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

Flash didn’t answer. He was frowning.

“What is it?” asked the girl.

“I’ve got a hunch,” he said. “I’ve got a hunch what happened tonight isn’t going to be an isolated incident.”

“It’s going to happen again, at other concerts, you mean?”

“Maybe concerts, maybe anywhere,” Flash said. “It’s not over yet.”

He was right.

Dr. Zarkov was a huge man in his forties. He had a full shaggy beard, which gave the impression of a life of its own. He was working his rough fingers through the beard, pacing the room. “One of these gadgets they persist in cluttering their lives with actually served some useful purpose,” he was saying to Flash and Dale now in his loud booming voice.

It was nearly midnight, and they were in the large living room of their rented villa.

“So the trouble at the concert wasn’t the only outbreak of sound, huh?” Flash was sitting in a floating synthglass chair.

“Not at all,” bellowed Zarkov. “As I say, a couple of their newsrobots happened to be at the scene and recorded what happened.” He strode over to the television wall, which held a six-foot-square viewing screen. “I taped the news reports as they came over. I’ll play them back for you with the sound off. No use giving Dale a headache.” He flipped the playback switch.

A picture of a complex of dome-shaped factories blossomed on the big screen. Something was already obviously wrong. The buildings were quivering.

Zarkov jabbed a finger at the television picture. “These old air-raid sirens, from pre-revolution days, were still in place. At 10:01 tonight they started shrieking. Watch what happened.”

The factory buildings began to shake violently. Cracks appeared, zigzagging across the domed roofs. Soon the buildings were collapsing, breaking into enormous fragments.

“That’s awful,” said Dale.

Flash was sitting forward in his chair. “Like some terrific earthquake.”

“You get the right vibrations going,” said Zarkov, switching the screen to black, “and you can destroy anything. That’s what sound is, vibrations.”

“Like the old story about the opera singer shattering the wine glass with his voice.” said Dale.

“Where were these factories?” asked Flash.

After giving his beard a few violent tugs, Zarkov answered, “Five hundred miles to the north of here, coal and steel country.”

“Were they working a night shift?”

“Fortunately not tonight,” answered the doctor, “That kept the casualties down.”

“But people were killed?” Flash stood. “We were fortunate then. Whoever’s behind this is apparently capable of tumbling down buildings like the Municipal Hall.”

“The one other occurrence,” said Zarkov, “involved a cargo ship. It’s whistles started wailing, and the thing cracked in half. That was three hundred miles to the south of us.”

Flash said, “Maybe they’re taking it easy on the capital.”

“That occurred to me,” said Dr. Zarkov.

“Have you talked to President Bentancourt?”

“He called me about an hour ago. Professes to be completely puzzled by the whole damn business,” boomed Zarkov. “Asked me if I thought this would happen again.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him,” said Zarkov, “it sure as hell would.”

T
wo days later, Dr. Zarkov acquired a laboratory and workshops. They were located some five miles across town from their villa.

“That goes in the other room, nitwit,” Zarkov was bellowing at a robot when Flash and Dale arrived a little before midday. The scientist was standing in the exact center of an empty hangar, hands on hips, superintending the unloading of equipment and supplies from three hovervans. “And you, you clunky bag of bolts, don’t you know what
This End Up
MEANS?”

“I’m not a robot, sir,” replied the gray-complected man who was struggling with a heavy crate. “It’s merely that I happen to have a sallow complexion, which people often . . .”

“Never mind, never mind.” Zarkov turned to shake hands with Flash and hug Dale. “All things considered, it’s going very well. I should be at work by nightfall.”

Dale spun around slowly, once, taking in all that was going on in the hangar. A dozen robots, or rather eleven robots and the sallow-faced foreman, were carrying in crates and cartons. “So President Bentancourt agreed with your opinion of the sound-wave problem?” she asked.

“He agreed with my view of the best solution,” said the doctor. “Which is to allow Zarkov’s intellect to wrestle with the problem.” He put a big knobby hand on Flash’s shoulder. “Do you realize that not one blasted lab in the whole damn territory has been able to get a fix on the source of this sound plague? Not even the Interferometry Center, and they plunked down over two million dollars for that joint.”

Flash turned to watch a long sharp-nosed aircruiser being wheeled into the hangar by five green men in overalls. “What’s the airship for, Doc?”

“More than one way to skin a cat,” boomed Dr. Zarkov, “as they are so fond of saying on Venus. Look at all the oily fingerprints on the cockpit windows.” He started toward the aircruiser. “Hey, you louts, don’t you own work gloves?”

In the two days since the first attacks of the sound plague, ten more disasters had occurred. A rush-hour train on the newly installed electromagnetic railroad system had started shrieking a few minutes out of the Southport station. The increasing sounds shook the train cars until they cracked and split open, and then sprawled and crashed off the rails. One hundred and six morning commuters had died. Out on the Territorial Thruway, three giant landtrucks hauling fuel had begun vibrating and then exploded, spewing black smoke and throwing shards of jagged metal high into the afternoon air. Landcars, aircruisers, and an experimental. submarine were similarly destroyed.

No government or private technical facility had so far been able to find out what was causing the plague of sound. There were numerous explanations, none of them based on any hard information.

Rapidly, panic spread throughout the territory. The strange waves of sound which could vibrate huge buildings into rubble, could fling trains off their tracks, were disrupting the patterns of life in Estampa.

Late the day before, Dr. Zarkov had phoned the president and suggested, at the top of his voice, that he’d like a lab and workshop of his own. President Bentancourt offered a nearby college facility, but Zarkov turned it down. He wanted things set up his way, his way exactly. The president complied.

Now Zarkov was circling the airship, wiping at the smudges on it with a plastic chamois. “I should have the entire problem solved in under a week,” he told Flash. “If we were on Earth, I could lick it in three days at most.”

“You have an idea what’s behind all this?”

“I have six dozen and one ideas,” responded the doctor. “Eliminating the lousy ones, following up on the good ones—that’s what’s going to fill the time.”

Nodding at the aircruiser, Flash said, “I’d like to pilot it.”

“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” said Zarkov. “If I don’t track down our sound man by the end of the week from here, then you’ll do a little roadwork.”

Three days later, the president called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and the top military leaders of Estampa Territory, Flash and Dr. Zarkov were also invited.

President Bentancourt was a short muscular man of fifty. When he saw Zarkov enter the oval meeting chamber, he made his way through the assembling group. “How are you progressing, Doctor?”

Zarkov’s voice was subdued. “Not as well as I expected,” he had to admit.

The president seemed to grow even shorter. “No one else has had any measure of success either,” he said, sighing. “I hoped . . .”

“Don’t give up on Zarkov,” said the doctor. “Success is right around the corner, I guarantee it.”

Conditions had grown even worse. The waves of strange sound attacked with increasing fury, like invisible harpies rending and ripping. Public buildings toppled, trains were flung aside, planes and aircruisers dropped from the sky. There were growing shortages of fuel, food, and raw materials. Most transportation was disrupted.

The meeting got under way and all the problems were reiterated. A good deal of talking was done, considerable shouting; the Minister of Agriculture cried. Zarkov sat in his floating chair, hands hidden in his bushy beard. He said very little, and this was in a low mumbling voice. Finally the meeting ended.

As they were leaving the capital building, someone called Dr. Zarkov’s name. He turned back, saw Minister Minnig, the president’s chief assistant, beckoning to him from a side door of the meeting room. “Let me see what he wants, Flash,” Zarkov said, turning back.

Minnig was a lean man of fifty. “I can’t talk now, Zarkov,” he said, glancing from side to side cautiously, “especially with him around.”

Shuffling papers and memos into an attaché pouch at a nearby table was a thin green man. He was General Yate, a supporter of the president at the moment but also a man who might want to rule Estampa Territory someday himself. If not as president, some said, then as dictator.

“Ah, missed one,” said Dr. Nazzaro, a rumpled man of sixty-one. He was Minister of Health. Bending, he reached for a fallen memo.

“Get your hands off that, you unkempt fool,” said Yate.

Nazzaro smiled and straightened up. “It’s too bad we no longer have the cavalry, General,” he said. “You’d look good on a horse.”

Minister Minnig pulled Zarkov away from the doorway. “Can you come and talk to me?” he asked anxiously. “Not tonight, unfortunately, since I have an embassy dinner I can’t miss, especially at a crucial and trying time such as this. But, tomorrow evening?”

“I’d really like to spend all my time in the lab. What is it?”

“I can understand that,” said Minnig quickly. “Ah, but your young friend, Flash Gordon. He’s as bright as you, Zarkov.”

“Well, almost.”

“Send him to my home tomorrow night,” said Mining. “At eight, shall we say? It may be nothing, but I think I know something about this sound plague. It’s . . . I don’t wish to discuss it with President Bentancourt yet. But a man such as yourself or Gordon—will he come?”

“I’ll guarantee it, Minnig,” said Zarkov. “Can you tell anything more about—?”

“Tomorrow night then.” Minnig hurried away.

“Huh,” said Zarkov and scratched his beard.

H
e hadn’t expected the aircar.

Flash was extracting his shoes from the shining machine in his bedroom when the pixphone floating beside his bed started its beeping. “Yes?” he said, turning his head toward the small circular screen.

“Your car is here,” said the voice of the house computer.

The tinted screen showed a silvery aircar, hovering a foot above the street out in the misty night. “Which car would this be?”

“The aircar to take you to the home of Minister Minnig.” said the voice from the phone.

“Minnig didn’t tell Zarkov he was sending a car,” said Flash to himself as he tugged on his shoes. “Or maybe Doc forgot to mention it.” He took his thermal cloak from a chair back, saying aloud, “Tell the car I’ll be right down.” He’d been on Pandor long enough to be used to talking with machines and gadgets.

“Very good, sir.” The phone blacked out, making a faint sizzling sound as it did.

Dale was standing in the doorway of her room when Flash came striding down the corridor. “Sure you don’t want company?” she asked him.

“I do,” said Flash, grinning. “But Minnig told Dr. Zarkov he wanted to talk to me alone and in private. Hopefully, I’ll be back early enough for us to go somewhere for a late dinner.” He had stopped in front of the slim dark girl. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he kissed her.

After a moment Dale said, “All right, I’ll stay here in my room and read a book until you come home.”

As Flash went out the front door of their rented villa, the house computer said, “I hope you’ll have a pleasant evening, sir.”

“Thanks,” said Flash over his shoulder, “same to you.”

The fog was thick. It filled the cobblestone street, seemed to fill all the space between the ground and the night sky.

A whir and a clicking came from the hovering air-car. “Mr. Flash Gordon, isn’t it?”

The rear door swung open by itself. Flash saw there was a human driver in the pilot seat. “Yes. You’re from Minister Minnig?’

“That I am, sir. Been with him since I was a wee lad. Climb in and make yourself comfortable, sir.”

Flash eased into the vehicle and sat on the soft leather rear seat. The door slammed shut and the car rose gently up through the fog.

“Yes, I was a little bit of a tyke when I first began working there,” continued the driver. “Well, now, I called it work, though of course my dear departed father, who was driver and pilot to the Minnig family for nigh on forty years, was only humoring me. Allowing me to tinker about a bit.” The pilot was a thickset man of about fifty, dressed in a one-piece gray suit and a matching cap.

“You’re lucky you haven’t been replaced by a gadget,” said Flash, leaning back in his seat. “Estampa seems to be very machine-minded at the present.”

“Ah, but what can replace a man?” asked the pilot. They were high above the city. An occasional spire or fragment of walk ramp showed through the mist. “It is my good fortune, sir, that Minister Minnig prefers to have living human beings around him.”

The aircar flew through the night. Ten minutes later, it started dropping slowly down toward the ground. “That would be your destination, sir,” announced the pilot. “Can you make out the blue light glowing there in the fog?”

Flash looked out. “Yes, is that the front door?”

“It is indeed, sir.” replied the pilot. “Do you wish me to get out and help you?”

“No need for that.” The door next to Flash popped open, swinging outward, with a click and a hum.

“I’ll be ready to take you home whenever you wish, sir.”

“Thanks.” Flash hopped to the walkway, and located the ramp which curved upward to the blue light. Once there, he touched the red spot in the center of the house’s door.

Inside the house, a buzzing started. In about thirty seconds, the door rattled open. “Come in, won’t you, Mr. Gordon.”