knockout gas robbed them of their consciousness.
Tex marveled at how Cap had removed one of the microbots from the first man’s brain and, with Flash, had analyzed it in the atomic force microscope, tracing its compact, three-dimensional circuits. With the aid of the supercomputer Cyclops, they developed in a few hours a different logic circuit and etched it onto a replacement microbot’s gallium-arsenide structure.
The new microbot would travel through the bloodstream in the brain, seeking out the other microbots and delicately sundering the connections between the machines and the patients’ nerves. The silicon chips would remain in the nerves— there was no quick way to remove them without causing massive brain damage—but the microbots would no longer be in control. Gradually, as the repair robot moved through the men’s brains, the effect of Dandridge’s mind control would be undone.
While Tex injected into a repair microbot the fourth and final patient, Sun Ra reported signs of voluntary motion in the first, recuperating patient.
Tex pondered the evil genius behind the microbot and the other genius that swiftly found a way to undo the evil. A chill ran through him as he recalled Cap’s first words after studying the device removed from the first man’s brain: “It seems Dr. Dandridge is not concerned with simply dismantling matter— he’s interested in dominating souls. That makes him more dangerously mad than I’d first thought.”
Tex saw the masseter muscles along Captain Anger’s jawline tighten up—a sure sign that he was formulating a plan to rid the world of Dr. William Arthur Dandridge.
A sudden, stomach-lurching drop interrupted Dr. West’s drowsy reverie as the Seamaster encountered an air pocket. When he opened his eyes,
Tex stared at a Cinerama view Pyotr Kompantzeff’s khaki-clad rump.
“I could do without the sight of your back forty,” Tex drawled, then added, “Make that yer back eighty, ya’ damn’ Roosski.”
“Sookihn sihn,” Rock said with a wide, sarcastic grin. “Your family tree
has your entire maternal branch still living in it eating bananas, and your horse-thief paternal ancestors were hanged from it.”
To say that Rock and Tex enjoyed baiting each other was to understate the case. West, a tenth generation American whose ancestors helped settle Texas, found the immigrant Kompantzeff to be an endless source of amusement, especially his thick Russian accent and foreign pattern of speech. For his part, Rock drew vast entertainment from observing the equally thickaccented Texan, in whom he saw astounding provinciality in his love of the Lone Star State and his small-town view of the world.
And it went without saying that the strong bond of friendship that held all of Captain Anger’s crew together belied the sometimes harsh and earthy banter between the two.
“Hell, boy,” Tex rumbled, “if your rear end were covered with grass, I could send a herd of twenty longhorns there on a winter graze.”
“And if your brains were petrol,” Rock growled, “you could not fill cigarette lighter.”
“Overpaid plumber!”
“Unindicted quack!”
They both grinned at Johnny, who had stumbled upon their exchange on the way to the back of the plane. He stared at the two warily, fully expecting for them to come to blows. Rock waved his thick hand dismissively.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Cowboy is too much afraid to call me out to showdown. Knows I would beat him to draw.”
The young man nodded, unsure about the burly rocket scientist’s degree of seriousness. “Captain Anger asked me to tell you that we’re about to descend toward Escollos Alijos.”
Rock and Tex exchanged glances. Both knew that they were about to face mortal danger. Both grinned.
Tex rolled one spur against the aircraft deck. “Well, pardner, let’s get ready to whump Dandridge’s donkey!”
Jonathan Madsen wondered what he was getting himself into.
Escollos Alijos comprised two small islands separated by a few miles of water. At least, that’s what they looked like on the Seamaster’s computerized map. From the air, though, something appeared terribly different.
In the glittering Pacific waters, the northern island revealed the summer colors of golden brown and dark green. The southern island, though, looked nothing like an ordinary island. It shimmered in the sunlight with the silvery glow of lifeless metal. Cap steered clear of the island, so they could not get close enough for a good view.
Cap brought the plane down in placid water off the shore of the northern island. The Seamaster gently approached the ocean as he reduced power to idle, lowered the flaps, and bled off airspeed until the smooth hull lightly skimmed the surface. Quickly the aircraft slowed, descending into the warm waters. The graceful wingtips touched simultaneously and the airplane coasted swiftly to a standstill. Only the rise and fall of the sea gave any motion to the jet now.
Rock immediately opened the side cargo door and wrangled a large black bundle out into the water. On contact, it inflated with a loud thwump, turning into an arrowhead-shaped boat.
Cap went through the water-landing shutdown routine for the Seamaster, then climbed to the cargo area, leaving Weir in charge of the airplane. He opened cabinets and secreted a few items in the hidden recesses of his vest and added a largish cylinder to his left cargo pocket. Strapping on his autopistol and several waterproof ammo pouches, he nodded to Rock, Sun Ra, and Tex. Rock and Sun Ra toted similar arms, though they wore khaki jumpsuits similar to Cap’s black one. Rock’s broad chest bore a crisscrossed pair of nylon-web straps, bandoliers securing a dozen handball-sized spheres. The hexagonal and pentagonal shapes on their surfaces made them look like miniature soccer balls. The traditional pin-and-spoon grenade fuses, however, made their function perfectly clear.
Tex removed his spurs in preparation for jumping into the inflatable raft. He tightened the straps on the camouflaged backpack he wore. It contained his medical kit, along with electronic equipment Cap had requested him to bring. Instead of a jumpsuit, he wore beige jeans and cavalry shirt made of the same bullet-resistant cloth as the rest of their wardrobe.
Sun Ra patted a walnut-hued hand on his own piece of equipment—a portable missile launcher designed by Rock to deliver a one-pound warhead packed with the most powerful chemical explosive he could devise. Only a nuclear warhead could provide more punch per pound.
The four jumped into the boat. Tex attached the jet motor and fired it up.
“What about me?” Jonathan shouted.
“Guard the plane,” Cap answered over the roar of the engine. “Leila will show you how the rail gun works.”
The reply failed to satisfy Madsen, who feared that he would miss not only all of the action, but also his chance to avenge his grandfather’s death.
Chapter Fourteen
The Fractal Island
The boat sped across the channel between the two islands with impressive speed. The water slapped and whapped beneath the membrane of high tensile strength aramid fabric and rubber that served as the flexible hull. The twin air cells that formed the sides of the boat merged at the prow. Captain Anger knelt there, binoculars to his eyes, gazing at the approaching southern island. What he saw caused his tanned brow to furrow into a frown.
The island no longer consisted of vegetation and rock. Argent columns rose hundreds of feet about the water,
