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| Art by John Buscema & Vince Colletta |
Read the Previous Chapter HERE!
Chapter 9: Sunken Sabotage
Meanwhile, Captain. America was driving the Quinjet away from the South Pacific. He had left Goliath and the Wasp on a centrally located island, whence their search for the third Earth doom would begin.
As the speck disappeared in the blue skies, the Wasp turned to Goliath. “What a search we've got ahead of us, High Pockets! There are hundreds -of islands, small and large, in this group. On which one is Karzz the Conqueror operating?”
“He’s probably not even here yet,” Goliath answered. “Remember that on our flight here, Cap picked up Iron Man.’s radio call, telling how they had found Karzz there with his Infrared Beamer. So he can hardly be here with his Vulcan Machine.”
“Then that means we have to wait for him,” said the girl, happily. “In that case, Big Blue Eyes, why don’t we pitch a little woo?” ‘
Her arms encircled him and her lips drew close to his, temptingly. But his lips began to move upward, out of reach.
“Oh, you spoiler!” she pouted. “Why did you shoot up to your ten-foot size and frustrate me?”
“Because this isn’t the time or place for the Romeo and Juliet bit,” retorted the giant. “After all, 'We’re on Avenger business.”
“Oh, fine!” said the disappointed girl. “You and your sense of duty! Here we are alone on a desert isle—well, a tropical isle—and what’s on your mind? Anything but romantic thoughts. Sometimes I could kick you, Henry Pym.”
“You couldn’t reach that high,” said Goliath with grin. Then he became serious. “Listen, Wasp. Its possible that Karzz came here first, before going to Antarctica, and left the Vulcan machine operating under automatic or remote controls. So -our hunt should begin immediately. That’s why there’s no time for moonlight and roses.”
“Okay,” sighed the girl. “What’s the plan?”
Goliath was now shrinking back to human size, but he didn’t stop there. “Shrink down with me, Wasp,” he called from her knee. “In insect size, we can visit the islands one by one and find out what’s cooking in the alien’s pot.”
Willing herself to reduce, the girl also began shrinking until both of them stood in a towering forest—of grass.
Almost immediately, a lumbering tiger-beetle charged them. from under a rock.
“Look out!” yelled the Wasp.
The tiny Ant-Man, with the strength of a Goliath, met the charge with a swinging fist that cracked the beetle on its snout. It paused dizzily. This gave Ant-Man time to grasp its hard shell at one side and heave mightily. The beetle flipped over on its back, helplessly waving its legs in the air.
“Have fun working your way upright,” said the miniature Goliath. He turned to the Wasp. “You can shoot out wings at will and fly, but l need a flying steed of the insect world, like the Flying Ant I once used.”
He pointed upward. “And why not a classy type like the one up on that flower?”
Above them, a butterfly drank of the blossom’s nectar, its gauzy wings slowly opening and closing, oblivious to the world in its ecstasy of feasting. Putting a finger to his lips, Ant-Man began climbing the stalk of a nearby flower that towered higher than where his quarry ‘perched. '
When he reached the topmost blossom, he stood on the petals and leaped, straight down onto the butterfly’s back. Like a bucking bronco, the startled butterfly flapped into the air, twisting and darting wildly.
“You won’t shake me off,” sang out Ant-Man, his legs straddling its thorax and his hands holding onto the edge of its carapace. After the butterfly had exhausted itself, the micro-man reached and seized its two feathery antennae at the base, letting them slide through his hands until he gripped the ends tightly.
“My reins,” he called down. “The butterfly will be sensitive to the slightest pull right or left and turn that way.”
He demonstrated, making the butterfly turn gracefully into an immelmann turn and then zigzag gently on even keel.
The Wasp now came flying alongside under her own power.
“If it were a horsefly,” she said in a tinkling voice, “you’d be a horseman. What are you on a butterfly—a butterman?”
Ant-Man smiled wanly. “Nice try, Wasp. But I can’t be cheered up. There’s too much at stake here. Now, let’s go. There’s nothing suspicious on this island, so it’s on to the next one.”
Guiding his gaily colored mount upward, Ant-Man headed for a nearby island, with the Wasp pacing him. A prevailing breeze increased their speed and blew them swiftly across the intervening waters.
They circled over the small atoll, finding it barren of any human habitation or any man-made structure.
“We drew a blank here,” said Ant-Man. “On to the next island...and the next...”
They lost count of the tropical isles they visited, some inhabited by natives, some thriving with modern industry, but none of them harboring the slightest sign of an alien machine at work.
They had no survival kits along, for they could not have reduced those to tiny size. But they drank of flower nectars, sweet and satisfying. And when tired, they slept for a short time snugly in tulip-like blossoms, cushioned with soft pollen. All the Avengers had trained themselves to do without sleep for longer stretches of time than other people could endure.
"Feeding his butterfly mount at a lily-like “drinking trough,” Ant-Man felt discouraged. “Are we on a wild-goose chase trying to locate our alien friend?”
Flying over the next island, they looked down into a crater. “Many of these islands are volcanic in origin,” the pointed out. “Very few are live volcanoes, however. “This one is deader than a doornail. . . .”
BLAMMMM!
At that moment, with a deafening blast, the supposedly dead volcano split open and erupted flame and smoke.
“Quick!” gasped Ant-Man. “Fly higher.”
Gaining altitude, they escaped the molten lava discharge that now scorched through the air and showered the surrounding Waters with fiery sparks. .
Ant-Man jerked his winged steed around as another blast sounded to the north. “Another volcano erupting,” he said, and then stared -incredulously. One after another, a string of volcanic islands stretching into the distance blew their tops.
“Great heavens!” cried the Wasp. “It’s as if a string of firecrackers were being set off.”
“Right” yelled back Ant-Man above the thunderous dln. “And set off by...Karzzz, the Conqueror!”
“What?”
“The other three dooms, he said, would involve water, air, and fire. Well, if this isn't ‘fire’ I’ll eat it.” He snapped his fingers. “Idiots, that’s what we are. The clue was right in front of -our noses all the time. Wasp, where does the name Vulcan come from?”
“Why, the ancient legend in Greek mythology of an underground god...Ah, I get what you’re driving at. Karzz and his Vulcan Machine must he down below.”
“Right,” said Ant-Man again. “And that first volcanic island that erupted may mark where he’s operating. Let's go. We’ve got to take a chance and run through the fiery hail of the eruption, down to the island itself.”
As they flew downward, great globs of molten lava sailed by, along With a blast of heated air.
“We’ll be cooked alive by the time we get there,” gasped the Wasp, her skin red from heat. “Maybe we haven’t got a chance.”
“Keep going!” snapped Ant-Man. “Our small size is our salvation. It’s like insects flitting through a hail of shells and bullets, with little chance of a direct hit.”
And so, somewhat the worse for wear, they gained the sanctuary of the island’s jungle, at a spot where no forest fire had yet started, and where no rivers of molten lava had flowed.
“Down there,” pointed Ant-Man, “is a cave. It all adds up that Karzz is here, underground. In we go....”
They were thankful for the dim coolness of the cave and the outside thunders of the volcanic barrage were muted as they went in deeper. When the outside sounds were nearly inaudible, the Wasp stopped to hover in the air with a hand to her ear.... The Ant-Man heard it too.
Ahead of them sounded a deep low rumble. “It sounds like a machine all right, a big one,” said Ant-Man excitedly. “Time now to switch to human size and explore the cave system further.”
Moments later, in their normal stature, Henry Pym waved farewell to the butterfly he had been riding before. Then he took the Wasp’s hand and trotted along the winding passageways that linked a maze of natural caves under this island.
The rumble grew louder, and became a low roar. The tunnels widened out now, and they eventually stepped into a huge central cavern from which the sound reverberated. At first, in the dim underground lighting, they could see nothing except a vague hulking shape.
Then it took form as a pattern of machined parts—huge pipes, an enormous piston pump, a bulging chamber that glowed with nuclear fires, and what looked like an electronic computer system controlling it all.
“The Vulcan Machine,” breathe. the Wasp. She clutched Pym’s arm in sudden alarm. “Look…handling the master push buttons . . .”
“Karzz?” muttered Pym. “This is mighty peculiar. How could Iron Man report him in Antarctica, if he’s here?”
The Answer to That and Other Questions May be Found at Hero Histories On Friday in...
Chapter Ten: Doom Machine!
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