Devil on the Moon: A Doc Savage Adventure, page 1
part #50 of Doc Savage Series
* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *
This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com.
This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.
Title: Devil on the Moon
Date of first publication: 1938
Author: Lester Dent (as Kenneth Robeson) (1904-1959)
Date first posted: Mar. 13, 2020
Date last updated: Mar. 13, 2020
Faded Page eBook #20200325
This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net
DOC SAVAGE’S AMAZING CREW
William Harper Littlejohn, the bespectacled scientist who was the world’s greatest living expert on geology and archaeology.
Colonel John Renwick, “Renny,” his favorite sport was pounding his massive fists through heavy, paneled doors.
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, “Monk,” only a few inches over five feet tall, and yet over 260 pounds. His brutish exterior concealed the mind of a great scientist.
Major Thomas J. Roberts, “Long Tom,” was the physical weakling of the crowd, but a genius at electricity.
Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, slender and waspy, he was never without his ominous, black sword cane.
WITH THEIR LEADER, THEY WOULD GO ANYWHERE, FIGHT ANYONE, DARE EVERYTHING—SEEKING EXCITEMENT AND PERILOUS ADVENTURE!
Books by Kenneth Robeson
THE MAN OF BRONZE DEATH IN SILVER
THE THOUSAND-HEADED MAN THE MYSTERY UNDER THE SEA
METEOR MENACE THE DEADLY DWARF
THE POLAR TREASURE THE OTHER WORLD
BRAND OF THE WEREWOLF THE FLAMING FALCONS
THE LOST OASIS THE ANNIHILIST
THE MONSTERS THE SQUEAKING GOBLINS
THE LAND OF TERROR MAD EYES
THE MYSTIC MULLAH THE TERROR IN THE NAVY
THE PHANTOM CITY DUST OF DEATH
FEAR CAY RESURRECTION DAY
QUEST OF QUI HEX
LAND OF ALWAYS-NIGHT RED SNOW
FANTASTIC ISLAND WORLD’S FAIR GOBLIN
MURDER MELODY THE DAGGER IN THE SKY
THE SPOOK LEGION MERCHANTS OF DISASTER
THE RED SKULL THE GOLD OGRE
THE SARGASSO OGRE THE MAN WHO SHOOK THE EARTH
PIRATE OF THE PACIFIC THE SEA MAGICIAN
THE SECRET IN THE SKY THE MAN WHO SMILED NO MORE
COLD DEATH THE MIDAS MAN
THE CZAR OF FEAR LAND OF LONG JUJU
FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE THE FEATHERED OCTOPUS
THE GREEN EAGLE THE SEA ANGEL
THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND DEVIL ON THE MOON
DEVIL
ON THE MOON
A DOC SAVAGE ADVENTURE
BY KENNETH ROBESON
DEVIL ON THE MOON
Originally published in DOC SAVAGE Magazine March 1938
Copyright © 1938 by Street & Smith Publications, Inc.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I MAN IN THE METEOR 1
II STRANGE MEN AND STRANGE QUESTIONS 6
III BLUE GLASS ROD 12
IV BEHEMOTH, QUEER MAN 16
V THE IDEA MAN 22
VI THE FOX 30
VII THE UNDECEIVED 35
VIII FANTASTIC IS TOMORROW 42
IX THE NORFOLK TRAIL 57
X THE FISH STEALERS 65
XI THE MERCHANT OF DEATH 72
XII BACK OF THE EIGHT BALL 80
XIII THE BACKFIRE 88
XIV THE STOWAWAY 94
XV MOON-BOUND 99
XVI MOON PIT 104
XVII AIMLESS? 110
DEVIL ON THE MOON
Chapter I
MAN IN THE METEOR
A roaring sound was probably the first evidence of what was to come to be known as the mystery of the Devil on the Moon. A sick red light accompanied the roaring. It lighted up the surroundings, and struck the earth near the Spanish Plantation.
The Spanish Plantation was situated in Virginia, near Washington, and its old Colonial architecture was pleasantly distinguished. There was a colored orchestra and a sign which advertised chicken dinners. It was a nice place.
Lin Pretti was one among a number who heard the roar. She happened to be standing in a secluded spot on the Spanish Plantation lawn.
Lin Pretti had become something of a sensation around the Spanish Plantation. She was not an exquisitely beautiful girl, but her manners were perfect and her conversation excitingly clever. She grew on people, men especially. Lin Pretti was somewhat mysterious; no one really knew much about her.
Lin Pretti stared at the night sky.
The red, roaring thing came all the way down and dropped out of sight behind a nearby hill. There was a distinct report and an earth jar. Then came silence and darkness.
The falling object that came arching down out of the heavens might have been a meteor, except that meteors or shooting stars usually fade out after a shower of bright, dazzling sparks. They are burned away by friction with the earth’s atmosphere.
Lin Pretti reacted strangely. Her hands covered her eyes. A terrified sound escaped her. It was as though she knew the real nature of what had happened.
Bob Thomas found Lin Pretti with her hands over her eyes.
“Bo-o-o!” Bob Thomas exclaimed playfully.
Bob Thomas, tall, blond, and rather good-looking, was a young Washington insurance salesman. He admitted being in love with Lin Pretti.
The girl did not seem to hear the “Bo-o-o!”
“Is something wrong?” Bob Thomas asked anxiously.
Lin Pretti suddenly jerked her hands from her face and seized Bob’s arm. Her fingers seemed to bite him. The girl swallowed twice before she managed to say, “Nothing.” She seemed frantic to get Bob Thomas talking about something besides the way she looked. “Bob,” she said quickly, “what—what did you learn of the man I asked you to look up information about?”
“You mean Doc Savage?”
“Yes.”
Bob Thomas was impatient. “This Doc Savage is a man who devotes his life to going about the world righting wrongs and punishing evildoers. It sounded kind of queer to me.” The young insurance man took both the girl’s hands in his. “Lin! What is wrong with you?”
“Bob,” she exclaimed wildly, “will you help me?”
“Help you do what?”
“Get a flashlight, and be prepared for something so horrible and incredible that you’ll have trouble believing it.”
Brush grew on the hill behind the Spanish Plantation. Bob Thomas waved the beam of the flashlight he had taken out of his car, picking out the best route. When they topped the hill, Bob Thomas gave a surprised start.
A few hundred yards ahead was water. It was an arm of Chesapeake Bay. Thomas hadn’t known the bay was that close.
Lin Pretti raced forward.
“Quick!” the girl gasped.
Bob Thomas followed her until they neared the lake. Then the girl stopped abruptly. She faced Bob Thomas.
“Will you promise me something?” she demanded.
Bob Thomas did not hesitate. “I promise!” he said.
“Don’t ever tell anyone what happens tonight!” the girl requested earnestly.
“I promise,” Bob Thomas said. He was astounded.
Lin Pretti stared about in the darkness. “It must have struck around here!” she said tensely.
This puzzled Bob Thomas; he’d been inside the Spanish Plantation, had not seen the strange, roaring red thing come out of the night sky. The girl reached for the flashlight. He let her have it. She ran forward, searching.
“Look here!” Bob said. “If there is anything dangerous around, it’s no place for a girl. Maybe I’d better take you back!”
The girl just shuddered.
Bob Thomas obeyed a natural masculine impulse and put his arm around the young woman.
Lin Pretti looked up at him. “Bob—you love me, don’t you?” she said.
“By George, if I don’t, I’ll do until the next guy comes along!” he said heartily.
“Don’t, please,” the girl said strangely, “because you’re too nice a young man to die.”
They found the green man lying behind a bush.
He was alive. He had a lot of bony framework; once he must have been a giant. But now there was only hide and gristle on his bones.
The man was not really green. His garment was a cloth like silk, a green hue a little darker than grass. It resembled a suit of tights.
Circling the green man’s midriff was a shiny metal belt. Around his neck was a bright metal collar equipped with wing nuts, as if a helmet fitted there.
The green man had been burned badly, and one arm was broken. Probably he had other injuries. He looked at Lin Pretti. Scarlet crept from the corners of his mouth. Suddenly he recognized the girl.
“It has been a long time!” he gasped in accented English.
“Tony Vesterate!” the girl cried.
“Yes.” The green man’s voice was weak.
“You disappeared two years ago!” The girl bit her lips. “But you look so—so much older.”
Agony made the green man’s lips peel. “I am thirty-one.”
Bob Thomas realized the man looked fifty at least. The fellow seemed to be getting worse.
“I have been on the moon!” he screamed suddenly.
Bob Thomas sniffed skeptically. Then he turned to the girl. But Lin Pretti was stark rigidity from head to foot.
The green man stirred weakly, moaned.
“Have you got a knife?” he croaked.
“Knife?” Lin Pretti looked puzzled. “No.”
The green man’s hollow eyes sought Bob Thomas. “Have you?”
“Er—not much of a one,” Bob Thomas said, showing his knife, a tiny thing on the end of his watch chain.
“Give it to me!” the green man ordered.
Curious to see what the fellow wanted with the knife, Bob Thomas unhooked the tiny blade. He opened it for the man.
The green man twisted, got at his left leg, inserted the blade, and opened the green cloth. The ridge of a healed wound was revealed.
“If you’re squeamish, you had better turn around,” he said to the girl.
Lin Pretti quickly faced the other way.
The green man had courage. A moment later his shaking fingers were wiping the object he had excavated.
The object was a dark-blue, glasslike cylinder less than half an inch in diameter and no more than two inches long. The glasslike substance was too blue to reveal what was inside.
“Here is what—we were after,” the green man said.
Lin Pretti took the cylinder.
“I understand,” she said queerly.
The green man pointed toward the inlet. “Go down there and look,” he ordered. “It will be interesting.”
“We’d better do it, Bob,” Lin Pretti said quietly.
Bob Thomas reached reluctantly for the flashlight, and they ran toward the inlet. Bob kept roving the flashlight beam. The bushes were small and thick. When they finally stood on the shore of the inlet, its glassy surface seemed to mock them. Reflection of clouds and stars created an eerie mural on the surface of the water.
There was nothing to be found. They did a good job of searching.
“Queer he’d ask us to come down here,” Bob Thomas muttered.
When they went back to where they had left the green man, he was gone.
Chapter II
STRANGE MEN AND STRANGE QUESTIONS
Unexpected absence of the green man was such a shock that Bob Thomas extinguished his flashlight. He could not have explained just why, unless it was a feeling of some terror lurking. Now and then a disturbed bird made a fluttering noise in the brush. Cloud images on the bay resembled monsters and seemed to crawl over the tiny light points of the stars.
“He tricked us!” Bob Thomas muttered.
The girl said nothing.
Bob Thomas pointed his flashlight beam at the ground. Faint bloodstains could be distinguished where the green man had lain. “He was hurt too bad to have gone far. We’ll hunt him.”
“No!” the girl gasped. She took hold of the young man’s arm. “Please, Bob—we’ve got to leave here,” she said wildly.
And because he was in love with her, he followed her. They reached the top of the hill and started down toward the Spanish Plantation before he spoke.
“Lin,” he said sharply, “what is this all about?”
The girl walked faster. “Please, Bob! You mustn’t ask questions!”
Bob Thomas turned the flashlight on Lin Pretti’s face. He saw so much fear that it shocked him. He had thought the girl sounded scared; he had not expected such utter terror. Bob Thomas’s skin began to feel as if it wanted to crawl. He suddenly knew there was some incredible terror here, something hidden, something he did not see.
“That stuff about the moon—” Bob Thomas demanded suddenly. “What did the fellow mean?”
The girl shook her head slowly. “You would not understand, Bob.”
“You’re in trouble!” Bob Thomas grumbled. “I should have known that much when you asked me to investigate Doc Savage.”
The girl stopped.
“Oh, that!” She shook her head. “That had nothing to do with this. I was just—just curious.”
“Do you have to lie to me?”
The young woman threw up her chin and seemed about to fling something biting. Instead, she whirled and ran toward the Spanish Plantation. She flounced inside and slammed the door behind her.
Bob Thomas, his expression more puzzled than hurt, started to open the door. Then he reconsidered. His car, a small coupé, was parked in the nearby lot. He got behind the wheel, tore the top off a package of cigarettes and sat and smoked thoughtfully. After about ten minutes, an idea occurred to him, and he seized his flashlight and got out of the car.
He was going to hunt the green man.
Topping the ridge, he was surprised to see a light moving down near the bay, where he had last seen the green man. When he saw who was using the light, Thomas stopped very still.
Lin Pretti! The girl was removing the bloodstains where the green man had been!
Watching her, Bob Thomas was again impressed by her terror. In fact it was catching. Bob Thomas put a finger inside his collar as if it was tight and was choking his Adam’s apple, then rubbed his forehead in puzzlement. His brain would not accept such insanities as the dying man in green had revealed to him and Lin Pretti. And as for being on the moon, that too was ridiculous!
Bob Thomas knew Lin Pretti well enough to believe that she did not scare easily. And yet she was utterly frightened. He wondered what he should do. If he accosted her now, she would be angry. And he doubted if she would answer any questions.
Thinking about the girl, Bob Thomas caught himself wondering just exactly who she was. After all, no one seemed to know where she came from. She didn’t have a job evidently. As a matter of fact there was a good deal of mystery connected with her. Bob Thomas didn’t like it one bit. It smacked too much of trouble. And Bob Thomas was the type of fellow who didn’t go hunting for it.
Of course, if Lin Pretti really needed help badly, he’d be only too glad to help. But something told him Lin Pretti wanted anything but that right now. What she wanted most was to be alone. Bob Thomas gritted his teeth and swore.
While Bob Thomas watched, Lin Pretti moved toward the bay with an armload of bloodstained weeds, which she apparently was going to throw into the water.
She had been gone only a moment when hands unexpectedly took hold of Bob Thomas.
There were several pairs of hand. When Thomas fought them, some of the hands became fists and struck back. He went down with men in a fighting pile.
“Blast him!” a voice grated. “He’s not as weak as he looked!”
This was the first time Bob Thomas had ever heard himself called weak-looking. He was six feet two, and he had made a football name in college. He kicked, and heard a victim reel away moaning. Bob got an arm loose, struck. Someone fell heavily.
Clouds passing overhead made it dark. Bob Thomas began to feel confident that he was going to escape—or perhaps he might even whip them all!
“Behemoth!” someone screeched.
The tone which answered this call was one Bob Thomas never forgot. It was a great, gusty whisper. An incredibly cavernous whisper.
“Gimme room to take ’im!” said the whisper.
The men released Bob Thomas, and he stumbled to his feet, but not quickly enough to evade a charge. A great body hit him. Thomas struck back with his fist, hit something that felt more like iron than flesh. Then great arms squeezed him. He was suddenly and completely helpless.
“I got ’im!” said the huge whisper.
A flashlight blazed. Bob Thomas twisted to see what nature of monster held him.
Behemoth was a giant with hair on the back of his hands—bright-red hair—and no hair on his head. His face had freckles, his nose flared, and the bulge of his teeth gave his lower face a squarish effect. His shirt gaped at the neck to show red fur. His shirt had two pockets; both were full of cigars, and he was smoking one.
