"Doc Savage Adventure 1935-07 Quest of Qui" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

'The water splashed down the sides of the ice pit. It seemed warm at first, but that was some misinterpretation by Johnny's nerves. It became cold. It bit through his garments, soaked him. It mixed with the snow and became a slush that began to freeze instantly.

Johnny floundered about. The rock on his chest did not allow much of that, and what motion he did manage did not help much. His legs began to feel pleasantly warm. That seared him. Horror frosted his brain. That warmth - he was freezing.

"What do you want to know?" he gasped hastily.

Kettler leered down in the pit.

"Not a damn thing," he rasped. "I've decided we'll just put you in the ice here. Hell with what you know. Maybe they'll find you next spring, maybe not."

Johnny writhed, knowing it would not help. Blood rammed at his eardrums. He could hear a singing. It was his own horror, of course, but it made him think of the radio transmitter that he had left switched on. The transmitter was strong enough to reach Doc Savage's New York headquarters. If there had just been time to use it -

"More water!" Kettler called harshly. "Let's get this guy out of the way and get at the job of finding that golden-haired dame."

Johnny's head throbbed. The radio - the radio -



Chapter 4

THE KNIFE THAT THREW ITSELF


THE RADIO is undoubtedly a remarkable invention, with many possibilities. And probably no one individual knew more about radio, or employed it more assiduously, than did Doc Savage, man of miracles, mystery and adventure.

Doc Savage stood beside the complex radio equipment in his New York headquarters and listened to a steady hissing note which came from a loud-speaker.

"This is strange," he said. His voice was a remarkable one - controlled, a voice that had undergone much training.

Unusual as it was, the voice was hardly as remarkable as the man. Doc Savage was a giant. One did not realize that until comparison with ordinary objects, for his muscles were evenly developed; he did not have the knotted shoulders of a wrestler or the overdeveloped legs of a runner. Rather, his whole great frame was swathed in sinews that were remindful of bundled wires.

More striking was the bronze of his skin, a hue which might have come from many tropical suns, and the slightly darker bronze of his straight, tight-lying hair. His eyes were a little weird, being like pools of fine gold flakes being always stirred by tiny, invisible gales.

The loud-speaker hissed steadily.

"Renny!" Doc called.

There were windows on three sides of the laboratory which held the radio equipment, windows which looked down from a height of eighty-six stories up in central New York City. At one end was a door, which opened, revealing a library, a room with floor space taken up by bookcases.

The door was high, but the man who came through ducked a little so that its top would clear his head. He was broad, too, with arms that were beams. Yet somehow he looked lean, gaunt, hungry. Maybe it was his hands that made him look that way. They were fantastic hinds Huge. He could hardly have put either of them in a gallon pail.

"Yes," he said, and his voice somehow brought thoughts of a lion which had jumped out of its cave and roared.

"Listen to that, Renny," Doc Savage said, and indicated the hissing radio.

"Renny" came forward. He was Colonel John Renwick, M. S., C. E., D. S. C., C. M. H., and a lot of other things. He was a civil engineer noted over most of the world for his abilityand those fists.

He cocked an ear to the hissing from the radio. He walked over and eyed the dials, noting their setting. It was obvious that he was quite familiar with the apparatus.

"A transmitter sending on our wave length - the wave length we use for intercommunication," he said. "Sounds weak. Must be some amateur with a little transmitter."