Always something of a tomboy, Dawn Drummond-Clayton had—with her parents’ full approval—duplicated the lessons in martial arts and wilderness survival that her inseparable companion, James Allenvale ‘Bunduki’ Gunn, 132 was receiving. Even during her formal and conventional education, which had not been neglected, she had contrived to keep up her training and did not forget what she had been taught. In addition, while attending Roedean, 133 she had taken part in every permissible form of sporting and athletic activity, excelling in them all. However, like Bunduki, she had become completely disenchanted by the blatantly one-sided political bias and hypocrisy of the international sporting bodies and authorities, who banned some countries and yet allowed other, more viciously restrictive regimes to compete. So, in spite of being a world class athlete, gymnast, swimmer and fencer with sabre or epee, she refused to compete in their events. For all that, she invariably kept herself at the peak of physical condition.
As was the case with Bunduki, much of Dawn’s perfect physical health stemmed from being allowed to share in the longevity pills obtained by his adoptive parents. 134 Specimens had been given to Dr Clark Savage, Jr, 135 for analysis and reproduction. He discovered that, in addition to slowing down the ageing process in human beings—granting those who took them what amounted to immortality, barring accidental death, suicide, or murder—they also gave immunity from practically every tropical disease and destroyed all such harmful internal parasites as the various nematode worms—commonly called ‘hookworms’—of the genera Necator which might be ingested while eating the raw flesh of wild animals. 136 This was to become a matter of some importance when, shortly after the events recorded in this volume, she and Bunduki were transported by the ‘Suppliers’ to the primitive planet of Zillikian. There, too, she was to require all her training and skill in order to survive.
Dr Clark ‘Doc’ Savage Jr and Richard ‘The Avenger’ Benson, whose biographies are recorded by the exceptionally prolific Kenneth Robeson—which it has been suggested, is actually a ‘house name’ for a group of writers led by Lester Dent; see DOC SAVAGE, His Apocalyptic Life by Philip José Farmer—had respectively Patricia Savage and Nellie Gray among their coterie of ‘sidekicks’. However, competent as each lady undoubtedly was, she was never called upon to quell a villainess. In fact, their main function appeared to be falling into straits of dire peril from which either ‘Doc’ or ‘The Avenger’ was obliged to rescue them.