Chapter 20 Carbon Into Silicon

Doc Savage watched the liquid flame of the stone death. Its soft light, illuminating the cavern, gave off no heat. The bronze man approached the eerie glow. The unearthly flame diminished when Doc came within a few feet of it, flickering uncertainly. He halted at that point, observing the light. A soft hissing came from the rocky floor of the cavern where the stone death flame came up from below. "How much longer?" asked one of the gunsels. They stood in a small group outside the cavern of the stone death, smoking cigarettes. Gray-white smoke disappeared into black night. Another man consulted a pocketwatch. "Not much longer. Let's finish these," he said, referring to the cigarettes. A scratching sound from behind them got their attention. They whirled, as one, guns at the ready. A flashlight beam illuminated Doc Savage extracting himself from the tiny opening of the cavern. The gunsels were nonplussed. "I don't believe it," one breathed. "What do we do now?" asked another. Doc Savage stood boldly before the quartet of gunmen, giving no indication of the ordeal he had apparently just undergone. A third gunsel finally offered, "We better take him back to the boss." A fourth thug remained dumbstruck. "Let's go," said the gunsel who had decided to return the bronze man to Medusa. He gestured to the path with the barrel of his gun. Doc started along the trail. The four gunmen followed, but kept their distance from Doc Savage, wary of the man who had defied Medusa's "stone death". The bronze man shivered slightly in the cool night air as he walked along the path toward Medusa's camp. The gunsels, still visibly shaken by Doc's good health, did not notice a fine dust fall from the bronze man's person as he shook. Each was quiet, mulling over Doc's miraculous survival, and Medusa's expected reaction to it. In the darkness, the powder was so fine it was all but invisible. The gunsels would probably not have noticed it if they had been looking at the bronze man. Perhaps, if one of them had directed his flashlight beam at Doc Savage, examining his person, they would have observed the dust, but all had kept their distance from Doc, reluctant to approach him. The small group shortly made their way back to Medusa's camp. The murmuring of the natives told Medusa that something was amiss before he saw Doc. They spoke in low tones among themselves, eyeing the striking bronze figure of Doc Savage as he boldly strode into the camp. His demeanor was one of triumph, not that of a captive. Medusa turned, face widening in disbelief at the sight of the bronze man. One of the gunsels--the one who had been acting as leader for the quartet--said quickly, "He went in, just like he was supposed to, boss. He was in there for more than five minutes." Shaking with rage, Medusa struck the gunsel. The gunman fell back, more out of surprise than injury. His face twisted in anger as he recovered, bracing to retaliate. The bronze man's voice rang out, halting all within hearing distance. He spoke in the dialect of the islanders, "The stone god's magic is false. He has no power over me, or over you. He is only a man, an evil man who has used you." "The natives!" Medusa yelled, in an attempt to warn his gunmen. Too late! A spear flew, impaling a gunsel, who dropped his Tommy gun. Doc Savage lunged for the gunman who held his special vest. He clipped the man on the jaw, dropping him. Doc withdrew from the group of gunsels as the villagers hurled spears at them. The thugs returned fire, Tommy guns spewing hot lead. The sound of gunfire jarred Renny, Johnny and Lucky, and the two gunsels guarding them. The big engineer quickly rose, laid a huge fist against the back of one of the gunsel's heads with a loud "crack". The impact sounded like thunder. Long Johnny sprang upon the other thug before he could shoot Renny, wrestling him to the ground. Lucky, regaining his spirit, kicked the man the lean geologist held. After a few moments, the gunsel stopped struggling, went limp in Johnny's bony arms. The lanky geologist rose to his feet. He observed Renny already had in his hand the weapon of the gunman the giant engineer had felled. Johnny searched his unconscious captive's form, fidning Renny's supermachine pistol and the gunsel's own automatic. He proffered the dark automatic to Lucky, who reluctantly accepted it. The worthy looked distinctly uncomfortable with the heavy gun in his hand. "Let's go," rumbled big Renny. The three of them--big Renny, lanky Johnny, and Lucky Loo--made their way along the path leading back to Medusa's camp as quietly as possible. Wild sounds of battle greeted the ears of the three as they neared the campsite. Long cacophanous rattles of streaming lead was the first sound they heard. Closer, yells of both Americans and natives were audible. Renny, Johnny and Lucky took cover in the darkness, out of the range of the light of the campfire, and began pot-shooting Medusa's gunsels, tragically backed against a steep hill, caught in the light of the fire. Spears littered the camp, many protruding from the bodies of Medusa's followers. Although armed with formidable Thompson "Tommy" guns, their targets--the villagers--had enough sense to flee into the surrounding blackness of the night, flinging spears at exposed gunmen. A few of each lay dead within the yellow-orange firelight. Doc's voice fell on the scene like a hard rain. There was no escaping it, try as the listeners might. The bronze man, himself, was not visible, and the language he spoke was not recognized by Medusa's gunsels, Renny, or Lucky Loo. Lean Johnny knew it to be the speech of the natives. Doc told the villagers to retreat well away from the fire-lit camp. The bony geologist translated for big Renny and Lucky Loo. The ensuing silence was broken only by the random, panicked shooting of the remaining gunsels. One by one, the gunmen dropped mysteriously to the hard ground, apparently without cause. Doc Savage's men knew the bronze man had thrown a quantity of his anaesthetic glass balls into the camp. A number of the remaining conscious thugs, though unaware of the gas itself, ran into the night-blackened hills, seeking to escape the effects of the sleep-inducing fumes. Before Renny and Johny could do much more than stand, grisly screams erupted from the darkness, and they knew the natives had gotten the gunsels. Doc Savage's bronze form suddenly came into view in the camp, and he began examining the unmoving figures there. He called to the natives in their tongue, informing them all was finally safe; the fight was over. Doc tended to the wounded. There were thankfully few fatalities among the natives of the island. Medusa's gang, on the other hand, had been killed almost to man. The villagers had no qualms about killing, as did the bronze man. Although his medical supplies had been destroyed in the fire on his plane, Doc kept rudimentary bandages and anti-septics on his person, as part of his cache of gadgets. Giant Renny and lean Johnny naturally gravitated to their bronze leader in the aftermath of the battle. Lucky Loo, unsurprisingly, accompanied them. "You found the stone death?" Renny asked, booming out every word. Doc nodded silently, finishing wrapping a bandage on a villager. "What was it?" The bronze man stood. "It was a naturally occurring substance, perhaps an element--certainly nothing civilization has ever seen before. It acts as a catalyst, transforming carbon into silicon. Hydrocarbons, such as the human body are made of, are turned into silicates resembling sand or obsidian. Because the human body is mostly water, cell walls are turned into the glassy substance. Pockets of water remain. It was this discovery which led me find a temporary preventative against the stone death." "The salve?" questioned big-fisted Renny. "Yes," answered the bronze man. To Lucky Loo's quizzical look, he explained: "The salve acts like a sponge, absorbing the stone death substance. When it becomes full, the substance will get through to the skin, turning it to stone." This was not an entirely accurate description of how the chemical reaction between the salve and the stone death substance worked, but it was an analogy that seemed to satisfy the worthy. For the first time, bony Johnny noticed the fine powder which had not completely been brushed from the bronze man's person. The light of the nearby fire made it visible. Even so, its presence was not obvious. The lanky geologist indicated it with a knobby hand. Doc said, "Leftover from the chemical reaction." "So the others really are stone," big Renny rumbled, horror tinging his booming voice. "Yes," Doc replied quietly. "And there's no way to change them back?" "I'm afraid not." The flakes of gold in Doc's eyes beat faster--madly--reflecting the churning in the bronze man's brain. "The stone victims will be taken to the Fortress for safekeeping." Doc Savage referred to a private retreat he maintained in the Arctic called the Fortress of Solitude, where he secluded himself for a period each year to immerse himself in the latest scientific discoveries and accomplishments of others, as well as pursuing his own research in a number of fields. The Fortress was probably the most complete scientific facility in existence in the world, and Doc had used it since the earliest days of his career. It was unnecessary to state aloud that he would search for a cure for the stone men at the Fortress. "All this because Medusa wanted to keep his discovery a secret?" asked giant Renny wonderingly at the amount of carnage and number of deaths that had occurred as a result of Medusa's schemes. "We may never know what was really behind it," Doc said, "but consider that diamonds are pure carbon. Maitland may have dreamed of destroying the diamond caches of the world, cornering the market himself. Or perhaps he intended to extort the world's petroleum companies." "The stone death substance," chimed in Johnny, "whatever it was, clears up another mystery--that of the giant stone heads. Archaeologists have never known why the island's culture created the stone heads, but now it seems clear that they were carved for religious reasons in reference to the stone death substance." The lanky archaeologist was quickly lost in thought, no doubt pondering the papers he would have published as result of this discovery. "We might not have cracked this case, if you hadn't left us that 'Treasure Island' clue," Lucky Loo told the lanky geologist, interrupting Johnny's train of thought. The blank look left his lean face. One of consternation replaced it. "It didn't say-- The village chief suddenly came into the clearing of the encampment. "The 'stone god' has escaped," he exclaimed.

The Stone Death Written By: Jeff Deischer Dedicated to "Kenneth Robeson X" for his encouragement. The Stone Man is a work of fan fiction. Doc Savage is © Conde Nast Back to: Top of Page Index Page Home Page