ron Goulart - Challengers of the Unknown (10 page)

Prof said, "Okay, so we succumb to the Lone Ranger syndrome and go in after this crew." "That's the Challenger way of doing things, remember?" reminded Ace. "You must have read something about it in the
National Intelligencer."

Prof nodded, fished a small notebook from his tunic and started scribbling.

"What are you doing?" June asked.

"Dividing one hundred and eight by three."

"Very spooky," remarked Rocky.

"Most likely a robot vehicle." Red nodded in the direction of the approaching truck.

"Bumping into a robot-driven truck out here in the middle of nowhere strikes me as very spooky."

"Spooky or not, my scientific curiosity doesn't need satisfying. Drive on."

Rocky had turned off the engine while they scanned the driverless truck which was rolling across the flat, dry desert toward them. His large fist gripped the key, turned it in the ignition switch. "Here we go."

Nothing happened.

Beyond their jeep's making a dry, asthmatic sound.

"Kee-rist. Engine's dead." Rocky twisted the key from side to side. "I better go stick my nose under the hood."

"Got a hunch that's not going to accomplish much."

"How come? I'm a damn good mechan—"

"Could be our impending visitor has something to do with this." After jerking a thumb in the direction of the driverless car, which was now less than a half mile away, Red grabbed a knapsack out of the back of the jeep. "What say we abandon ship?"

"Why should we?"

"Another hunch." Knapsack clutched to his chest, Red hopped out onto the twilit desert.

"You're as twitchy as an old granny."

"Come on, come on. Get off your ox and out of there."

"Okay, if it'll stop you from acting so goofy." Grumbling, the big man swung out of the driver's seat.

Red was trotting away from their stalled vehicle. "It's possible they gimmicked our jeep by remote control," he told his partner.

"Just so's a robot truck can come over to say, 'Howdy'?"

"Could be worse, could be a fine example of the old sitting-duck gimmick." He caught hold of Rocky's arm, urged him to trot faster and farther from their vehicle. "There's a time-honored saw about a sitting target being easier to hit than a moving one."

"You been around Prof too long, you're commencing to sound—"
Blam!

Kablam!

Thurump!

Their jeep exploded, jumped high, fell to earth, shooting out fire and night-black smoke.

"Kee-rist." Rocky lifted his head from the desert where he'd flung himself. "You was one hundred percent right, Red."

"Oncei again." He did a pushup off the gritty earth.

The robot truck was now only two hundred yards from the wreckage of their jeep. On its hood they saw mounted a small, bazooka-like weapon.

"That's a very smart truck," observed Rocky.

"Yeah, but I hear it gets poor mileage." Red was reaching into his knapsack. "Time for a little turnabout, I do believe." He drew a palm-size black box, roughly resembling a pocket calculator, out of the sack. "Here's a first-rate opportunity to try out a little invention Prof and I whipped up."

"What is that gizmo?"

The robot machine had backed up some fifty feet, the front wheels turned themselves and it came rolling ahead. Its nose was now aimed at the spot where Red and Rocky had spread out. So were the bazooka and the two rifles built into the hood.

"Explain later." Red pushed several of the buttons on the face of his black box.

The robot truck made a gear-shifting noise.

"Wrong buttons," muttered Red, trying another sequence of pushes.

The robot machine came another hundred feet, then died. Its momentum carried it within a few yards of them.

Grinning, Red said, "They used some kind of similar disabling device on us, only from a distance."

"They? Who do you expect is behind this?"

"Could be Escabar, could be anti-Chanza forces, could be the Lake Sombra Monster Fan Club." Walking very gingerly, he approached the truck which had attacked them. He craned his neck to look in at the dash. "Nice job, very compact."

Rocky was tromping around the smoldering jeep. "How do you feel about hiking the rest of the way to Fortaleza?"

"Never walk when you can ride."

"In what, not in that hoodoo wagon that almost blew us to glory?"

"We shouldn't have any problems." Red held up the black box. "This gadget can not only disable robot mechanisms, it can control 'em."

Rocky, very slowly, came closer. "You mean we continue our journey in this spooky truck?"

"Exactly and precisely, Rockbound." A sandpapering sound was produced when Rocky scratched his curly head. "Okay," he agreed finally, "but you drive."

It was a man's arm.

Dead white, wrapped in the bloody tatters of a sleeve. At one end, a hand with the fingers contracted, at the other, a mess of splintered bone, shredded muscle, ripped flesh.

Prof Haley's flashlight touched it first. He was at the head of their little procession. "Whoa," he said. "Look somewhere else, June."

The girl was next in line, followed by the still brain-controlled Nazi and then Ace Morgan. The rest of their ambushers they'd left trussed up in the Challenger van.

"I don't get emotional about death," June said, moving up beside him and adding the beam of her flash to his.

The arm had been flung to the edge of the narrow trail; it lay among ferns and spiky brush. Large black ants were parading along the dead flesh.

Prof stepped ahead to kneel next to the arm. "Okay, it's your stomach, princess." He poked at the hand,

moved the fingers with his. "Not more than a few hours dead."

"Whoever did this," said Ace, "may still be around."

Prof had risen to his feet, was playing the light along the trail edge. "There's the rest of the poor guy," he said.

"Oh," said June.

"Skull crushed," said Ace.

"By hand," added Prof, closer to the mutilated body. "The last of my skepticism is draining away."

Easing around the girl, Ace went over to examine the corpse. "Claws did most of this damage," he said, pointing. "But no evidence it was an animal."

"There aren't any ferocious animals in this neck of the jungle," reminded Prof. "Not this ferocious anyway."

"My God," gasped June.

Both of the men spun to face her.

"Over there." She was waving her flashlight at the other side of the trail,

A human head was dangling from the branches of a thorny bush, next to a splash of bright red blossoms.

"Monster's been busy," said Ace.

"We must be seeing," said Prof, "what's left of the Nazis' monster-hunting party."

Ace turned his head slowly from side to side. "May not all be dead."

"Anybody alive is either long gone from this vicinity or in no shape to worry us."

"According to our informant here," said June, after swallowing hard, "we should be fairly close to one of the entrances to the Nazis' underground base. Which means the lake creature does indeed roam fairly close to them." "Too close." Ace walked back and took hold of the Nazi's arm. "Let's continue on our way."

With the tiny, disc-shaped control device attached at the back of his neck, the small man could do nothing but obey.

"Tread carefully," Prof advised them all.

They traveled for several more minutes.

Then the Nazi all at once slipped on something on the trail, stumbled and crashed against June.

"Blood," said Ace, "spilled all over the place."

"Thought you saw it, chief," said Prof, who'd avoided the slick spot.

The small man had fallen. In getting up, his head smacked against the low branch of a jungle tree. The impact flicked the control disc free of his skin.

"Watch it," warned Ace, trying a grab for the man.

The Nazi eluded him. He swung out at June, smacked her light away from her.

Ace's booted feet failed to get traction; the spill of blood of another of the monster's victims caused him to fall.

"Up to me." Prof took off after the escaping man.

The Nazi left the trail, went clawing and smashing his way through the jungle.

Prof was able to keep him in the beam of his light as he pursued. "Only fair to warn you, old chap," he called, "I was a cross-country runner in school."

A crashing at his back told him Ace had joined in the chase.

The little Nazi was falling, getting up, struggling on.

The distance between him and Prof narrowed.

"Okay, gotcha." Prof caught the man's shirt collar, yanked.

The small man was pulled off his feet. He tried to punch his captor, succeeded only in entangling himself in hanging vines. "Devil," he said in German.

"That's what they all say." Prof wrenched one of the man's arms up behind his back. "Now let us march, as best we can, back to yonder trail. Don't need you, chief."

Ace had reached them. "Felt obliged to join in the hunt. Since it was—"

Back on the dark trail June screamed.

Only once.

"Always something doing." Prof turned, gave the Nazi two pokes to the jaw.

It was sufficient to render him unconscious.

Prof and Ace took off.

As he ran, Morgan, leaping obstructions, called to the girl. "June? What's wrong?"

No answer came.

"Last stop, everybody out," announced Red. He swung their commandeered truck off the desert road and parked it near a clump of cactus which looked like a collection of prickly elbows in the darkness.

"I don't see no fort," said Rocky.

"And, contrariwise, they don't see us." Small control box in his hand, Red hopped from the vehicle.

"You can bet they know we're coming." With considerable grunting and mumbling, the big man extracted himself from the passenger seat.

Red fingered two buttons on the box. "That should keep this truck here for a while."

"In case that gizmo of yours don't work exactly perfect," observed Rocky, "then this jalopy has probably been sending out signals to whoever it was sent it to bump us off."

"The box works," Red assured him. "I had all the truck's warning devices, TV monitor cameras and suchlike hardware completely in me power the whole and entire ride."

"So you say." Rocky hunched his shoulders twice. "Awful cold for a desert."

"Most deserts get cold at night, and especially the Tierra Seca."

"If I hadn't got stuck on this nitwit job with you," complained Rocky, "I could of been with the others now."

"Being pursued by a nice warm monster, sure. The castle and surrounding buildings are over that way." Red nodded to his right. "Let's proceed."

"Probably got a five-mile hike ahead of us."

"Only about two," said Red. "I thought you liked nothing better than a brisk ten- or fifteen-mile jog."

"Yeah, but that's exercise. This is work."

"Let's hope so." They started trudging across the chill, flat ground.

"You got doubts, too, huh? This could be a complete waste of—"

"Look, Rocksie, anybody who can build a truck like that one back there," said Red patiently, "is someone the Challengers ought to know about."

"Okay, so Escabar is a fancy inventor," Rocky acknowledged. "That don't mean he has a damn thing to do with some monster who's maybe swimming around in Lake Sombra."

True.

They continued marching across the night desert.

After a few minutes Rocky spoke again. "This guy Escabar is living way the hell out in no place, tinkering with newfangled gadgets which can knock people
off."

"Seems to be, Rocko."

"Okay, so maybe when he gets enough of 'em he's going to take a crack at President Chanza," Rocky speculated. "You know, pull one of these here coups."

His big head bobbed. "Yeah, Escabar could be in cahoots with that army guy Prof was talking about to us."

"General Cuerpo."

"Whatever his name is," said Rocky. "Anyhow, that could be the reason President Chanza is so hot for us to drag our butts out here and follow up on this."

"Could be, yeah."

"Which being the case, Chanza just wants us to pull his chestnuts out of the fire," said Rocky. "It don't have nothing to do with the monster or nothing."

Red said, "From what I feel, the president, for a president, is a relatively honest guy. I doubt he'd ask us to investigate the Escabar angle unless he really believed there was a tie-in with the Monster of Lake Sombra."

Rocky grunted in reply.

A few tiny rectangles of light floated in the blackness. Five of them close to the ground; beyond those, and much higher, three more.