Free The Avengers Battle the Earth-Wrecker by Otto Binder Page A

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 thought. Sometimes I could kick you, Henry Pym.”
    “You couldn’t reach that high,” said Goliath with a grin. Then he became serious. “Listen, Wasp. It’s 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 the 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-girl. “You can shoot out wings at will and fly, but I 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 the 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 zig-zag 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?”
    The Ant-Man smiled wanly. “Nice try, Wasp. But I can’t be cheered up. There’s