time for your sass,”
size of a bull, but it was an infinitely more Monk informed Ham.
vengeful customer than a bull. It looked like Things settled down and they finally
no animal Monk had ever seen. It was like a got some sleep. After daylight came, at the
bear, but without the head of a bear; the end of the short night, much of the dinosaur
head was more wolfish. It had the body of a uproar in the weird lost world subsided and
bear, but the long, bushy tail of a wolf. If wolf, they were able to get something resembling
lion, bear were all molded, by some alchemy, rest.
into a composition animal, and that animal
blown up to a shoulder height of five feet, the
result would be about like this thing. THEY had more rabbit for breakfast. It
The animal charged straight for Monk, was not quite as delicious as it had been the
and Monk jumped out of the way, a la torea- night before, and Ham claimed it was be-
dor. The animal went straight on, through the cause rabbit wouldn’t wear as a diet, but
fire—getting burned and bellowing—and on Monk maintained it was Ham’s cooking.
off into the night without turning or offering to Doc Savage said, “We have no time to
come back. lose. Saki and his men probably landed
 THE TIME TERROR 37

somewhere, and we should locate them as

soon as possible. Before they find us if we
can.”

“Maybe Shorty, here, can tell us where “Wants to go that way,” Johnny said.
they landed,” Ham suggested. “She seems to know this place.”
“He won’t,” Shorty said. Doc and Johnny trailed Ga. They went
“Ham, Monk and Pat will remain here,” slowly, stopping often to listen. Their ears,
Doc said. “Johnny and Ga and I will go on a they were finding, were a better means of
scouting expedition.” locating danger than any other sense. The
For once, Monk and Ham did not com- haze, which was about the same today as it
plain about being left behind, where there had been yesterday, made vision unsure.
was no excitement. As Monk privately con- And the manifold odors of the prehistoric jun-
fessed, it wasn’t the excitement he was fed gle around them was a confusing conglom-
up on as much as it was these dinosaurs. erate that defeated their civilization-dulled
He’d got enough of dinosaurs, he claimed, at olfactory organs. Even Doc, whose sense of
Trapper Lake. smell had been highly developed as a part of
Through the medium of sign language, his scientific training, was not able to do
and such words of Ga’s language as Pat had much good.
been able to learn, they conveyed the pur- They soon found out where Ga was
pose of their expedition to Ga. She signified going.
that she understood by nodding. Pat had She climbed a large tree. They fol-
taught her that a nod was the signal of af- lowed her up, Doc with ease, Johnny with
firmative. more difficulty and using his big words as if
Before they left, Ga picked up several they were cusswords.
thorn boughs and thrust them into the soft Lashed high in a fork of the tree was a
earth with the thorny ends outermost. Then bundle enclosed in a skin that was wrapped
she drew a large circle with the campfire as a flesh-side out and heavily greased. Ga
center. opened this. It contained a bow and a quiver
“Thinks we had better build us a thorn of arrows.
fence, like they do in Africa,” Monk said. “I Ga exhibited the bow and arrows
think she’s got something there.” proudly. Doc took them, examined them. The
Doc Savage, Johnny Littlejohn and Ga workmanship was good, and considerable
set out. Johnny carried a rifle, the machine science of archery had been applied to the
guns being too heavy for handy packing. Doc manufacture of the bow.
carried only such gadgets as he had on his It was a longbow type, made of some
person. He rarely carried firearms. wood resembling osage orange, backed with
Ga was unarmed. But, as soon as they rawhide. Doc nocked an arrow, tried the pull,
were away from the camp, she tugged at and estimated it about eighty pounds, which
Doc’s arm and pointed to the east. was very heavy for a hunting bow, an enor-
38 DOC SAVAGE

mous pull for a woman. Few civilized women the bears and raccoons and weasels and so
could draw an arrow on such a bow. The ar- on. But that mammoth belonged to an en-
rows were straight, of light and firm wood, tirely different age. Creodonts weren’t on
flint-tipped. They varied in length and weight, earth when mammoths were, or not that par-
some being long flight arrows for distance, ticular mammoth. And there was a modern
and others heavy and footed for close game. squirrel in the same place with a creodont.
The feathering was balloon type, there were The thing is screwy. This just can’t be a lost
three of them, the cock feather marked world.”
plainly with some kind of dye, and the fletch- Doc said, “So the fact that prehistoric
ing feathers had all come from the same side life forms from more than one epoch of time
of the bird, after the accepted fashion of good are here has struck you as strange?”
arrow-making. “Hasn’t it aroused your curiosity?”
Ga smiled, took the bow, nocked an ar- “Yes .”
row and let fly at a mushroom the size of a “How would you explain a thing like
man’s head which was growing a good fifty that?”
yards away. Her arrow cut the edge of the Doc said thoughtfully, “This place is
white bulb. She smiled again, handed the shut off from the world. First, by the impass-
bow to Doc. able waste of the arctic ice pack. Second, by
“She’s good, ” Johnny said. “I can’t the mountain ring, although we do not know
even pull that danged bow back.” whether or not that is impassable. Warmth
Doc took an arrow, drew and released comes from some source, probably by vol-
it carefully. He was astonished when he hit canic or hot-spring nature. That means the
the mushroom almost dead center. He was place is shut off from the world, a natural
not a bad archer, but nothing less than ex- preserve for prehistoric life forms.”
treme luck had enabled him to make a shot “Yes,” Johnny said, “but why is the
like that with a strange bow. He kept his face animal and reptile life here from the Eocene,
straight and gravely returned the bow to Ga. the Oligocene, the Tertiary and other epochs?
She stared at him in amazement. And That’s screwy.”
after that, as they went on, he noted that she “It is strange. ”
was looking at him with new interest. He was Johnny insisted, “If this place got shut
embarrassed. Johnny thought it was funny. off in, say, the Eocene epoch, all the animals
here should belong to that epoch. There
shouldn’t be woolly mammoths from some
THEY encountered something soon other age a few million years farther along in
that was puzzling. It was not exciting, and time, to say nothing of squirrels from this
there was no danger connected with it. age.”
It was a squirrel. A perfectly ordinary- “The dinosaurs and other life,” Doc re-
looking red squirrel that might have been minded, “could have drifted in here at various
jumping around in a Missouri woods instead times. At different times, at widely separated
of this strange place. intervals.”
Johnny stopped and gawked at the “In that case,” said Johnny, “why hasn’t
squirrel. evolution had any effect on them? The cre-
“Now wait a minute,” he said. “That’s odont belonged in the Eocene epoch, be-
not reasonable. That’s a twentieth-century cause the creodont was fitted for life in the
squirrel. Prehistoric squirrels weren’t like that Eocene epoch. The brontosaurus—and I
one.” think I saw the track of one of those back
Doc Savage had evidently been think- there—belonged in the Tertiary epoch, the
ing along the same line. Age of Mammals. The brontosaurus was Ter-
“The mammal and reptile life,” he said, tiary because he was fitted for life in the Ter-
“does not seem to belong to any particular tiary.”
period of time in this place.”
Johnny nodded emphatically. (Brontosaurus was a gigantic vegetarian
“Yes, and that’s queer,” he agreed. dinosaur, and because of its size it probably
“You take that creodont last night. Creodonts stands forth most prominently to the average
existed in the Eocene epoch, then evolved person. Best fossil specimens have come from
into their various branches of descendants, the Upper Jurassic Epoch deposits in Wyoming.
 THE TIME TERROR 39

It reached a length in excess of seventy feet,

and had a neck and tail of enormous length. It
liked water, was semi-aquatic. Being a vegetar-
ian, it was a comparatively harmless monster.)

Johnny held up a hand triumphantly. The bronze man went through various
“Now the climate and vegetation in this beating and throat-cutting motions, and Ga
place isn’t Eocene or Tertiary, either one. It’s seemed to comprehend that, too. She drew a
before that. It’s before the Eocene, even. In quick, and fairly accurate, likeness of Saki on
such an age you should find only the primi- the soft ground, then stamped and beat it into
tive forms of life beginning, the amoebas and unrecognizability.
such things. What is this? Is evolution “She understands, all right,” Johnny
screwy?” said.
Doc Savage was silent a moment. They came shortly to the shore of a
“There is a possible explanation.” lake, and Johnny was elated. He was tired of
“What?” getting his drinking water out of leaves—
“Suppose these prehistoric life forms there seemed to be frequent showers in the
drifted here during different epochs and re - place, but these were all very light, and there
mained as they were,” Doc said. were few running streams—and he dashed
“But they wouldn’t remain as they were. forward to drink.
What’s evolution for?” He took one mouthful then blew out the
“Suppose there was something that ar- water.
rested evolution?” “Phoe-e-e!” he said. “An ultra-
Johnny scratched his head. “There isn’t malodorous degustative acrimoniousness.”
anything that will stop evolution that I’ve Some of the words were semi-coined
heard of.” on the spur of the moment, something
Doc made no comment. He dropped Johnny seldom did, but they expressed the
the subject. taste of the water.
It wasn’t exactly wonderful, that taste.
Ga seemed surprised. She smiled and
THEY went on about their main job, drank to show them that the water was all
which was that of finding where Saki had right. They were impressed, but not per-
landed. suaded.
Doc said carefully to Ga, several times, Ga proceeded, following the shore of
“Saki. Saki.” He decided that the girl did not the lake.
understand. But, when he gave his face the “I get it,” Johnny said. “Saki landed his
cast of a Japanese, pulling his eyes into a plane on the lake surface. Their camp is
slant, assuming the general expression of an somewhere along the shore.”
ape which Saki resembled, the girl nodded Doc Savage nodded. It was a logical
rapidly. supposition.
Ga, pointing, indicated they should go They had not proceeded far when
to the southeast. Johnny noticed a mound of sand—the lake
Doc said, “We had better make her un- beach was sand, like the shore of any other
derstand we intend no good for Saki, and beach—and pointed.
vice versa.” “I wonder if that could be turtle eggs
under that mound?” he said. “You know,
40 DOC SAVAGE

some fresh turtle eggs wouldn’t make a bad Chapter XI

meal.” SKUNKS AND SKUNKS
Johnny hurried forward.
Doc Savage eyed the beach sand. MONK MAYFAIR, Ham Brooks, Pat
“Wait!” he shouted. Then, “Run!” Savage, Habeas the pig and Chemistry the
But he was a little too late. chimp, all waited twelve hours in the thicket
of great thorn trees. They kept Shorty and
Hashigo under close guard.
THE sand mound came to life, explod- At the end of twelve hours they were in
ing upward. It was merely sand piled over a a sweating worry.
hole. “Something happened to ‘em,” Monk
A man came out of the hole. Not a declared.
Japanese. Not a white man. This one had a Shorty did not help their peace of mind
leathery hide, a round face that was all ani- when he said, “I don’t want to lay any crêpe,
mal mouth, two holes for nostrils, no fore- but you guys better be doing something.”
head to spare. What the face lacked the body The upshot of it was that they decided
made up. It was an amazing body for muscu- to break camp and set out in search of Doc
larity. Animal muscles. But the creature was and Johnny and Ga.
definitely a man. “What could have happened to them?”
Johnny stood there gawping and Monk asked Shorty.
thought, “Great zanies! A prehistoric man!” “Saki,” Shorty suggested. “And, inci-
Then the fellow got hold of him. dentally, Saki is one of the less pleasant
More sand mounds were exploding. things this place holds.”
The prehistoric men seemed to have been They kept in a group, not too close to-
hiding everywhere along the beach. Doc had gether, in case some monster charged them
seen their footprints too late for his warning unexpectedly, and moved out into the gray
yell to Johnny to change events. haze that passed for daylight under the
The beach men piled upon Doc as he cloud-capped crater, if crater it was.
tried to get Johnny free. They had weapons, Because they did not know the lay of
but they dropped them, leaped upon the the ground they encountered much tough
bronze man with bare hands. They did not going. Particularly aggravating was a thicket
seem to know how to use their fists. But their of stunted palms which they encountered, the
knowledge of wrestling was not small. And needled tips of these making disagreeable
their strength was enormous, the weakest of going.
them being nearly as strong as Doc himself. In about an hour they came to a stream
Ga screamed. It was the first time she of boiling water. The water was surprisingly
had shown genuine, uncontrollable terror. hot, giving off great quantities of steam which
The scream, the knowledge that the hung above the brook, so that the thing
courageous Ga was that afraid of these bes- looked from a distance like a large gray
tial prehistoric fellows, was more of a shock snake crawling along the earth.
to Doc than the surprise attack. Ham tested the earth with his hand
That, and the knowledge that they from time to time, and discovered it always
were caught. For Doc, Johnny and Ga were warm, hot in some spots.
almost at once overpowered. They were held Shorty watched him, said, “You’ve got
helpless. it right. The place is a nature-made hotbed.”
One of the prehistoric men who was “Warm all over?”
larger than the others, and by that right ap- “Most all over.”
parently leader, walked to his weapons. They moved along the steaming creek
He picked up a great club and came for some distance and found a great spring
toward the prisoners with grim purpose. where the thing originated. This was pit-
shaped, and standing near they could hear
the great gurgling of the subterranean chan-
nels through which the steam was blown out.
“Like a geyser,” Pat said.
 THE TIME TERROR 41

“Sure, girlie,” Shorty said. “Like in Yel- my beauty parlor last week and bored me to
lowstone and New Zealand.” death with a lecture about the various per-
“Don’t call me girlie, ” Pat said. “Call me fumes which nature makes.”
Pat, or keep your information to yourself.” “Well, what’s a mephitic?”
Shorty grinned. “O. K.” He added sin- “Any type of animal ejecting malodor-
cerely, “Sorry. You’re all right.” ous fluid,” Pat said. “Skunk, to you.”
“You’re all right, too,” Pat said, “in Monk held his nose. “Skunk,” he said.
some ways.” The others turned and ran to get away
“But not in all ways,” Shorty said dryly. from the odor which Monk now bore.
“It ain’t funny,” Monk kept protesting
angrily as he sulked after them.
MONK met the black animal in a
thicket of overgrown plants, great, broad-
leaved things which resembled magnified THE odor which Monk now carried
weeds. The homely chemist was scouting off proved to be somewhat of an asset, though.
to the right, and he spied the creature deeper A number of large dinosaurs fled as soon as
in the shadows. they caught the odor. They were afraid of the
The animal was not very large, which scent, obviously. Monk muttered that they
was what fooled Monk. had nothing on him; he didn’t care to have
“Here’s something,” he called. “Maybe much more to do with it, either.
it’s something that’d make a better stew than Pat said, “The perfume salesman told
rabbit.” me that mephitics are one of the few animals
He ventured forward boldly. The animal which do not have protective coloration which
stared at him, apparently not afraid, but not blends in with their natural surroundings. As
looking as if it exactly welcomed his pres- you know, the skunk is about the only animal
ence. in the United States which is coal black, and
“Another one of these dumb clucks,” does not merge at all with its habitat. Most
Monk declared, pleased. “I’ll just walk around other animals are camouflaged by nature. ”
behind and bop it one.” “I’ve heard enough about mephitics, if
The animal was somewhat more than you don’t mind,” Monk said sourly.
knee-high, thick-bodied, with long hair that A few minutes later, Habeas Corpus,
was black with here and there a messy- the pig, redeemed himself. Habeas didn’t
looking white patch. need redeeming in Monk’s opinion, but Ham
The others watched Monk vanish into Brooks had been maintaining for some time
the shadows to the rear of the animal. that the runt hog was utterly worthless, serv-
An instant later, Monk emitted the most ing no purpose except to make his owner,
ungodly howl of which he was capable, and Monk, look somewhat more silly than normal
came tearing out of the overgrown weed as the pig followed him around.
patch. They came to the lake. Habeas ven-
“Oh, my!” he wailed. “Oh, my! What’s tured out on the beach. He went to what
happened to me?” looked like a loose pile of sand, rooted inqui-
Pat took one whiff, doubled over with sitively. Then Habeas whirled and ran, grunt-
laughter. Ham also burst into screams of ing in alarm.
mirth. “This is wonderful!” Pat gurgled. Monk, Ham, Pat and the two prisoners
“What’s so damned funny !” Monk bel- dived out of sight.
lowed. “I’ve been gassed or something! How They stared from concealment at the
do you know I ain’t gonna die?” cavemanlike individual who got indignantly
Pat indicated the animal. “That thing,” out of the pile of camouflaging sand which
she said, “must be an early mephitic.” Habeas Corpus had disturbed. The prehis-
“What’s a mephitic?” Monk demanded. toric man, in a dudgeon, threw rocks at Ha-
“And where do you get off, using words I beas, after which he went back to camouflag-
don’t understand? It’s bad enough to have ing himself in the sand again.
Johnny going around doing that.” “By Jove!” Ham gasped. “Look at those
Pat doubled over again with hysterical other sand piles. The beach is loaded with
laughter. “I happen to know what a mephitic those cavemen or sand men, or whatever
is because a perfume salesman came into they are.”
42 DOC SAVAGE

“They didn’t see us,” Pat said. a .50-caliber machine gun, which they wildly
“Thanks to Habeas,” Monk declared planted on the ground. A third Japanese
proudly. “Good old Habeas.” sprang to man the gun.
Shorty asked dryly. “You want to know Saki himself jumped out.
what those guys are in the sand?” “Ki wo tsukero!” Saki exploded, speak-
“Sure.” ing Japanese in his excitement. He changed
“We call ‘em the sand men, ” Shorty to English, said, “Be careful! Do not move!”
explained. “They live in caves in the cliffs, but They stood frozen.
the hunters work the beach. They bury them- “There’s no percentage in an argument
selves like that, and wait for animals to come with a .50-caliber machine gun,” Ham said
out of the jungle, or out of the water. That’s warningly.
the way they hunt. They’re bad cookies.” So they stood still, let themselves be
Monk eyed him. “What do you mean— disarmed. Saki was elated and ran around
bad cookies?” slapping faces and spitting to show his con-
“How’d you like to be caught by Saki?” tempt.
“Not so hot.” “Nice,” Monk snarled.
“You’d be a lot better off,” said Shorty, “You better be glad the sand men
“than if those guys got you.” didn’t get you, ” Shorty said.
“How come?” Shorty and Hashigo were released by
“These sand men,” Shorty explained, Saki’s men. Hashigo at once launched into a
“aren’t kind to prisoners. First, they take out harangue to Saki in Japanese. Pat, Monk
your eyes and dry them and make charms and Ham guessed the nature of the mono-
out of them. Then they skin you alive. Not all logue from its manner and tone. Hashigo
at once. Just a big patch at a time. They hadn’t approved of the way Shorty had con-
prize human hide off a living vi ctim very ducted himself while a prisoner.
highly. Don’t ask me why.” Shorty disclosed that he spoke Japa-
“I won’t ask you.” Monk said, and nese. He said something calmly and fluently.
shuddered. Saki grinned. Hashigo looked crestfallen.
“Take my advice,” Shorty said, “and “I just told him I guided you into this
make a big circle around this place. ” trap,” Shorty confided to Monk and the others.
They did not need the advice. “You skunk!” Monk said.
“You’re a great one to be calling any-
body skunk, the way you smell,” Shorty said
SHORTY was clever. They had forgot- cheerfully. “Anyway, like I told you, I can’t be
ten what a mind he had. The excitement, the trusted. It’s man eat man around here. Eve-
strangeness of the lost world, had made rybody for himself. I’m doing all right for my-
them forget. self, I think.”
Also the near encounter with the sand Saki understood this and seemed to
men had excited them. approve.
So Shorty led them into a trap without
the least difficulty. Shorty had luck. He
merely walked with them and acted just as Chapter XII
he had been acting, which was nothing to CALVIN WESTERN
arouse suspicion. But he managed to subtly
guide them to the right, then along the base SAKI’S camp was on the hill. Rather, it
of a hill where there was open ground. was on top of the stone monolith which
Saki’s camp was on top of the hill and capped the hill. The thing had towered up to
his sentries could easily spot them crossing such a height that they had not noticed from
the glade. below what it was like. It was hidden in the
They found that out too late, when haze.
Shorty turned casually to face them and say, Pat stared at the place, said, “Ever see
“I hated to do this. Believe me, I did. But the Devil’s Tower, in Wyoming? It’s some-
there is too much money in it for me to do thing like this, only this is not nearly as large.”
anything else.” Access to the top was through a freak
Then the Japanese came out of the of nature, a long channel affair worn down
jungle. Two of them leaped into view with
 THE TIME TERROR 43

through the stone by centuries of rain and Saki interrupted, flying into a rage. He
weather. Inside this there were steps carved called Shorty things in Japanese and more
in the stone. things in English, and if the Japanese things
Ham, eyeing the steps, said, “These were as bad as the English ones, Shorty had
things are old. They weren’t built yesterday.” good basis for the coldly dead expression
He frowned. “They look as if they’ve been that came over his face.
here hundreds of years.” They got the shack door open. They
This was obvious, and Shorty said, were shoved inside. It was intensely dark
“Sure. Sure. Saki chased the regular inhabi- when the door rumbled shut.
tants out.” Pat whispered, “Monk, you see
“Sand men?” Ham asked. Shorty’s face. That Saki is going to push him
“Not them guys,” Shorty said. “The too far.”
caves of the sand men are like the caves of “Yeah,” Monk growled. “And I’ d like to
animals. These were Ga’s people.” push both of ‘em.”
“How many different tribes of human
beings are in this place?”
“Just the two.” THERE was a hole in the hut wall, ap-
“They seem to belong to completely parently, and it was closed with a lid. Be-
different eras of time.” cause now the lid was thrown back from out-
“Sure. That was because they drifted in side and diffused light, seeming unnaturally
here during different time epochs.” bright here in the intense darkness, streamed
Saki said something loud and violent, in.
evidently an order not to talk to the prisoners, The light fell across a pallet of blankets
and finished with a snarled command to, on the stone floor and on a man lying on this.
“Achi ike! Achi ike!” Saki, careful not to come near enough
They climbed upward and came to the the hole so that they could grab him, said,
flat top where there were crude huts of stone, “The man on the floor is Calvin Western. He
clean enough except where Saki and his was shot at Trapper Lake. He must not die.
men had disarranged them. Save him and your lives will be spared. You
“I know what achi ike means,” Monk understand?”
ventured. “That’s one pair of Japanese words Monk took off one of his shoes.
I do know. It means scram! Get the heck “We’re not doctors.” he said. “But we’ll
away.” do our best.”
“Shorty isn’t a bad guy,” Pat said. The quiet, even, frightened voice which
“Neither is strychnine, unless you swal- Monk used fooled Saki, and he forgot to keep
low it,” Monk said. out of range of the hole in the hut. He
Their destination proved to be a long stepped back from the hole and they could
hut which was strongly made and which had see him.
no windows, and with a door constructed of Monk let fly with his shoe. Monk’s
great timbers. The door of this was closed shoes were heavy. He threw it with complete,
and the Japanese put the prisoners to work unadulterated enthusiasm. With good aim,
opening it. Opening the door was a consider- too.
able task. Saki’s feet flew into the air. He landed
Pat had been staring in astonishment on his back, choking on his own teeth.
at the basket affair of timbers which covered The other Japanese gathered around
all the huts. The structure was crude, but of Saki, gobbling excitedly.
enormous strength, and it was like nothing “That’ll probably get you shot,” Ham
more than a wicker-work basket inverted told Monk.
over the huts. “When I get shot I want it to be for
“What’s that for?” Pat demanded. something like that, only more so,” Monk de-
Shorty said. “Pterodactyls. Keeps ‘em clared. He was pleased with himself.
from landing here and smashing things up. Pat was at Calvin Western’s side, mak-
Like the one you met back at Trapper Lake. ing an examination. The man had been shot
Flying lizards. They’re the only flying thing low in the shoulder and bandaged with a cer-
that is dangerous around here. Naturally, just tain crude first-aid skill.
the things that can fly can get up here. ”
44 DOC SAVAGE

Calvin Western was a man of less than pushed through the hole. Saki seemed to be
fifty, but with thirty years added to his age by a man who could bide his time.
suffering and worry. He was not unhandsome, Pat, Monk and Ham, forming a close
although there was a somewhat Oriental cast group around Calvin Western, proceeded to
to his features which. if his hair and skin were make enough commotion over pretending to
darkened, would make him look distinctly dress the man’s wound to cover more con-
Japanese. Normal color of his skin was very versation with Western.
light, with freckles and the normal hue of his Monk said, “We got part of your story,
hair was a train-stopping red. But they could Western.”
see, from the outer ends of his hair, that the “You believe it’s the truth?” Calvin
hair had been dyed black. Western asked.
Monk indicated the dyed hair, said, “We got it that you were in Japan as a
“When he was in Japan doing that research secret agent, and the Japs got wise to you
on poison gas he must have been in dis- and chased you in airplanes,” Monk told him.
guise.” “They chased you up into this unexplored
Ham Brooks agreed, “Dye his hair and part of the arctic, where all of you landed,
give his skin an olive tint, and he’d look like a and your planes were damaged.”
Jap.” Calvin Western said, “That is right.”
Calvin Western seemed to be uncon- “The planes were repaired eventually,”
scious. Monk continued, “and you escaped with Ga
But, when Pat said, “Let’s see if the in one. You were coming to get Doc Savage
bullet went clear through him,” and bent to help you. So you brought along a ptero-
close to turn him over, Calvin Western said in dactyl to convince Doc the story was straight.
a whisper, “I’m supposed to be dying. Don’t Saki and his men chased you, and over
give me away.” Trapper Lake, in Canada, they caught you
Pat hid her astonishment and whis- and forced you down. They caught you and
pered to the others to do likewise. She Ga. They sent Shorty on to New York to
placed herself between Calvin Western and make sure Doc didn’t get interested in the
the open aperture in the hut wall through thing. But Doc got interested, partly because
which the light came and asked, “How bad Shorty was too clever for his own good. And
off are you?” we came to Trapper Lake, managed to take
“I wouldn’t want to turn many hand- over one of the planes and the crew, and
springs,” Calvin Western said. “But I’m not followed the other plane here. We landed in
dead.” He looked at them. “You are Doc this place. Doc went hunting for you and Saki
Savage’s associates?” and didn’t come back. We went hunting Doc,
“Yes.” and here we are, thanks to being a little
“Where is Doc?” dumb. ”
“That’s what we don’t know, ” Pat said. Instead of commenting, Calvin Western
“He’s been missing twelve hours, along with waited.
Johnny and Ga. ” “That’s all,” Monk said.
Pain and uneasiness crossed Calvin “You’ve left out a lot,” Western said.
Western’s wasted face. “I hope the sand men “Just detail.”
didn’t get them,” he said. “They’re worse than “No. One big fact.”
the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs kill you Monk said. “We know something’s
quickly.” missing from the story. Maybe Doc knows
what it is. But we don’t.”
“What do you figure is missing?”
PAT went to the window, which was “The motive. The reason for it. The
what the hole amounted to, and shouted for thing that makes the cat spit. Saki is after
bandages and antiseptic, hot water and hot something.”
broth. Calvin Western was silent a few mo-
Saki had gotten his teeth out of his gul- ments. His eyes were closed. “Yes,” he said
let, but he was otherwise a mess. Rage gravely, “Saki is after something. And if he
made him shake from head to foot. But he gets it the course of the white race, of all the
controlled himself, surprisingly, and com- races on the world, are likely to be altered,
manded the medical aids brought and and not pleasantly.”
 THE TIME TERROR 45

Monk studied the wounded man. The pterodactyl encountered at Trapper

“You wouldn’t be feverish?” he said. Lake was, incidentally, the type labeled pter-
“That is a pretty big statement.” anodon, specimens of which have been taken
“It’s a big statement—but not big from the Kansas chalk deposits. This one had a
enough,” Calvin Western told him. “And I’m wing spread in excess of eighteen feet, and its
not delirious.” head was four feet or more in length. It is be-
lieved to be the largest flying animal of time.
Remarkable feature of this flying monster was
PAT hissed warningly, indicating one of
its bone structure, which was fantastically light
the Japanese was sticking his head in the
for such a thing. The bony layer of the wing
hole in the wall to see what was going on.
bones, for instance, was about the thickness of
Monk said, “Where’s my other shoe!” and the
head jerked out of sight with great haste. a visiting card, only slightly thicker than a sin-
Ham complained, “Monk, you have no gle sheet of newspaper, surrounding an air
idea how you stink from that mephitic. If you space about an inch in diameter. They could fly
would just go over and stand by that hole, incredible distances, evidently, because identi-
you’d gas them into staying away.” cal type specimens have been taken by scien-
“Bugs to you,” Monk snarled. “Western, tists from the Kansas chalk deposits and from
what is Saki after?” the English chalk deposits. No bird with so re-
Calvin Western’s voice was still strong markable a bone structure survives today. The
enough as he asked, “Have you fellows no- pterodactyls had brains very similar to bird
ticed the rather strange thing about the life in brains of today, not much larger, and they ap-
this place?” parently did not have a sense of smell, captur-
“Strange,” Monk said, “isn’t hardly a ing their food by sight alone.)
word for dinosaurs—”
“You don’t understand,” Western put in. That was food for thought. Monk stood
“Haven’t you observed that the dinosaurs there scratching his head and frowning.
come from different time epochs?” “We hadn’t given that much thought,”
“Well, we’re not archaeologists,” Monk he admitted. “Is it important?”
said. “Johnny is the bug for that. We’re doing Calvin Western said, “It has to be im-
good to recognize mammoths, creodonts, portant. Because, without an explanation, it is
pterodactyls—” a geologically impossible, and evolutionary
“There!” interrupted Western. “There is impossible state of affairs.”
an example.” Monk thought about it. “I don’t see
“Example of what?” where it’s important.”
“Creodonts are from the Eocene epoch. Calvin Western looked defeated.
The mammoths here are from the Pleisto- “He doesn’t understand things well,”
cene epoch. Pterodactyls are from the Upper said Ham, referring to Monk.
Cretaceous age.” “Lay off riding me, ” Monk frowned.
“So what?” “What I keep thinking is: Couldn’t these dino-
“Those epochs were millions of years saurs have drifted in here during different
apart. The type of pterodactyl here is the tail- epochs of time, and just remained here. Look
less type, as differing from the tail type of the at the way we drifted in! If we didn’t have
Lower Lias era, which existed many thou- planes, we would have to stay here, maybe.”
sands of years earlier.” “We may have to stay here anyway,”
Pat said pessimistically.
(The fact that such prehistoric forms of “Saki will take care of that,” Ham re-
life as the creodont and the mammoth were not minded her.
on earth, alive, at the same time is a fact often Calvin Western said, “Look here! What
overlooked by the casual reader of fact material I’m telling you about different time epochs is
about prehistoric eras. In the age of mammoths, important! These dinosaurs and animals did
to see a creodont would be as startling, and as drift in here as you have. But when they got
impossible, as seeing a dinosaur grazing in an here evolution stopped.”
Indiana cow pasture today. A pterodactyl never “Evolution what?” Monk asked.
saw a mammoth, probably. “Stopped.”
46 DOC SAVAGE

Monk looked blank. “I don’t get it. How ing it. That’s what I worked out. And that’s
you going to stop evolution? Evolution is one what Saki wants.”
of those laws, kinda like gravity or something. Monk sat there. So did the others. It
The process of natural selection slowly began to come to them, then, just how impor-
weeding out the weak and keeping the strong. tant this thing was. They saw the tremendous
Law of the survival of the fittest—” importance of it. They realized that Western
“Evolution stops here,” Calvin Western had not exaggerated when he had said it
said. “And that is the cause of, our trouble. would change the peoples of the earth. There
That is what Saki is after.” were aspects of it that were horrible to con-
Monk peered at the wounded man. template if it was misused—
“You better rest now,” he said gently.
Calvin Western became angry. “You
think I’m delirious?” SAKI came in then. His men heaved
“You’re not talking sense,” Monk said. open the great door. Saki stood just inside, a
“So what else could you be but delirious.” long-snouted pistol in one hand, a grenade
“I tell you the water has a substance with pin pulled in his other hand. Two of his
which stops evolution—” men had flashlights.
“What good would stopping evolution— “Calvin Western and Monk Mayfair will
” Monk stopped. He stared at Calvin Western. stay here,” Saki said. “The rest of you come
“Water,” he said. “You say water?” out.”
“Yes. The substance in the water. I They hesitated. They didn’t like the
discovered—” Japanese leader’s tone.
“In what water?” “Come out.” Saki looked at them coldly.
“All of it that comes out of the earth. By “Do so, or we will be compelled to shoot you
evaporation it is carried up into the clouds here, instead of outside.”
and comes back as rain. So you can’t evade Pat blanched. “Shoot us?”
it.” Saki bowed a little. His viciousness
Monk looked at Ham, at Pat. Monk was was polite and somehow in keeping with the
beginning to see that Calvin Western’s talk man.
was not senseless or delirious after all. “What possible need do I have for you
But one thing Monk couldn’t under- alive?” he asked.
stand. It was a frightening question. The an-
“What good would stopping evolution swer made it frightening. He had no use for
do anybody?” he asked. them. In fact, he was much safer without
Calvin Western was trying to sit up in them.
his excitement. “I isolated the compound “Mr. Mayfair is a chemist,” Saki said.
which retards evolution, ” he said. “Therefore I shall keep him alive. He can as-
Monk, being a chemist, was interested. sist Calvin Western. Perhaps Mr. Mayfair is
He frowned. “That must have been compli- an even better chemist than Mr. Western. In
cated. Worse than vitamin research.” case Mr. Western should unfortunately die,
Western nodded. “But I was lucky. I got Mr. Mayfair can carry on.”
it without much trouble, and with the portable They stared at Saki in horror.
chemical lab we had in the plane for my gas “You can’t do a thing like that!” Pat
analysis work in Japan.” blurted foolishly.
“Then, the Japanese poison gas busi- Saki showed his teeth. “It seems I will
ness has nothing to do with this?” have to demonstrate how wrong you are,” he
“Nothing whatever.” said. He lifted his gun without emotion.
Monk said, “I don’t see what stopping
evolution—”
“It isn’t stopping it,” Western said excit- Chapter XIII
edly. “It’s accelerating it!” PLAN OF DEATH
“Accelerating? You mean the same
compound speeds up—” DOC SAVAGE returned the grimace of
“No, no,” explained Western. “Once the beetle-browed leader of the sand men
you have a compound preventing something, with a fierce look of his own. He was fas-
you can discover the opposite, the one caus-
 THE TIME TERROR 47

tened, along with Johnny and Ga, by many Doc faced slightly toward the club and
turns of a tough vine. Their bindings were not used ventriloquism.
knotted, a simple knot apparently being be- He said, as nearly as he could in the
yond the intelligence of their captors. sand-man language, “I am hungry.” It was
The sand man—his name seemed to one of the simple phrases he had heard. At
be Od, which was the sound by which the least it meant something about hunger.
others addressed him—grabbed up a formi- Od didn’t realize, at first, that the club
dable club. He made a rush at Doc and apparently was speaking. One of his fellows
brought the club down on the sand, grazing called his attention to it.
Doc’s head narrowly. The blow would have “I am hungry,” the club said again.
killed any living thing, probably. It was terrific. It took a second or two for Od’s brain to
Doc showed no emotion. connect up. Then he let go the club and
Od was disgusted. He had been pulling jumped, flat-footed, all of a dozen feet.
the club show repeatedly, having started it on Doc had the club speak another simple
the beach. He was trying to terrify the cap- phrase.
tives. The sand men gathered around and
So far, Od had scared only Johnny. ogled the club.
Johnny was frankly scared, and he saw no Doc said, “Do not move, Johnny. No
reason for not admitting it. He was so scared telling how they will take this.”
anybody could tell he was terrified anyway, The bronze man then used a cutting
he told them. blade which he kept in a trick shoe heel,
“He’s liable to miss with that club,” slashed through the vine which bound him
Johnny mumbled. and stood up. To the sand men, who were
“Not until he is ready to do so,” Doc experienced with nothing sharper than a flint
predicted. “He is very good with that club, chip, his escape probably smacked of magic
you will have to admit.” also.
It was now broad daylight. They had The sand men scattered hastily as he
been prisoners throughout the night, but had stood erect, but they did not go far. They
been left alone during the hours of darkness. stood in a rough semi-circle about twenty feet
Their hairy, muscular, beetling captors had away and watched Doc with open mouths.
been rather pitiful during the night. The sand
men were in abject, pitiful terror of the dark-
ness, and the prehistoric monsters which THE bronze man’s follow-up trick was
prowled therein. fairly simple, but effective. He knew he had to
Now Doc and the other two had been deal with simple things which the sand men
dragged out of the caves onto a sand-floored understood. Food was one, and he had used
ledge on the face of the cliff which contained that. Fire was another.
the caves. The ledge was nearly a hundred So now he made the end of Od’s club
feet above the jungle, too high for any dino- burst into flame. He did it by placing cotton—
saur to reach, probably. The path to it was fuel-saturated cotton—from his automatic
very narrow. The sand men were probably lighter on top of the club and striking a spark
able to cope with any creature small enough to it. He did this with some misdirecting
to climb the path. mumbo-jumbo to make it look mysterious.
The sand men had a language. It was The sand men retreated several yards.
a primitive thing, a few sounds that were Doc stooped quickly, not taking his
simple. Gestures and facial contortions fin- eyes off them, and freed Johnny. “Get Ga
ished out their vocabularies, apparently. loose,” he said.
Doc had been paying close attention to Johnny muttered, “They’re sure dumb
their language. bunnies. When they caught us by hiding in
Now, finally, he felt he knew enough of the sand I figured they must be pretty slick.
it to pull a simple trick which he felt should do The sand trick must be the only one they
them some good. know.” He freed Ga.
Od stood beside Doc. Od had rested Ga had been abused by Od, and she
his club on the ground and was leaning on it picked up the nearest rock and started for Od.
as if it was a cane. Johnny stopped her. “Here, here, we’re using
a different system, sister,” he told her. She
48 DOC SAVAGE

didn’t understand his words, but the meaning swung along like apes—and made a careful
soaked in. She subsided. circle, reconnoitering.
Doc Savage proceeded to work with He located Saki’s plane. It was on the
the sand men much as if he was training beach of the lake, surrounded by a tall stock-
animals. He got them to line up at his ges- ade of thorns. Fires were burning just inside
tured instructions. They caught on to simple the stockade, busily attended by two Japa-
hand gestures easily. nese watchmen.
“What’s the purpose of that?” Johnny Doc was returning to the monolith-
asked. “I believe we’d better clear out of here capped hill when he had a piece of luck. He
now. They’d let us, I think.” discovered a figure walking in the jungle. Doc
Doc Savage shook his head. “I have a swung into the trees, followed cautiously, and
scheme,” he said, “that may be of help.” learned it was Shorty. Doc moved ahead,
“Against Saki, you mean?” positioned himself on a bough above the trail,
“Yes.” let the man come below and dropped behind
Doc continued with his work on the him. Shorty squawked in horror. Then, rec-
sand men. They were not intellectual giants, ognizing his captor, and the futility of resis-
but his exhibitions of fire and ventriloquism tance, he relaxed.
had gripped them as by a spell. “Damn!” Shorty said. “Guess it’s a
What made his hold on them complete good thing you got me. I was worked up too
was his annihilation of a large and ferocious much to think, and the first dinosaur that
dinosaur, a specimen which Johnny identified came along would’ve found me easy meat.”
as a Tyrannosaurus rex, a carnivorous quad- Doc stared at him. “What is wrong?”
ruped which resembled an enormous alliga- “Saki,” said Shorty bluntly, “is going to
tor walking on two large rear legs. Johnny shoot the prisoners. That’s a little more than I
claimed the creature was smaller than scien- can stomach.”
tists had claimed the Tyrannosaurus rex had “Shoot them?”
been, but it was as large as Doc cared to see “Sure. First, he’s going to scare Monk
them come. into using his chemical skill on that evolution-
Doc used a hand grenade on the thing. accelerating compound. Then, after Monk
The explosion was tremendous, and blew the does that, Saki is going to shoot them all
head of the thing to fragments. The body, anyway.”
however, took some time to become still in Doc Savage was silent but his trilling
death, due to the sluggish nervous system. sound, the small note that was his uncon-
scious gesture of surprise, was audible for a
(Sluggish nerve system was, scientists while.
agree, one of the peculiarities of most prehis- “Something to speed up evolution,” he
toric dinosaurs. Due to their primitive brains, it said.
was quite possible some of them had bodies Shorty nodded. “Yeah. Sounds goofy.
which would remain alive for hours after being What the stuff does isn’t exactly speed up
separated from their brains, the way the tail of a evolution. It just makes the individual more
snake twitches until sundown.) capable of adaptation to environment.”
Doc said, “Evolution has been stopped
After that he had no difficulty whatever here. Not speeded up.”
making the sand men do what he directed. “I know,” Shorty said. “But Calvin
Western found what slowed it up, then
worked out what would accelerate it from that.
TWO hours later they stood in the edge His formula uses the speed-up chemical, but
of the jungle and looked up at the towering changes it just a little with some refining
hill, capped by the great stone monolith, on process.”
which Saki was encamped in the former “Saki has the formula?”
home of Ga’s people. “No. Western has it. It’s in Western’s
“Wait here,” Doc told Johnny and Ga. brain. He won’t tell it. But Saki is going to get
He conveyed the command to the sand men. it.”
The bronze man took to the trees—this “If Western won’t talk—”
impressed the sand men also, because they “Monk Mayfair could work it out then,”
frequently clambered into the jungle tops and Shorty growled. “If Calvin Western could fig-
 THE TIME TERROR 49

ure out what it was with the limited chemical Shorty licked his lips. “I’m sure well-
equipment he had available, it wouldn’t be behaved, then.”
any job for a chemist like Monk, or like your- Doc turned to Johnny. “Take off your
self.” outer clothing,” he directed.
Shorty spread his hands disgustedly. Johnny glanced uneasily at Ga.
“And if neither Western nor Mayfair will “You can leave some on,” Doc told him.
give Saki the secret,” he finished, “Saki will Johnny nodded. “You got an idea?”
just kill them both. Then he’ll fly to Japan, “Yes,” Doc said. “Empty your pockets. I
and return with Japanese scientists capable want particularly to know what we can as-
of doing the job. Saki’s got the hole card any semble in the way of gas grenades. We
way you look.” should have a few small ones.”
“I’ve got some,” Johnny said. Then he
grinned. “I think I see your idea. I’ll be su-
THE bronze man made no other com- peramalgamated!”
ment, asked no more questions. He did not
tie Shorty, but he gagged him thoroughly.
Then he took his prisoner back to where he Chapter XIV
had left Johnny, Ga and the sand men. THE TROJAN’S SUIT
Doc was thoughtful as he walked. This
compound, this evolution-accelerator, was a SAKI was proud of himself, standing
fantastic thing. It seemed a little unreal, but with fists on his hips, breathing deeply of the
then new things were frequently like that, like outdoor air on top of the monolith, and listen-
something magical. Vitamins had been like ing to the distant rumbling which a dinosaur
that when first discovered. was making.
The thing had sinister possibilities in “That Monk, the fool, is at work,” he
the hands of a race dominated, like the said.
Japanese at the moment, by a governing He had said that before. He had said a
clique hungry for power. The war lords were great deal more, boastingly, to two of his
preaching super race to their people. The men who were with him. He had told them
German leaders had done that. Just the what a great man he would be in Tokyo, and
preaching of a doctrine of super race had in the history of the Japanese race. They
contributed to a war that cost millions of lives. would also be great, of course, he had as-
Here, incredibly, was something that sured his two men. But not as great as he,
would actually build a super race. If the stuff Saki, for he had discovered and secured for
was taken and used on only one people, the the mikado the fabulous secret that would
Japanese for example, the result would be enable Nippon to dominate the world.
years and possibly centuries of frightful It was quite typical talk for Saki, for he
bloodshed. The inferior peoples would not let was a power-hungry man of the war class,
themselves be dominated readily. There the type which had brought on the war that
would be war, unending war. And after that, had been so hard on the Japanese people as
slavery for ages. a whole.
The bronze man was very sober when Saki seemed about to start an elabora-
he joined Johnny, Ga and the sand men. tion of his speech of self-approval when a
Shorty looked as if he wanted to faint shout came up from below.
when he saw the sand men. He lost color It was a guard. He wanted Saki imme-
and began shaking. diately.
Doc removed Shorty’s gag, warning, Saki hurried down the steps, reached
“Try to shout and it will not be pleasant.” the bottom out of breath. His eyes bugged.
Shorty stared at the sand men and “Shoot them!” he screamed.
shuddered. “How’d you tame these guys? The half dozen sand men standing un-
You may not know it, but the Japs are scared der the muzzle of the guard’s gun stared at
square-legged of ‘em.” Saki dumbly and hatefully.
Doc ignored the question. “We are go- “Go men nasai!” the guard said hastily,
ing to tie and gag you,” he said. “Behave giving the usual preface of politeness which
yourself and we will take care of you.”
50 DOC SAVAGE

the Japanese use. “Excuse me. But they THE clothes flew in many directions,
bring something of much interest.” together with a stinging yellowish liquid that
“What?” quickly vaporized to gas, and a multitude of
“These clothes,” the guard said. “They black particles which sizzled and turned to
belonged to Doc Savage and Johnny choking, blinding smoke.
Littlejohn. See! This document was in the “Gas!” Saki screamed. “Poison gas!”
outside pocket.” He headed for the steps downward.
“Don’t shoot them!” Saki bellowed. His men piled out of the huts in alarm,
“Where did they get the clothes?” such of them as were not already standing
The guard looked helpless. “We do not around. They decided it was gas, too. And
speak their language. Their talk is only grunts they headed for the steps to escape to the
and hisses and gobbles.” jungle below.
Saki explained, and not at all gently ei- “Stay here!” snarled Saki. “Watch the
ther, that he considered his subordinates the prisoners.”
offspring of pigs, and beheaded pigs at that, It was foolish advice, and Saki should
and that if they had any initiative at all some not have given it. The prisoners did not need
of them would have learned to speak the watching. The Japanese broke for the steps
sandman tongue. Did he, Saki, have to do anyway.
everything? He went into that to some extent. Then the sand men went into action.
“Bring them up to the top of the rock,” They began fighting. They fought noisily.
he snarled. “We will see what we can get out With great uproar. One of the Japanese avia-
of them.” tors had stacked their clubs and spears on
The half dozen sand men were not the rock, and the sand men made a rush, got
happy about being taken up to the top of the these.
rock. They feared the place, which was After that there was no argument about
probably a tribute t o the fighting ability of leaving the top of the rock. The Japanese
Ga’s people, who had inhabited the aërie were driven from the place. They were afraid
before the coming of Saki. The sand men of the gas. The cavemen, not knowing what
liked even less having their weapons—short, poison gas was, had no fear.
primitive spears without tips, but with the Furthermore, it was not poison gas. It
ends hardened by burning, and clubs—taken was tear gas and smoke-bomb material, and
away from them. the mixture had the irritant action on eyes
They climbed sullenly to the top of the and respiratory tract that could be confused
stone block. They stood under the big protec- with the deadly dichlorethyl sulphide, or mus-
tive basket, protection against the pterodac- tard gas. The slight odor was also similar to
tyls, or flying lizards, which was made of tim- mustard gas, or Yperite.
bers, none less than the thickness of a man’s As the gas irritated and blinded them,
body. the sand men only became more enraged
“All right,” Saki said. “make them talk.” and violent, thinking the Japanese were
“They talk now,” protested the guard. causing the pain.
“They talk incessantly, but to none of our un- Saki and his men went in headlong
derstanding.” flight down the long succession of steps cut
Saki scowled. “Wait. I will look through in the stone. They came out at the bottom.
the clothing, ” he said. “There may be some Two guards there were sitting against a
indication there as to what happened to Doc boulder. They looked somewhat natural, ex-
Savage and Johnny Littlejohn.” cept that their eyes were shut.
For a man who came from a clique in “Goran nasai!” Saki screeched at them.
Japan which had for generations considered “Look! You fools, there was poison gas in
trickery and deceit a code of honor, Saki was that clothing—”
remarkably gullible about opening the pack- He went silent then. There was proba-
ages of clothing. He merely slashed through bly a moment, a second or two, when he
the bindings. knew what had happened. Knew he had
The explosion that followed was not big, been tricked. But the interval was not long
but it seemed big under the circumstances. enough for him to do much about it.
Doc Savage and Johnny and the other
sand men were upon them. Doc and Johnny
 THE TIME TERROR 51

and four sand men had been clinging to the start, heard the throbbing roar as the big cyl-
stone beside the opening, so they had to inders warmed up.
hardly more than drop off and jump to be Then he came into sight of the stock-
upon the enemy. ade of thorns which had been erected to pro-
Saki’s men had good automatic rifles, tect the planes. It was a weird-looking place
the little .25-caliber guns which their invasion with the protective fires blazing yellow around
troops had found so effective. But there was the stockade.
not time to get them in action. He was too late, he saw. Already they
Doc got two Japanese himself. He hit had tugged open the crude arrangement in
them, very hard, with his fists, one man and the thorn fence which served as a gate. They
then the other. Then he grabbed them and were finishing yanking this back.
tried to throw them against Saki. There were three Japanese, and they
But Saki jumped back. He kept his feet. were heavily armed. There was a large clear-
Saki turned and fled. There was, to his credit, ing around the plane inclosure. The beach
nothing wrong with his courage. Flight was from fence to water was clear. To get close
the sensible thing, and that was what he was without being shot to pieces would be an im-
doing. possibility.
Ga stepped out of the jungle. She was Doc imitated Saki’s voice.
not excited. She lifted her bow, nocked an “Koko de sukoshi matte o kure!” he
arrow. Her eyes were on Saki. bellowed as like Saki as he could.
“Don’t!” Doc called. The words were the Japanese equiva-
He couldn’t, try as he would, think of lent of an order to wait there for a moment.
the word in Ga’s language. Ga apparently did The Japanese obeyed. They were not
not understand the English, or if she did, paid enthusiastic. They wanted the safety of the
no attention. lake. This was daytime, and apparently the
Saki had a pistol. It seemed to be his aquatic dinosaurs did not prowl much in the
only weapon. He was holding it ready, look- daytime. Or not in this part of the lake. The
ing ahead at a large tree. His plans were as water looked a little too hot here for dino-
clear as if he had bellowed them out. He was saurs, anyway, which might be why the place
going to reach the shelter of the tree, then had been chosen.
turn and shoot down Doc and the others at Doc made a circuit. He reached the
leisure. lake at a point where they could not see him.
Ga let fly the arrow. He tested the water. It was hot, all right.
The shaft flickered in the cloud-diffused But, under the circumstances, he could stand
light, then was standing rigidly in Saki’s gun it.
arm. Saki shrieked, lost his pistol. He tried to He entered the water. The vapor which
stop to pick up the gun, and saw Ga with an- arose from the stuff, the fog caused by the
other arrow already drawn to the tip. cooler air sweeping the hot lake surface,
Saki dived into the jungle. Ga’s second stood a yard deep over the water, concealing
arrow missed him. him.
The Japanese ran away into the jungle, He moved to a spot in front of the
making sounds of pain and holding to the plane stockade.
arrow in his arm. The Japanese at the plane were shout-
ing questions at the jungle, at the spot from
which they thought Saki’s voice had come.
DOC SAVAGE decided Johnny and They were naturally getting no answers.
the sand men could handle the other Japa- “We will run the plane into the lake,”
nese. one of them decided grimly. “It is more safe.”
Down by the lake the plane motor had They rolled the big amphibian bomber
started. down the sand beach, put it into the water
Doc ran in that direction. fI the plane gently. They cut the motors. The pilot began
got off, took the air, what they had accom- fooling with the gadget which lifted the land
plished would be lost. wheels. The contrivance seemed out of order,
It was a long run, nearly a quarter of a so that they had to get the wheels up by
mile. He heard the second motor of the plane hand.
52 DOC SAVAGE

While they worked on the wheels Doc while I was trying to escape. While we were
got out of the water into the plane. The heat here—I was a prisoner of the Japanese by
of the water had made him weak. He was then—I worked out this compound which
blistered in a spot or two. stops evolution, and then the opposite com-
The Japanese were tightly grouped, pound, the valuable one, which accelerates
fighting the wheel-lifting mechanism. They evolution.
were not expecting attack from the water. “I escaped with Ga and a pterodactyl,
Doc came upon them unexpectedly, violently. the pterodactyl to show you to convince you
He got their guns. They had placed of the truth of my story,” Western continued.
these aside while they worked with the “The Japanese chased us. They brought me
mechanism. He tossed the weapons back down over Trapper Lake and captured me
into the cabin. and Ga. They sent Shorty on to New York to
They fought then, but not for long. The make sure you didn’t hear about it, and the
little Japanese, even three of them together, upshot of that was that you got into the thing.
had a tremendous fear of the bronze man. You came up to Trapper Lake, and you
They broke away, tore open a hatch trailed Saki here. Saki got some of your men.
and piled out into the lake. The sand men caught you and your other
Then they swam away into the lake, aids, but you persuaded the sand men to
trying to escape. help you. You pulled what might be called a
“Come back!” Doc shouted at them, Trojan suit trick, and got Saki to release gas
knowing how hot the water was. They could up here. That gave you a chance to attack
not make it. “Oide nasaimasu ka!” he called. and you won out.”
“Will you come back?” He smiled, ended. “I’m very glad.”
They swam on and he stood looking af- Doc Savage said thoughtfully, “Three
ter them. They would die, of course. And, of the Japanese swam out into the hot lake
standing there, he was impressed by the water and drowned. We know they drowned
depth of the frenzy into which men can throw because the sand men found their bodies
themselves, the impossible they try to ac- this morning. We have the other Japanese,
complish when overwrought and overfilled with the exception of Saki, prisoners here.
with the thing which is called courage, and We will take them out and give them a treat-
probably is more the anaesthesia of mad- ment that will keep them quiet about this
ness. He was saddened and a little sickened. place.”
After a while, Monk and Ham came
running down the beach, all out of breath, (The “treatment” to which Doc Savage
and with their fists skinned and their faces refers is his unique criminal-curing “college”
happy. located in upstate New York. Here the bronze
“It’s all over back there,” Monk ex- man sends criminals, who undergo operations
plained. “Everybody is safe.” which wipe out all memory of past, after which
“Help me get the plane back onto the they are trained to hate crime and are taught a
beach and into the stockade,” Doc said. trade. The “graduates” of the institution have,
They returned the big plane to safety.
therefore, no knowledge of their past.)

“Treatment?”
Chapter XV “They will not be killed,” Doc said.
ABOUT EQUALITY “What about Saki?”
“We have to catch him yet. Monk and
THEY got plenty to eat that afternoon Ham are out looking for him now. They are
and plenty of sleep that night. And in the going to enlist the aid of Ga’s people. Shorty
morning Doc Savage and Calvin Western is with them.”
had a discussion. “That Shorty isn’t a bad guy.”
“You know the story that led up to this,” “At least he admits his shortcomings.”
Calvin Western said. “I was in Japan and got Calvin Western was silent and thought-
some information they didn’t want America to ful. “That brings us up to now, ” he said finally.
have, so when I escaped the Japanese “What about that compound?”
trailed me. We got into this place by accident
 THE TIME TERROR 53

Doc Savage had the same thing on his tributed to every man in the world—if it could
mind because he said soberly, “That is what I be manufactured in that quantity, which I
really wanted to discuss.” doubt. But, actually, nothing of the kind would
Calvin Western seemed lost in thought happen. A few would have it. One nation,
for a moment. Then he shuddered. “The probably. But something like that, in the
stuff,” he said, “is rather terrible in its possi- hands of the favored few, would be rather
bilities.” horrible to contemplate.”
Doc looked at him closely. “You do not Doc stood up. “I would rather you said
seem happy about it.” it in plain words.”
“Should I be?” Western grinned.
Doc’s face was grim. “I have been “The hell with the stuff,” he said. “Let it
checking over the formula,” he said, “and it lie. Let a hundred or a thousand years pass,
seems workable. It seems genuine. We have and humanity will be ready for something of
been misnaming it somewhat when we call it the kind. There’s too much hate and jealousy
something to accelerate evolution. Actually, it loose now.”
is more in the nature of a vitaminlike sub- “Those are my sentiments,” Doc Sav-
stance, without being in any real sense a vi- age said sincerely.
tamin, which will increase the adaptability of
the human mind and body to change, to envi-
ronment.” MONK MAYFAIR joined them, accom-
Western nodded. “I’m thinking what panied by Ham Brooks. Monk was pleased
would have happened if the Japanese had about something. “You know what,” he said
gotten away with it. That would have been to Doc.
terrible.” “What?”
“That Shorty,” Monk said. “He wants to
stay here.”
DOC SAVAGE was silent for some “Wants to stay here?”
time. The decision he had in his mind was “Yeah,” Monk said. “You see, we found
important. And it was not in the sense of jus- Ga’s people. They ain’t bad-looking people,
tice his decision alone, because Calvin and they live about like our Hopi Indians in
Western was the discoverer of the compound the southwestern United States. Pretty civi-
and therefore its owner. lized, I call them. Shorty seems to think so,
“All men are created equal,” Doc said too. He wants to stay here.”
finally. “That simple statement means a lot to “That seems a strange decision,” Doc
the human race.” said.
Calvin Western lifted his head. “Yes. “Not to me, it don’t.” Monk winked. “It’s
The same words occurred to me.” Ga. Shorty is ga-ga about Ga, if I may sound
“It might be,” said the bronze man, asinine about it.”
“that the natural course of events in human Ham Brooks laughed. “As a matter of
existence which has prevailed for thousands fact, Ga and Shorty just had the equivalent of
of years is better, since all men are really the local marriage ceremony.”
equal in the beginning, and certainly they Doc eyed Monk and Ham.
should have equal rights. “You are being rather careful not to
“This thing,” he concluded gravely, mention Saki, it seems to me,” the bronze
“would upset the balance of nature, a thing man said.
that may be a little too big for mankind to un- Monk and Ham looked uncomfortable,
dertake at the present stage in his develop- said nothing.
ment.” “Well?” Doc asked.
Calvin Western leaned back. He smiled. “It wasn’t very pleasant,” Monk said fi-
“I’m glad you said that,” he declared. nally. “We found Saki’s foot sticking out of a
“This compound will favor the few. It will not dinosaur’s mouth. The dinosaur was a thing
be a universal panacea. The ignorant, the Johnny calls a stegosaur. It wasn’t quite
unfortunate, would not receive it—just as large enough to swallow Saki all at once. It
they do not receive the other blessings of was his left foot sticking out.”
civilization. I’m speaking practical sense now.
Theoretically, this compound could be dis- THE END
54 DOC SAVAGE

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
WAVES OF DEATH

Tidal waves are not common to the waters of Lake Michigan;

especially are they not common when there is no reason for them;
when there is no record of any disturbance which might bring a
rush of water to the shores of this great lake. So when a tidal
wave does come, and causes death, it is an occurrence strange
enough to call for investigation by Doc Savage and his pals.
You'll find that investigation exciting and mysterious; you'll find it
as thrilling and as dangerous as Doc Savage found it, match-
ing his wits and his life in a battle that will hold you every
second. Don't miss this next exciting novel; it's the best so far.
Complete in our next issue.

DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *