Flash Gordon 2 - The Plague of Sound (12 page)

“Same old story,” boomed Zarkov.

“Where is she?”

“Turned over to the police,” said Zarkov. “Inspector Carr is talking to her right now. Speaking of whereabouts, I want to know where Dale Arden is.”

“She is being held by Pan.”

“Where? In that nitwit Perfect City of his out in the Mazda jungles?”

“In Perfect City,” said Nazzaro. “I can assure you, however, that it is a wonderful place.”

“What about Flash Gordon?”

“I know nothing about him,” the rumpled man said. “Pan has his aircruiser, but not the man himself. At least, according to the most recent intelligence I have from Perfect City.”

“Where have you got the real General Yate stashed?”

“He, too, is in Perfect City. Our android simulacra replaced him nearly three months ago.”

Zarkov plucked the truth disc out of a pocket “I’m going to pay Pan a visit,” he announced in his booming voice. “You’re going to communicate with him, using whatever regular channels you have set up, and tell him all goes well, that arrogant egocentric Zarkov is snoozing on a barge, and the imitation Zarkov is all loaded and ready to go for tomorrow. Then you’re going to tell me all about Perfect City and the best way to get inside the nitwit place.”

“I’m not—” The disc was slapped against his temple and Nazzaro didn’t finish the sentence.

S
awtel’s head was bent low. He stood, slightly bent, in the jungle darkness. “How are they faring now, Tad?” He did not look directly at the lanky young man.

“Flip is still at large in the city,” answered the mind-reading youth. “He has some kind of plan. His thoughts are a little jumbled, but from what I can gather, he’s pretty confident it will work.”

“A plan to rescue Flash and the girl?” asked the old man.

“Yes, but there’s no way of telling whether or not it’ll work.”

“Flash remains a prisoner?”

“Pan has used torture on him,” said Tad. “Torture involving some of his sound-wave instruments. Flash is unconscious at the moment and Pan has left him. But he intends to return and interrogate him again. I sense that he will not, no matter what Flash tells him, let him live.”

Jillian approached the pair. “You know the secret ways in and out of the city, Sawtel,” she said. “You know the concealed passageways that’ll take us right into Pan’s lair. Come on and tell us how to get to where Flash is being held—Tad and I will go in.”

The old man’s beard fluttered as he shook his head. “It’s dangerous,” he said, “very dangerous.”

“Forgive me,” said Tad, “but I’ve just read your thoughts, Sawtel. I believe we should try what you’re thinking.”

“What is it?” asked the red-haired girl looking from one to the other of them.

Sighing, Sawtel said, “I know how to get to the control sector of Perfect City. With any luck I could get to the control rooms and turn off a few things.”

“You mean,” asked Jillian, “like the slave helmets?”

“Yes,” answered the old man. “With any luck, as I say.”

“And while you’re doing that,” suggested Tad, “Jillian and I can go into Pan’s palace and make a try at getting Flash, Dale, and Flip out of there.”

The freed slaves who’d stayed with them watched in silence.

“I suppose,” said Sawtel, “that since I left Perfect City I’ve really been a coward. Yes, there’s no use arguing about it. I could have done what I’m contemplating now at any time. Instead, I wasted months gathering an army.”

“Sure,” said the girl, “it would be a lot safer with several hundred crack guerilla troops to help us. But we can do it—I think we’ve got to. I don’t want to let Flash Gordon die.”

“Seeing it all go awry,” said the old man, more to himself than to them, “I suppose it did something to me. I had such hopes for what Pan said we were going to do, and then all at once I realized that none of it was true. I shouldn’t have run then—I should have fought. Stopped him right then.”

“We’ll stop him now,” said Jillian.

After a few seconds Sawtel nodded. “Yes, that is what we will do,” he said. He tapped Tad’s arm. “Read my thoughts now. I’ll give you the safest route into the building Pan has styled as his palace.”

“Yes, I’m getting it,” said Tad, eyes half-closed. “Wait, Sawtel, go back and think me through that tunnel under the sewage plant again. Okay, got it.” He opened his eyes and laughed. “No, you needn’t worry. I’ll follow Jillian’s orders and not do anything impetuous.”

“I didn’t realize you’d catch that fleeting thought,” said the old man, smiling. “But as long as you did, do be very careful, both of you. We know what Pan’s done to the cities and the people in Estampa Territory, what he’s doing to Flash Gordon. You two must proceed with great caution.” He held out a gnarled hand to the girl. “I’ll need a stun pistol.”

Jillian reached into her rucksack. “I hope you won’t need to use it.”

The old man took the weapon and said nothing.

Jillian turned toward the watching freeman. “You can wait for us out here if you like,” she said. “If everything goes well, maybe some of your friends and relatives will also be free soon.”

A few minutes later the three were moving through the night closer to the buried city.

T
ime had passed. Flash knew that. He awoke in utter darkness once again.

He sat up, hurting, feeling as though his skeleton was somehow outside his body. His head ached and, when he tried to stand, he found himself swaying.

Carefully Flash lowered himself to the padded floor. “There’s got to be a way out of here,” he told himself. “I can’t let Pan . . .”

The pale-blue light started illuminating the room. The control room beyond the oval window blossomed with light as well.

“You don’t look rested, Flash Gordon,” said the voice of Pan, laughing.

The laughter came rasping out of the ceiling speakers.

Flash made himself get up and face the bearded man.

“Apparently, my first persuasive treatment was not sufficient,” observed Pan. “I see you’re still able to stand.”

His laughter filled the room.

Flash made no reply.

“You no doubt realize,” continued Pan, “that I am only amusing myself with you, Flash Gordon, showing you what power I control. There actually is no need to persuade you with sound to tell me what I wish to know.”

“You’re going to have to use something, Pan.”

“Exactly,” Pan said. “But I have merely to put this on your handsome head and you will do whatever I ask,” A slave helmet dangled from his hand. “To show you how effective this little piece of headgear is, I’ve brought along someone to watch this current interrogation.”

“Dale,” said Flash.

The girl was beside Pan now. She wore one of the slave helmets. She glanced casually at Flash through the tinted glass, a bland smile on her face.

“Say hello to Flash Gordon, my dear,” suggested the smiling Pan.

“Hello, Flash Gordon,” said Dale in a level voice.

“Damn you, Pan!” Flash charged at the oval window, slamming both his fists against it.

Then the sounds started again. Worse, much worse, than before.

Dale continued to smile.

Manyon, Pan’s heavyset green aide, walked cautiously across the living room of his own private suite. Glancing around, he got down on all fours to pull a palm-sized music-playing unit out from under a sideboard. Then from a pocket in his nightrobe, he took a microcassette that had been smuggled in to him that morning.

Smiling, the green man settled down in a floating armchair and inserted the cassette into the player in his hand. He thrust the earjack into one green ear, leaned back. Jazz music, with blaring brass and tinny piano, poured into his ear. Popular stuff, the kind of music Pan did not allow in Perfect City. Manyon closed his eyes, tapping his fingers on the chair arm in time with the music.

“Fool, is this how you spend the eve of my greatest triumph?”

Manyon’s eyes flapped open. The earjack popped out of his ear. “I was merely checking over prior speeches of yours, Master Pan, to locate further brilliant phrases of yours for use in—”

“Enough of your simpering, Manyon.” Pan stood a few feet from the seated man, a dark cloak wrapped around himself. “Do you have the keys to the prisoner cells?”

“Of course, Master Pan,” replied the green man. He got up, letting the little cassette player drop to the chair seat. “You know only you and I have the keys, since I am the most trusted—”

“I want the keys to the room where Flash Gordon is,” demanded Pan. “Also that of Dale Arden’s place of imprisonment.”

“Here, sir, is the key to Flash Gordon’s interrogation cell,” said the green man. He took a ring of keys from the pocket of his robe. “But surely you remember, Master Pan, that Dale Arden is now a slave and does not require locking up.” He tilted his head to the right, eying his employer. “In fact, I had the impression you were with Flash Gordon at this very moment.”

“Which is why you thought you might get in a little illicit listening, dolt.” Pan strode up to Manyon, gripping the green man’s shoulder. “Let me make something perfectly clear to you, Manyon.”

“What, Master Pan?”

“Well, for one thing, daddy, I ain’t Master Pan. You dig? And now I’m going to turn into you for a while, dude. So forgive me for this.”

Manyon’s mouth formed an O. He had the impression, as he fell to the floor from a blow to the chin, that he’d been slugged by himself.

T
he corridor was long and straight, lit by strips of pale-yellow light. Three slaves in black tunics moved silently along it. After their noiseless passage, it was empty.

A minute passed, then a circular section in the floor of the corridor lifted partially. Sawtel, alone now, emerged and pulled himself up. Once he’d shut the round trap door there was no trace of it.

The white-bearded man began making his way along the hall.

A lone slave appeared at the far end. “Halt there,” he ordered. “Who are—?”

Sawtel’s stunpistol flashed out of his tunic and quietly whirred.

The slave took one step in the old man’s direction before freezing.

Sawtel ran to the stunned man. “Now, if I remember rightly there’s a door right about here.” He pressed with his gnarled fingers at the smooth ivory wall.

A section of the wall eased open. Straining, the old man tumbled the slave guard into the cubicle beyond the secret door. “You’ll be able to get yourself out of there shortly.”

He continued on his way. Three corridors branched off the end of that one, each lit with a different color of light. Without hesitating, the old man chose the hall which glowed in pale blue. This one curved and zigzagged down and down.

“Final bend coming up,” said Sawtel to himself. He slowed, scanning the blank wall. “Yes, here.” He pressed and another concealed door opened to him.

This time the old man stepped into the wall. A very narrow passageway was hidden there; there was no light. Sawtel needed none, for he knew where he was going.

When he came to the end of the dark passage, the old man stopped and listened. Then he reached out, pressing his fingertips against the padded metal.

A huge room opened before Sawtel now, filled with bright machinery and an intricacy of metal catwalks and walkways. There were three slave technicians in the room, all with their backs to the old man.

“You’ll soon be free,” the old man said to himself as he fired his stun pistol.

Slowly the nearest slave began to slide from the workstool he’d been working on. As his stiffened body toppled over sideways, his right hand brushed an electric screwdriver from his table.

The screwdriver hit the metal leg of the stool and made a pinging sound.

The other two technicians spun, reaching for the blaster pistols strapped to their sides.

Sawtel’s stun pistol whirred again.

“Now to get to work,” he said, moving into the room and bypassing the three stunned figures. “I should have had the nerve to do this all by myself long ago.”

He climbed a metal ladder, inched along a catwalk, and stopped in front of a complex control panel. After studying it for several seconds, the old man turned off a dozen switches and toggles. “There now,” he said, chuckling. “Now, there are no more slaves.” He twisted a finger into his beard. “Better make certain there won’t be any more again.”

With considerable agility, Sawtel hurried down the ladder to the worktable. He selected a silver hammer and went rapidly back up to the panel controlling the slave helmets. “This ought to do it,” he said, and began smashing.

Everything was different in the white square in the center of Perfect City. The silence was gone. People were talking, shouting, calling to each other.

“What’s happened?”

“Something’s broken down.”

“We’re not slaves any more.”

“Let’s get off these damn helmets quick.”

“What could have happened?”

“It could be a trick, another of his cruel tricks.”

“Trick or not, we’re not slaves.”

“Let’s get him!”

“Let’s get Pan!”

“The hell with that. Let’s just get out of here!”

“Yeah, he’s right. Let’s get out.”

“We’ll have to fight our way out. There’s no way to open the exit ways.”

“There is—look!”

“Look, they’re all opening.”

“There’s the jungle up there.”

“Let’s go, let’s get out of here!”

“It may be a trick.*’

“I’ll risk it.”

“Look, he’s made it. He’s outside and nothing’s happened.”

“Come on, I’m going too.”

Noise filled the streets and the ramps. The people who had been trapped there by Pan were free and they swarmed away from Perfect City. Laughter echoed through the spotless streets.

“He’s done it,” said Tad, a few minutes earlier.

“Is he all right?” asked Jillian.

“Yes,” answered the lanky boy. “Sawtel’s going to remain in the control room for a while longer. He has a few more things to take care of.”

The two of them were making their way through a tunnel beneath the building which housed Pan and his pipe organ.

“What about my brother?” asked the red-haired girl.