"054 (B089) - Ost (The Magic Island) (1937-08) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"No. Martin Space is a white man. And there was a woman, who was also white. The rest were Ostians."
"What do the Ostians look like?"
Ben Brasken had to think over that, too. "I guess, when I first saw them, I thought of them as the spider-armed men."
"Eh?"
"The spider-armed men. They have blue bodies, too."
The skipper suddenly decided he had enough of this. Ben Brasken looked so inhuman that talking to him was not a pleasure.
"Well, well, Ben, this is all very interesting, and I know I want to hear more about it," he said. "But you must be tired, and now I want you to have a good long rest. You can have a cabin all to yourself, and we will just lock the door so no one will be bothering you."
Ben Brasken became animated.
"No, no!" he cried out vehemently. "You must turn and go to Ost at once! That is why I am here. I came to get you to save Ost from the horror!"
"You know that way to Ost?" Captain Smooth asked, interested in spite of his common sense.
"Oh, yes. Come here and I'll show you."
BEN BRAXTEN went to a porthole and pointed through it.
"There," he said. "You can see Ost as plain as can be."
There was nothing when Captain Smooth looked.
"Sure, sure," Captain Smooth said gently. "You just go to sleep and have a rest, and we'll wake you when we anchor at Ost."
He took Ben Brasken's elbow.
Ben Brasken looked at him. He jerked his elbow away.
"Don't act that way!" he shrieked. "You think I'm crazy! You don't believe me! I tell you, I'm as sane as any man on this ship! You've got to go to Ost. They sent me for you. They need help. They've got to have it!"
"Of course, of course," murmured Captain Smooth. "Don't get me wrong, Ben. We'll sail for Ost."
Ben Brasken was not fooled. He became a raving fiend, and tried to get at the gun Captain Smooth kept in his desk.
It took five stout sailors to lash poor Ben Brasken to a stout, padded plank in a spare cabin. Ben Brasken then fainted. He was very weak, and apparently had been without food for days. They noted that his hands were skinned, and thick callouses were on the palms. The palms were also cut and bruised.
Ben Brasken would eat when he regained consciousness. But when they asked him questions, he only glared at them, after saying that what was the use, since they thought him crazy.
When the ship reached San Francisco, they transferred Ben Brasken to the mental ward of a hospital for observation.
Chapter II. THE LADY DIRIGIBLE BUYER
THE strange case of Ben Brasken came to the attention of Doc Savage in the shape of a typewritten report, the first sheet of which was headed:
INCIDENTS POSSIBLY WORTH ATTENTION,
No. 9163. BRASKEN, BEN,
(Sailor who saw phantom city.)
There were a lot of other reports with this one. They covered incidents pretty much all over the world. Some of the reports apparently had no meaning. The premier of an obscure European country had deposited a hundred thousand dollars in his bank account. A famous racketeer had been released from the penitentiary. A scientist had developed an electrical treatment for curing color blindness in the human eye, it was believed.
These reports were made up for Doc Savage by his five aids.
Doc Savage's headquarters occupied the top floor of New York's tallest building. He remained there most of the time, and did not venture out in public, for he had a genuine dislike for being noticed.
It was impossible for him to go about without being noticed. He was a bronze giant who made almost every other man seem small in comparison, although his muscular development was so symmetrical that he did not seem such a giant when standing off by himself. He had straight bronze hair, a little darker than his skin. But his eyes probably made him more striking than any other feature.
They were like pools of flake gold stirred steadily by tiny winds, and they possessed a penetrating, almost hypnotic quality which was quite disturbing, especially to somebody with a guilty conscience.
Doc had been trained from childhood by scientists. He was a scientific product. He had never had a normal youth. The result was that he was an amazing personage. The newspapers called him a mental wizard and a muscular marvel.
Doc Savage read the report about Ben Brasken without showing any emotion.
With Doc in the library of the skyscraper headquarters were two of his aids.
William Harper Littlejohn, more often called "Johnny," had often been described as being two men high and half a man thick. He wore a monocle attached to his lapel. It was really a magnifying glass. Johnny was an eminent archaeologist and geologist. He had one habit which might some day get him slaughtered: He never used a small word when he could think of a big one.
Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks was the best-dressed man in America, most persons admitted. He was also a noted lawyer, and carried a harmless-looking black cane that was really a sword cane. Those who knew him very well, or could outrun him, called him "Ham." He did not like the nickname.
Ham had one bad habit: It was Chemistry, his pet. Chemistry was either an ape, chimpanzee, gorilla or baboon, or a mixture. Scientists who tried to figure out just what Chemistry was frequently gave it up and called him the what-is-it.
Doc had just put the Ben Brasken report down and was looking at it when "Monk" came in, looking very excited.
MONK was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, chemical wizard, owner of a pet pig called Habeas Corpus. Monk looked almost exactly like Ham's what-is-it, Chemistry, would look like if he weighted two hundred and fifty or so pounds.
Monk was indeed excited. He shifted from one stubby, bowed leg to another.
Ham looked at Monk.
"It must be a woman," Ham said sourly. "Something in skirts is sure to get that freak of nature all worked up. Just anything in skirts will do the trick."
Monk looked at Ham. He looked at Ham as if the latter were a fly some one had missed with the swatter.
"You shyster!" Monk squeaked, in a small child's voice. "Some day I'm gonna cram you all into one shoe!"
Doc asked quietly, "What is it, Monk?"
"A lady to see you," Monk said. He gazed at the ceiling ecstatically. "And brothers, is she class!"
"I told you so," Ham jeered.
"Show her in," Doc requested.