Chapter 14

Christmas Among the Dead-Part 3

At 09:07 in the morning, Kaiser Adolf Dietz was back in the wireless room. Once again, all of the operators were cleared out. Some of the wireless machines beeped with messages coming in from all corners of New Prussia, but Dietz ignored them. He was deep in conversation with his closest friend, Colonel Ernst Hoffman.

Dietz: So have you confirmed the presence of a kong?

Hoffman: Yes, Excellency. I have found footprints.

Dietz: How large do you think the kong is?

Hoffman: Quite large, Excellency. Definitely a silverback, and large even for a silverback.

Dietz: Does he appear to be alone?

Hoffman: I think so. There looked to be some human sized tracks, but there were heavy rains yesterday and it is very difficult to tell for certain.

Dietz: What direction are the tracks going?

Hoffman: South, Excellency.

Dietz felt a brief coldness settle into his chest. There were wild rumors among some of the primitives that there might be a remnant population of kong to the north, towards the main body of the continent. But if such were the case, why would a kong silverback head to the south? Unless there was a hidden population somewhere towards the end of the peninsula, the silverback would find no companionship there.

Hoffman: Excellency, there is something else, something potentially even more important than the presence of a kong.

More important than a kong? Dietz could scarcely imagine what that might be!

Dietz: What is that, Colonel?

Hoffman: I believe that I have found a crashed airship, one unlike any that I have seen before. It has neither wings nor balloon, but it is quite large, bigger than any airplane I have seen, and inside the pilot's cabin I saw evidence of very advanced technology.

Dietz was suddenly very angry at his friend Colonel Hoffman! Why had he wasted time talking about some remnant kong when he had made a find like this?

Dietz: Do you have any idea where the ship came from? Were there any survivors? Do you think that they are connected with the male kong?

Hoffman: No to all three questions, Excellency. Perhaps this ship came from Earth, flew through the mist, and wrecked here. I think that the passengers might have survived the crash, but I don't think the pilot could have. As for the passengers, I think they were attacked by a pack of land crocodiles, and the crocodiles probably had their usual followers. I was attacked by a Vastatosaur this morning.

Dietz: So you think that everyone who was on board this mystery ship was killed.

Hoffman: Yes, Excellency.

Dietz: Let us hope so. Follow the track of the kong. When you catch up to him, kill him.

Hoffman: Yes, Excellency.

Dietz took off the headset from the wireless he was using. He turned to Counselor Sitter.

"Let the operators in," Dietz said. "The instructions remain the same as before. If Colonel Hoffman transmits a message, I am to be contacted immediately."

A kong and an artifact from a technologically advanced civilization, all in one place? Could such a thing be coincidence? The only advantages Dietz and New Prussia had were their advanced technologies, most of them taken from the blueprints and designs he and his men found in three safes on the RMS Hellenic. However, technology may well have come much further on Earth during the 16 years they had been absent. More disturbing yet, most of Freya was completely unexplored, and somewhere there might be a more advanced civilization, one unknown to him. Either way, interlopers from an advanced civilization were a threat to his rule, one that could not be tolerated.

Kong took all four of them down the cliff on his back. The wounds on his back were still bleeding, and some of them started to smell of infection. The climb was made somewhat more awkward by Kong's gentle attendance to the body of J'halla. T'maru almost wanted to tell Kong that it was OK, that he didn't need to haul his friend's body with him. But Kong obviously had his own thoughts about the proper care of the dead, and T'maru had a hypothesis concerning the great ape's intentions. Upon reaching the ground, Kong took all four of them off of his back and went into the nearest stand of trees. A couple of times he stood up, and his head cleared the trees. Some of the trees were much smaller versions of those found in the giant forest, others were new species. None of them looked familiar to T'maru.

Kong appeared to find what he was looking for, and started to ingest some specific leaves. As Kong ate the leaves he made a face, as if the leaves were bitter. The behavior if not the plant was very familiar to the Black Panther of the Wakanda.

"He's self medicating," T'maru said to Doc.

Doc looked at him. He did not look surprised, but he looked interested.

"Why do you say that, T'maru?" Doc asked.

"I've seen it both with the mountain gorillas living on our western border, and the chimpanzees living on our eastern border," T'maru answered.

As if to confirm T'maru's hypothesis, Kong then took some of the leaves and pushed them against the wounds on his back. Some of the wounds, however, he could not reach. Doc jogged over and held his hands up. Kong handed Doc some of the leaves and laid himself down on his stomach. Doc climbed on Kong's back and gently placed the leaves on and even in the wounds. He then took some of the left over leaves and put them in a pouch on his belt. Ever the physician and scientist, that was Doc. T'maru could relate.

T'maru turned to Ann Darrow.

"See those rocks over there?" he asked.

"Yes," Ann said.

"Now is the time for you to try to shoot a pellet," T'maru said.

Ann nodded. T'maru was extremely impressed with her attention to his lessons, and even more by the quickness with which she learned. She was even quicker at learning to use the spear than a young Doc Savage. She quickly became accurate at aiming the beams of high frequency coherent sound.

T'maru handed Ann one of the small steel and vibranium balls he was carrying. The pellets were made of the same mixture of vibranium and steel alloys that the shaft was constructed of. This resulted in perfect reflection of the sound, and since the pellet, unlike the shaft, was not anchored to anything, the ball shot out at speeds up to 8 times faster than the speed of sound! The speed of the pellet, however, was directly related to the intensity and quality of the hypersonic note produced by the person blowing into the reed. A skillful shooter could vary the intensity of the note, and therefore the speed and impact of the pellet. This was why he had to find something very solid to shoot the balls into. People new to the sonic spear tended to play it as hard as they could, and Ann Darrow was already producing a note of very high quality and intensity.

"Slide the lever back, and you will be able to load the pellet into the side of the spear," T'maru explained. "Then let it slide back, like this."

Ann followed T'maru's demonstration precisely.

"See that outcrop of basalt there?" T'maru said, pointing to a jagged black outcropping about 200 yards distant. The outcropping was about 30 feet high and 24 feet thick. "Try to fire your pellet into the center of the mass."

Ann nodded and brought the mouthpiece to her lips. She held the spear carefully as it trembled somewhat in her hands. Although the spear was relatively lightweight, it was slightly longer than T'maru was tall, which made it difficult for the relatively diminutive Ann Darrow to hold steady from one end, rather than the middle.

But then Ann exhaled and, with a visible effort on her part, the spear became steady. As soon as it was steady, Ann blew into the reed.

There was an explosion of rock from right in the middle of the outcropping. Ann's eyes went wide in surprise.

T'maru was rendered almost speechless. He had just witnessed the best first attempt with a sonic spear that he had ever seen.

The great wall, with its huge wooden door, was precisely as Jack Driscoll remembered it. Well, not precisely. Most of the wood in the door was new. Obviously, the natives had been very motivated to repair the damage Kong had caused while chasing him and Ann. Behind him, a stiff wind blew in from the sea, and the great door creaked a little.

The last time he was looking at this door, he was hearing the screams of Ann Darrow from the other side. He was half expecting to hear them again now. This was the wall that the people here had built to keep out the monsters.

Monsters like Kong.

Except that this time, they were here at Kong's invitation, and the last time he had seen the great ape, rather than trying to kill him, the giant gorilla had saved the playwright's life.

"Hey, Jack, don't spend too much time oogling the door. Stay alert."

This comment had come from Pat Savage, who was watching the natives darting in and out from behind the tombs. She held the machine pistol like she knew how to use it. Driscoll had received some instruction in the things, and he was already familiar with firearms from his time in the Army National Guard. He was too young to have fought in the Great War, but he did go through the ROTC program at SUNY.

Johnny came up beside him.

"Mr. Driscoll, you said that you saw quite a few ruins on the other side of this wall?" the archeologist and paleontologist asked. Johnny had soon given up on using his large words with Jack, since the playwright had demonstrated that he had no difficulty understanding what the gaunt giant was saying. Jack had simply and quietly pointed out that word use was his profession. He hadn't even bothered to point out that before he became a successful writer of plays, novels, and most recently movie scripts, he had taught writing at Empire State University, which was one of Johnny's ala maters.

"Yeah," Driscoll replied. "And the ruins were much larger out there than in here."

"Hardly surprising," Johnny said. "I suspect that the heart of the civilization was 'out there'. This was simply the graveyard."

"I figured that, but I don't understand how that is possible," Driscoll said. "On the other side of that wall is a jungle full of huge and aggressive animals. How could anyone have built a city out there?"

"An excellent inquiry," Johnny said.

The trail was difficult to follow. There were several points where Hoffman had to get out of the tank and walk back and forth until he found a kong track.

But eventually all his tracking efforts were rewarded when he found the nest.

Just to the west of New Prussia, some of the huge trees were still home to old kong nests. The nests with their woven tree branch frames and their packed leaf walls often lasted for years. This one, however, was obviously fresh, probably less than a Freyan day old. As always, Hoffman marveled at the intricate design of the nests. There were drainage holes on the bottom and there was an overhang to protect the occupant from rain.

As Hoffman looked at the nest, he smelled the stink of death, but didn't really look around until he felt a painful bite on the back of his hand. A fly about 15 centimeters in length had landed on his hand. He grabbed it, pulled off a wing, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it.

Then he noticed the source of the foul smell; two dead Loboraptors, one male and one female. Both had obviously fallen from the nest, which was troubling. Loboraptors were not rash enough to attack adult kong unless the huge apes were accompanied by potential prey. The prey might be either very young kong or human caregivers to the infant kong.

Hoffman walked very cautiously around the tree containing the nest. It looked like the kong who built it had departed hours ago, but it never hurt to be too careful. Furthermore, the survivors of the Loboraptor pack were still probably close by, perhaps even watching him from the trees. As he walked, Hoffman noticed the body of a third Loboraptor hanging high in the vine net. He took out his binoculars, looked up at the dead dinosaur, and saw that the head was crushed. This kong was formidable indeed to have killed three Loboraptors! In fact, Hoffman could only think of one kong who could…

…but that was impossible!

Hoffman went over to inspect the body of the yellow female, expecting to see another crushed head.

What he saw instead changed everything.

"But, Father, why did you increase their rations after I cut them?" Adolf Dietz the Second petulantly asked his father, Kaiser Adolf Dietz the First.

Dietz sat at his desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The self proclaimed Kaiser of New Prussia loved his son, but sometimes he simply wanted to strangle the boy. Never mind the fact that, at age fifteen, the son already dwarfed the father. Young Adolf was huge, and looked at least ten years over his actual age.

"You don't seem to understand these things yet," Dietz said to his son. "The thralls maintained their level of production even after their rations were cut. Now that we have made an example of some of them, and punished all of them, the lesson has been learned. Now, as they are fed full meals, their strength will return and their productivity will increase."

"Their productivity is supposed to increase now," Adolf the son whined. "Their production figures are almost identical to those of last week."

Dietz rubbed the bridge of his nose harder. His head was starting to hurt.

"To maintain productivity on half rations is to increase their level of production," Dietz said. "Do you not understand this? Have I not explained this to you several times before?"

At that moment, there was a soft knock on Dietz's office door.

"Who is it?" demanded both Dietz's in unison.

"It is I, Excellency," Sitter said. "You wanted me to come get you when Colonel Hoffman sent his next wireless message."

"Colonel Hoffman?" exclaimed the younger Adolf Dietz. "He was supposed to teach me how to run the tank, but you let him go off hunting after you executed his traitor wife…"

"What are you doing here?" the older Adolf Dietz asked suddenly, pointedly interrupting his son. "Aren't you supposed to be taking your classes? Algebra, in fact?"

"Frau Nutter is boring," Adolf II replied. "You should execute her and find someone else to teach me."

Dietz felt his face turn red.

"Go back to Frau Nutter immediately!" Dietz snarled. "If you do not respect my rules, you are not my son!"

The huge, bronze skinned boy's face turned dark with anger. The bronze flecks in the boy's golden eyes seemed to whirl.

"I am your son!" Adolf II proclaimed angrily. "I…"

Dietz cut him off.

"You are currently doing nothing more than wasting my time," Dietz said. "It is best that you remember who the Kaiser of New Prussia is! You are to follow my rules just as everyone else does. The penalty for not following my rules will be harsh for you just as it is for everyone else! Is that clear, boy?"

Adolf II's facial expression changed from petulant rage to abject terror.

"I'm very sorry, Father," Adolf II said contritely. "Due to the difficulty of my studies, I have just been under so much strain recently."

Strain, thought Dietz bitterly. The boy clearly had no concept of deprivation, limits, or deadlines. Therefore, he had no real concept of stain.

"Go to Frau Nutter and apologize to her immediately!" Dietz said to his son. Then the Kaiser of New Prussia turned on his heel and walked out on his stunned son.

As before, Dietz walked the hallway accompanied by Sitter and his two huge bodyguards. He checked his Freya watch. It was now 21:44 in the afternoon. Sitter opened the door to the wireless room and shooed out the operators. Sitter then pointed to the wireless machine that was receiving Colonel Hoffman's message.

Hoffman: I have found a fresh kong nest.

Dietz: Have you found the kong yet?

Hoffman: No, Excellency, I have not. But I did find three dead Loboraptors.

Dietz: Three dead Loboraptors. This implies a very powerful kong.

Hoffman: That was what I thought at first, Excellency, and indeed one of the Lobos was obviously killed by the kong, but the other two…

Dietz sighed as he rubbed his nose. His headache was getting worse, and he hated it when someone attempted to insert a dramatic pause in a wireless message.

Hoffman: …were shot by automatic weapons.

Dietz stopped rubbing his nose. He was stunned. It was bad enough that a kong had returned to the lower peninsula, but to think that the beast might have human allies, allies with advanced weaponry! Advanced technology, especially weaponry, was what had allowed Dietz and his men to create an empire out of the wilderness and to impose their will on the other inhabitants of this peninsula.

Dietz: Evidently, some of the passengers of the airship survived.

Hoffman: Perhaps. Or perhaps some of their fellows came looking for them, and brought their kong friend with them.

Dietz would have gladly shot his good friend Ernst Hoffman at that moment if he had been standing in front of him.

Dietz: Find the kong and his companions and radio back with their location. Enough is enough. We are going to kill the kong and interrogate his human allies.

Hoffman: Yes, Excellency.

After disengaging from the wireless, Dietz looked at Sitter.

"Find Kressler and tell him to fuel the planes and have them ready for takeoff," Dietz said. "I think Colonel Hoffman may need some help on this one."

Sitter nodded and turned to leave.

"One more thing, Counselor," Dietz said.

"Yes, Excellency?" Sitter asked.

"Prepare U170 for departure," Dietz said. "You will take command."

"Excellency?" Sitter said, trying and failing to keep the dismay out of his voice. Sitter preferred to stay close to the ruler of New Prussia. He liked the amenities of the Royal Office.

"I need a man who I can trust on this mission," Dietz said. "If a ship of armed intruders has indeed arrived from Earth, I want it and its crew dealt with."

Sitter clicked his heels together and bowed at the waist.

"At once, Excellency."

After Kong ate the medicinal plants and had his wounds packed with them, the great ape rested for about an hour. When Kong stood up, he seemed to be much improved. The group then walked for another two hours before Kong stopped again.

At first, Ann Darrow didn't recognize where they were. Then she saw the literal carpet of bones, and she remembered. They were at the very first place Kong brought her, the dumping ground where the remains of the previous sacrifices rested!

"Holy Cow!" Renny whispered. "Doc, it looks like a killing ground. Do you think that Kong killed all those girls here?"

Ann looked at Doctor Savage. She remembered Kong waving her above the skeletons, all of which wore the same sort of sacrificial necklace that the natives had put on her. To this day, she still didn't know what Kong would have done to her if she hadn't stabbed him with the necklace.

"Look at what else is in the bone pile, Renny, before making any hasty judgments," Doctor Savage said quietly. Renny crept forward for a closer look at the remains. Ann followed closely on his heels. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to look at, but the big engineer suddenly shook his head in apparent self disgust.

"Of course, Doc!" Renny said. "I should've seen it."

"Mr. Renwick," Ann said. "I'm still not sure I see it!"

"Look at the leaf mulch around the bones," Renny said. "Look familiar?"

Ann looked closer for several seconds before suddenly realizing the significance of what she was looking at.

"These are the same leaves as the one that Kong wrapped T'maru's friend in!" Ann exclaimed.

"Precisely," Doctor Savage said. "When Mr. Driscoll told me about the large number of predators here in one breath, and in another breath told me about the bone pile where Kong 'disposed' of his previous 'victims', I knew that an error of perception had probably occurred."

"What do you mean, Doctor Savage?" Ann asked. In truth, she had forgotten about the bone pile as she had gotten to know Kong. But the inference that the previous sacrifices had been killed and dumped by Kong still seemed obvious.

"How many skeletons have you seen here, Miss Darrow?" Doctor Savage asked.

"Quite a few, actually," Ann said.

"Where?" Doc asked.

"In the city behind the wall," Ann answered. "The place Carl calls the 'City of the Dead'."

Doc nodded.

"And how about out here in the jungle?" Doc asked. "Any skeletal remains?"

"Well, there are the skeletons here and in Kong's cave…" Ann said.

"Kong's cave contained the skeletons of his own kind, correct?" Doc said. "It is high and relatively remote. Here, however, the bodies were obviously wrapped like J'halla's body. I suspect that the leaves discourage scavenging. In a place like this, with so many predators and scavengers, intact bodies would be extraordinarily rare. If the bodies of these women had simply been dumped here, we would see no sign of them except perhaps a stray bone or two from the latest arrivals. Remember how little we found by the Wakandan airship."

"You mean…this isn't a dumping ground, is it?" Ann said.

"Hardly," Doc said. "This is a burial ground. A sacred place where Kong has laid his previous honored dead."

"Wait a minute, Doc," Renny rumbled. "I get the fact that Kong has laid these bodies here as a way to honor the dead, but look at the condition of the bodies. Most of them look like they've been torn apart. Why do they look like that?"

"I know why," Ann said. "It's really not so hard to understand. I was attacked by giant bugs, land crocodiles, and giant meat eating dinosaurs the first time I was here. And on this trip, we were attacked by those feathered dinosaurs. I bet he tried to save each sacrifice, but all it would take is one little mistake, one little lapse, and that would be it. Some creature would get her and tear her apart.

"These body parts, they're the only ones Kong could salvage. I mean, you should have seen how hard he fought those three big dinosaurs to save me. I'm sure he fought just as hard for the other sacrifices as well. Think how awful it must have been. His family was already gone, and now the only companions he had were taken from him, over and over, even though he fought so hard to save them."

Ann reached out and briefly touched T'maru's shoulder.

"Kong understands," she said. "He understands the importance of saying goodbye, and of respecting the dead. That's why he brought us here…brought J'halla here."

And sure enough, as T'maru stood beside him, Kong gently laid J'halla's leaf wrapped body on the pile. Ann's eyes started to sting, and her vision blurred. Just when she thought that she couldn't be more awed by the huge gorilla's sensitivity, Kong surprised her yet again!

With the friend of the little dark skinned ape laid to proper rest, it was time to get going again. Night would be falling soon, and while the insects, spiders, crabs, and scorpions did not pose a significant threat to Kong, they would still pose a threat to his little companions. His back felt much better, so Kong took the yellow haired crested ape and put her on his back. The little dark skinned ape now carried both of the silver tube weapons, and Kong had watched as the little yellow haired ape became more proficient with hers. Hopefully, however, he could get them all to the walled colony, and the female's new skill with the weapon would not be tested.

Kong started to lead the three little male apes towards the walled colony. However, they didn't get far until they came upon one of the larger ruins. The bronze and dark skinned ape both ran over to it. Kong growled to get their attention, but they continued to chatter to one another excitedly in their sound segmented language.

And they were running out of time.

"Congratulations, Doc," T'maru said. "Your theory is confirmed."

Doc stopped himself from trilling almost as soon as he started. They were looking at the remains of a wall, quite possibly a palace wall. Most of the building had fallen down hundreds of years before. Doc noticed that there were large chunks of basalt and limestone that did not belong in this location, and yet did not appear to be part of the ruins either. However, the style of architecture was unmistakable to anyone who had attended an archeological dig in the Wakanda.

"This wall, it's built in the same style as the ruins excavated by T'imi, my father, and Harper Littlejohn, correct?" Doc asked T'maru.

"Correct," T'maru answered. "This style was prevalent during the first five hundred years of Wakandan history."

T'maru then walked closer to the wall and bent down on a knee.

"Doc," he said. "There's writing here."

Doc went over to T'maru's side. He heard Kong cough and growl behind him.

The writing of the ancient Wakandans, and therefore also presumably the people of the ancient lost city of Zinj, consisted of drawings that depicted scenes. However, like the ancient Egyptians, the pictures actually also formed the basis of a written language.

At the bottom of the wall was part of a small relief. Part of it depicted a man pointing outwards, and behind him was a giant male gorilla strikingly similar to Kong. Another part of it depicted four men pointing spears at what appeared to be another giant gorilla, but it was difficult to tell because the artwork, and therefore the writing, was cut off.

"Can you read this, T'maru?" Doc asked.

T'maru shook his head.

"I'm not certain," T'maru said. "This is not identical to the ancient language of my ancestors. This sequence must have been written after the language had evolved on its own course.

"Still, what I can understand simply by looking at the pictures is that the people here were apparently allied with the giant gorillas, just as the people of Zinj were allied with their grey gorillas."

Doc pointed to the incomplete second scene on the relief.

"Perhaps the alliance ended," he said.

Kong growled again, this time louder.

"Uhm, Doc, T'maru," Renny said. "I think that Kong is anxious for us to get going again."

It was too late.

The sun was already almost at the horizon, and the shadows were now very long. The sun would set, and the insects and other large arthropods would soon be out searching for prey. Kong would not be able to make it to the walled colony before that happened.

But he could make it home if he left now.

Kong reached over to pick up the little apes and put them next to the yellow haired ape already on his back.

The kong's trail ended at the Great Break.

Hoffman stood in front of the tank. Horst kept the engine running. It would soon be night, and Horst would have to stop the tank for the night, and both of them would have to take shelter in it.

The kong obviously climbed down the cliff here, but it was far too vertical for the tank to go down. Further to the east, the slope would be gentler. They would have to take the tank east, then down, then backtrack.

But it would have to be done tomorrow.

Patricia Savage watched Jack Driscoll with a sympathetic eye. He was obviously disappointed that Kong hadn't brought Ann back yet. Pat was worried, but not too worried. She knew that Doc would protect her, and she was almost certain that Kong would keep his promise.

"It just takes a lot longer to get here on foot, even for Kong, than it took us to get here by ship," Pat said to Driscoll.

Driscoll nodded.

"I know," he said. "But I just hate this. I feel so helpless with Ann out there somewhere!"

"Hey guys," Monk said from behind them. "I think we need everyone in the Rumbler now. The sun's going down, and most of the people lurking around are not giving us friendly looks."

Driscoll nodded.

"They aren't friendly," the playwright said with conviction. "They aren't friendly at all."

Next

Chapter 15

The Long Night

Remember when I said that the next two chapters would be climactic and change the direction of this story?

Well, I goofed. I had to divide this chapter in two. The problem is that I have to get several characters to a designated place at a designated time. Logistically, that is turning out to be harder to do that I thought without invoking something magical like teleportation, or making "Skull Island" a.k.a. the Great Peninsula of Atlantis, smaller than I imagine it. So, there will be another chapter to bridge to the first of the "climactic" chapters. This chapter should be quite short, and it will contain the revelation that I originally planned for the end of this chapter.

So, to try to make up for this delay a little bit, I give you teasers for the next two chapters after next.

"Chapter 16: Airplane Attack!"

"Chapter 17: Tragedy!"