The rain had let up, though lightning still danced in the sky. More men had joined them from the shore, and the mood was nervous and tentative. Being willing to die for the Yellow Shadow and actually doing it were two different things. Largo’s wound had cast a pall over the expedition.
“It has struck you of course that there is a conundrum here,” Dr. No said
“A conundrum?” Ming replied.
“Yes. This—this weapon. It is not merely that it is advanced—Einstein didn’t predict the electric eye until just before his work on relativity—indeed, it was that, and not his more famous work, that won his Nobel...”
“Your point?”
Dr. No paused, held his anger. “While Dr. Antekirtt was obviously a genius, and well ahead of his time, we must ask ourselves if he discovered some kind of self-replicating energy source... My dear Monsieur Ming, this Antekirtt—Count Sandorf—was last heard of before the beginning of the 20th century, but his weapons are still operational, and the electric eye is still connected to a source of power...”
Ming’s bright dark eyes sparked. Yes! Fool that he was! Largo had distracted him. It was obvious. But that left one question: if the island’s defenses were maintained—by who... or...
“What is it?” the Boy asked, watching as Morane carefully dug the earth out around the electronic eye Saint-Clair had found.
The Nyctalope shrugged. Morane had slapped his forehead, then, taking a hunting knife from his boot, had dropped to the ground near the electronic eye. Meanwhile, Prince was studying the “dragon” after taking it down from its hiding place.
“There are no wires” Prince observed. “So what powered it? I can understand the electronic eye tripping and firing it, but what powered it—or for that matter...”
Morane had finished digging out the electronic eye mechanism. He lifted it from the ground. It was no larger than a stake a surveyor might use, with the glass encased “eye” like a flashlight.
“No wires,” Saint-Clair observed. Something stirred in his memory. He had encountered something similar once; power transmitted through the ether without wires, like radio or television signals
“Of course,” said the Boy. “The Professor talked about this, but I thought he was babbling. Now it all makes sense.” Even his pup was wagging his tail excitedly, as if he, too, sensed a mystery being solved. “Before I left, the Professor kept saying something about power through the air. I thought he was talking about airplanes or rockets or some such, but now...”
“Power through the air,” Saint-Clair said.
Morane was examining the “dragon” now. “Here, see this small recess. It’s a lens. A receptor. The eye activated it and also powered it. And there’s another on the other side... Prince, put the weapon back, as close to exactly as it was as you can.”
Prince did as Morane asked. Then the Commandant placed the eye back in the ground and waved them all back. He used his hand to break the unseen beam from the eye to the weapon. There was a flash and the tree was again scorched.
Prince removed the weapon again while Morane was careful to turn the eye away from the weapon. But it was Saint-Clair who had grasped the obvious. He moved quickly off the trail and thrashed in the bushes. The Dog barked excitedly until the Boy hushed him, but by then Morane, too, was thrashing in the brush.
“Here,” said Saint-Clair. “About five feet away...”
“And another,” Moraine said. “About six more feet in.”
“I don’t see...” began Prince.
“The Professor experimented with this once,” said the Boy. “He nearly burned down the Diva’s villa, but the idea was sound enough. Power, electrical power transmitted through the air without wires. The eyes act as transmission stations and focus the power. They don’t look big enough to store it, so they carry the current from eye to eye and, when the beam is interrupted, it activates the weapon. They must be planted all over the island like this...”
It was Prince who saw the most obvious advantage first. “Then, if we follow them...”
“Back to the source,” Morane said. “Of course, it will be rough going, but better than stumbling along looking for traps.”
“Then, we had best move quickly,” Saint-Clair said. “Ming and No aren’t fools. They will think of the same thing before long.”
“No doubt,” said Prince, but he was laughing. He had seen the one thing the others had missed.
Morane and Saint-Clair looked at him as if he were mad, but the Boy suddenly began to laugh too. Even the little dog pranced as if he had gotten the jest.
“I don’t get the joke,” Morane said.
“Neither do I,” added Saint-Clair.
But then Morane smiled broadly too. And to think, it had been his idea in the first place. Simpleton. And even as he smiled, he saw the same thought break on Saint-Clair’s features.
They had an advantage the others could not duplicate. The Nyctalope’s...
“...eyes,” swore the Yellow Shadow. “Damn their eyes!”
His men crashed through the rough on either side of the path like so many elephants. Ordinarily, as stealthy as ninjitsu, the fear of the “dragons” had made them nervous, and nervous men were never stealthy. Still, even with that disadvantage, their pace had increased once they began to follow the path of the electric eyes.
Dr. No seemed to find it all amusing. The idea of power sent directly through the air had fired his mind.
“Of course, it was the great dream of the Slav genius, Tesla, to transmit power through the air, but while it is theoretically possible, the probability of overcoming the numerous problems and drawbacks stopped even his great intellect. Our Dr. Antekirtt must have indeed been a genius to not only conceive of the idea when Edison was still toying with filaments for his light globes, but to harness the power and overcome it. The potential as a weapon alone... Imagine...”
But the Yellow Shadow needed no lesser imagination to fire his vision. If the power could be used to trigger a simple light amplification weapon, then imagine if it was used directly. Not powering a toy, but directly used against an enemy. Already, he was considering the electronic eyes which were used to carry the invisible current. Was a few feet their limit, or could that be extended with a greater generation source? What if a nuclear reactor was available? He saw visions of entire cities in flames and the world on its knees—to him—alone. When Dr. No would no longer be needed... Antekirtt’s laboratory was such a dangerous place…
He closed the fist of his artificial right hand. He imagined Dr. No’s skull crushed with that grip. Power, and his alone to wield. But in the shadows. Let others stand in the limelight. He preferred to manipulate his puppets from the darkness of anonymity. Vanity had been the downfall of others with the same dream. It would not be his.
An excited shout.
Another eye had been found.
He already knew the trail was leading to the fortress at the center of the island. That much was obvious. Where else would Antekirtt have built his generator but in the fortress of Antekirtta? And now, they had a safe path to that generator.
Only one thing concerned him. A small thing. A dangerous thing.
The man Morane was a fool, but one blessed with luck and remarkable cunning. Indeed he seemed to lead a charmed life, and now with this team of his... The Boy was nothing. The sailor? A mere drunk. The Interpol agent? A policeman, nothing more. But the other...
He knew the stories about the Nyctalope. An almost inhuman hero; the embodiment of Colonial France, a sort of living emblem. A ruthless soldier and adventurer, a legend in the flesh. They had never met, but once before, a long time ago, in China, there had been a remarkable Triad of which the Yellow Shadow was one arm. Saint-Clair had almost single handedly smashed their plans. Ming had been forced to flee, to go underground. Saint-Clair had only been hours from not only destroying the Shin Tan and his plans, but from destroying him. That made him a deadly enemy. An enemy to be respected. Feared. Destroyed.
&nb
sp; He would not rest until he stood over the body of the Frenchman, and cut out his artificial...
“...heart,” Saint-Clair was saying. “This is the heart of the island.”
They stood on a rise and looked down on the fortress of Antekirtta. It was a large structure, first built by Crusaders during the Second Crusade, and later conquered by the Seljuk Turks, who had made many improvements to the place, including a low outer wall that surrounded the main grounds. Inside, there was a courtyard with stalls and other small buildings around the inner walls, and to the southeast, a barracks—it couldn’t be anything else—a building about three stories tall. There were other structures of equally obvious origin: a stable, downwind from the other buildings; an adjoining smith; what looked to be a munitions dump that apparently went underground; and the main structure or castle, a curious mix of Western and Eastern architecture, given a strange even Gothic appearance by the scuttling clouds above.
All of it deserted and quiet.
They made their way down the steep hill slowly. There was no sign of the Yellow Shadow, so they were ahead of the game. As they neared the ruins—there was no other name for them—the three men grew more cautious, and even the little dog seemed to sense the danger, keeping close to the Boy. No one spoke, but Saint-Clair could see the determination in Morane’s face and the heightened awareness in Prince’s eyes.
But there were no more traps. None they could see anyway.
The great gate was open, a heavy Moorish style door that now hung shattered by an explosion.
Again, no one spoke, but they all thought the same thing. Drax. He had made it this far, if no farther.
Saint-Clair entered first, the Sten gun unslung, moving through the center of the courtyard. It was overgrown and unkempt, full of shadows and pools of deeper darkness, gray even to his eyes. Behind him, Morane entered to the right, and Prince to the left, the Boy and the Dog behind them, the young reporter keeping an eye on their rear.
Nothing happened.
Saint-Clair spotted several electronic eyes, but they were inactive. Had Drax, and his SS, getting this far, deactivated them?
No.
Not Drax. And not Ming either.
And yet, one thing was clear. The electronic eyes within the fortress were as well cared for as those outside. They weren’t alone. Eyes were watching them. Eyes that had chosen to allow them inside the fortress unassaulted.
So far.
Saint-Clair felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. The mystery of Antekirtta had long intrigued him. It had once been a sort of paradise, a haven for political refugees, artists, artisans, and scientists, then... Something had happened. Those who knew kept quiet. Antekirtt had died not too long after the great pirate battle that had ended his quest for revenge, and the island seemed to die with him. By the end of the Great War, it was known to be deserted, and by the Second World War, it was thought to be haunted. The fate of Drax and his men had only added to that myth. But was it a myth? What did hide on Antekirtta. Or who?
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Dog stop, sniff the air, stiffen. The animal’s hair bristled as it had earlier.
Saint-Clair raised a hand. Morane stopped. Prince followed suit, using a hand to signal the Boy to stay back.
The party was at the great stone steps that led up to the main structure of the fortress, the original Crusader building. Like the rest of the place, it was overgrown and crumbling, and yet wasn’t that a path well worn up and down the steps?
He scanned the shadows of the old building, seeking some movement, a hint of life, an ambush...
Slowly he began the ascent of the stone steps.
One.
So far no trap. Two.
He reminded himself to breathe. He could almost hear his heart beating. If someone had coughed, it would have sounded like a gunshot. Three.
Another two steps and he would reach a wide landing of sorts, then another half dozen steps to the main entrance.
And so far...
The figure came out of shadows so deep that even the Nyctalope’s uncanny eyes hadn’t seen him. One instant, there was nothing, then a flash of distant lightning and...
All three men swung their weapons toward the figure. The little dog barked once sharply.
The man seemed unaware of their weapons. He merely raised his hand, and spoke a single word…
“...Welcome,” Dr. No said. “We should expect an unpleasant one.”
That seemed obvious, but Ming nodded. Their progress had been exponentially faster once they left the main trail and followed the electric eyes, but it was still slow going, and the Mongol could not help but feel they were losing more than time. Experience had taught him the folly of arrogance, and he knew that men such as Bob Morane and Saint-Clair had not survived as long as they had by luck alone. The Yellow Shadow had known others who had crossed the Nyctalope’s path and lived to regret it. That old business in China still stung, and if Dr. Natas held no grudges, and the one known as the Blue Scorpion had met final defeat at the hands of a brazen American engineer, Monsieur Ming had a long memory and desired pay back.
Perhaps this would afford him that opportunity. It was pleasant to think of Saint-Clair and Morane at this mercy...
One of his men came toward them swiftly. He spoke softly to the Mongol, his eyes cast down as was proper.
Ming turned to Dr. No.
“Just ahead. The fortress...” ‘
They moved quickly, but still with care. They were above the fortress in a copse of wood and well concealed, though they kept well back mindful of the Nyctalope’s eyes.
The fortress lay in the shadows. It was still and seemed abandoned. They watched for several minutes, but saw no sign of movement. Flashes of distant lightning illuminated the courtyard. Low scuttling clouds created fantastic images. But nothing living moved.
Neither Dr. No nor Monsieur Ming dared to think they were ahead of the others. From here on the danger was only greater. One question remained in the forefront. What danger lay ahead? What lay unseen in the...
“...shadows,” their host said. “For too many years, I have lived among the shadows of the dead.”
He was a small man and, despite his age, obviously still fit. There was something of the athlete about his carriage, and a sense of tremendous energy and wit about him. His eyes were quick and saw more than they revealed. He had given them a queer name, but one Saint-Clair suspected was his own: Point Pescade.
His greeting had been perfectly designed to gain their attention:
“We must hurry, gentlemen. There is little time and we’re all in grave danger...” Instinctively, Saint-Clair had turned to the direction the enemy was advancing from. “No, no, not them. There’s far greater danger and little time. I have put this off too long, and now... Pray that there is still time. Come with me, gentlemen, and I will explain everything as quickly as possible.”
He had told them about the mysterious “Dr. Antekirtt” and his war of revenge for the way he had been wronged, how Mathias Sandorf had used his genius, and the gifts of the island, to build a sort of scientific utopia after defeating his enemies, and then had been struck down by an enemy he could not have imagined.
As they talked, Point Pescade led them down a narrow stair into the catacombs located beneath the main building. Prince and the Boy agreed to keep watch while Saint-Clair and Morane followed the old man deeper into the darkness.
“How could he have known? How could he have guessed? Madame Curie was years away and Röntgen had yet to make his discoveries... How could the Doctor have begun to guess...”
Saint-Clair looked sharply at Morane. There was an unspoken agreement to let the old man tell his tale in whatever rambling way he chose. Obviously, the fellow was a bit dotty with age and loneliness.
As they moved deeper, they heard a curious hum, like some sort of giant generator, and they began to notice a radiant light emanating ahead of them. Before they could comment on it, they came upon a great roo
m lined with giant machinery that resembled in many ways a generator, the source to the hum of power and light. Passing the giant generators, they came to a wall lined with panels and gauges, obviously monitoring the source of the power.
“And there, gentlemen, is the source of Antekirtta’s power. You can’t imagine how many hours the Doctor worked down here, how often I assisted him... Do you see, gentlemen, do you begin to comprehend? I myself installed that monitor after the last war... too late, too late...”
Saint-Clair followed the old man’s pointing finger to the monitor in question and, suddenly, a chill ran up his spine.
“Marie Curie,” Morane said, “Wilhelm Röntgen. The invisible enemy...”
“Radiation,” Saint-Clair said.
“Aye,” Point Pescade said sadly. “How could the good Doctor have known? Have guessed? He thought he had found the greatest boon to mankind since Prometheus gave us fire, and instead... At first, there were mysterious illnesses on the island, cancers, blood diseases, strange burns—we couldn’t have known. Soon, people began to leave, and the Doctor’s health began to fail as he wore himself out, down here, trying to discover the secret, all the time exposing himself to certain death—a slow, lingering death, that first claimed all he had loved, then his own life.”
“My God!” Moraine said. “He built a nuclear reactor in the 19th century.”
“No,” Pescade said sharply. “No, gentlemen, not built one—found one. The entire island is a natural nuclear reactor, a volcanic wonder. That is what the Doctor found, but he could not have guessed...”
“…The price of the gift.”
As they spoke, Morane had moved closer to a wall dominated by a large switch with bright red handles. It was quite big and would need two hands to pull it down. He reached out to touch it...
The Nyctalope Steps In Page 29
