Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII (16 page)

She opened her eyes, and folded her arms across her chest. It was cool so deep in the ferny part of the forest kingdom. She looked around her. The enormously tall stalks of the bladder ferns cut down her vision considerably.

“What was that?”

Dale sat up straight, her hands pushing against the algae bed. She cocked her head to one side. Had she heard something? Was it Kial? Was it Lari? Had they picked up her trail in the woods?

No. It was the voice of a man. He did not have any familiar dialect. His words were spoken in a strange, almost artificial accent. It sounded like the kind of speech uttered by a person who had learned a language without ever having talked to anyone. It was, in short, a kind of programmed speech.

An android? Dale shivered. She had heard of no andies on Mongo. Unless that fiend Ming the Merciless had bought some from one of the outer planets in the system and shipped them in to do his dirty work. Still, she was sure Prince Barin and the General Council of Mongo would put a stop to that soon enough.

Dale rose and tiptoed through the woods toward the sound of the voice.

She saw two men.

Her heart stopped beating, then speeded up.

“God forbid!” she whispered. They had blue skins! Their complexions were blue and their eyes yellow!

But they spoke Mongolite with that peculiar artificial accent..

“Half an hour maybe,” one said. “We’ll be into Cerulea and in front of a good hot meal. I’m hungry enough to eat an eel!”

“What about the prisoners?” the other asked, “Do you anticipate any trouble with them?”

“The captain certainly doesn’t think there’ll be any trouble with that young woman.”

The first giggled. “I hardly think I would have trouble with her, either.”

“Nor I to tell the truth.” A pause. “She’s of the forest kingdom.”

“Cute. Very luscious.” A sigh. “The other?”

“They’ll kill him. Or wire him to the main computers. He’s a brain where he came from, they tell me.”

“Oh?”

“Head of the science laboratory in Arboria.”

Dale felt a chill race along her backbone. Dr. Zarkov was head of the science laboratory in Arboria. Had they captured him? And what was that about wiring him into the computer?

Dale crept forward.

Now she could see the two men more plainly. They were definitely blue-fleshed with yellow eyes. They wore brilliant red cloaks over doublets of yellow and orange. The effect was a dazzling one, a combination that made the colors and shapes vibrate before her eyes, especially against the lavender and orange of the bladder-fern foliage in back of them.

The two men puffed on rolled leaves of some kind. Dale smelled a sticky sweet aroma like cannabis sativa. Perhaps it was an allied genus.

“Let’s get back,” one of the men said.

The other nodded, stubbing out his burning stick, and the two of them made off through the dense woods.

Dale followed them.

And there, in a small clearing not far off, she found Dr. Zarkov and a girl dressed in hunter’s green, both tied to the stalk of a bladder fern. Zarkov was grumbling to himself and shaking his head with disgust. The girl’s eyes darted here and there as if she were trying to figure someway out of the mess she and Zarkov were in.

I wish I could catch Doc Zarkov’s eye, Dale thought.

And then she had an idea.

She reached into her stretchsuit where she kept her bag, and brought it out. It was a most compact purse, one that did not even show an outline on her body, but in which she carried all the things she needed. Aspirin. Kelp pills. Energy tablets. Heat cubes. Vitamins A through Q¹. Lipstick. Comb. Mirror.

She removed the mirror. It was very dark in the bladder-fern forest, but in the clearing a bit of light filtered down through the branches. She moved over toward the edge of the ferns, where she could just catch a glint of the light from Mongo’s seventh sun. She tilted the mirror to deflect the rays into Zarkov’s eyes.

He blinked and shook his head.

“What in hell is going on?” he boomed out, staring about angrily. “Get that light out of my eyes.”

Dale saw a group of blue men standing about in the woods, smoking and munching on some compressed food stock. One of them laughed. But no one really saw the flash of light across Zarkov’s beard.

Then Zarkov calmed. His eyes roamed the surrounding woods. He saw Dale. His eyes widened and then he winked briefly. A moment later he sagged against the fern and feigned sleep.

Now what? Dale wondered. Zarkov had seen her. And he had winked. He had some plan. What on Mongo was it?

Suddenly Zarkov jerked upright against the fern, his eyes wide, his beard bristling.

“A salamander!” he boomed out. “It’s a salamander!”

One of the blue men turned to gaze at him contemptuously. “Shut up, Zarkov. Don’t try any of your little games with me.”

“Fool. I can hear those things from a distance!”

“How can you hear and we can’t, Zarkov?” asked the blue man, who seemed to be the leader.

“Just trust me, Slan. I can hear. It was an experiment. I implanted an auditory amplifier in my aurical centers that would be activated by sound vibrations above those commonly audible to the human ear.”

Captain Slan lifted an eyebrow. “And you claim you can hear the approach of a salamander now?”

“In the distance,” Zarkov snapped. “You know how dangerous they are.”

“We know the danger,” Slan agreed. “But we know you, too. You are a liar of the most artful type, Dr. Zarkov. I simply don’t believe you.”

“Believe me,” Zarkov pleaded, beginning to wrestle with his bonds. “Believe me. There’s a giant salamander on its way here. Those animals can smell men for miles!”

A second blue man came up to the leader and whispered in his ear. The leader shook his head angrily.

“It’s closer, Captain Slan,” Zarkov said pitiously, twisting about on the ground. “You’ve got to believe me. I’d run for my life, if I could. Nobody, not even the eight of us, could stand off one of those monsters.”

A third blue man said, “Let’s leave the two of them here, Captain. If he isn’t lying, he and the girl will get theirs.”

Dale ran back out of sight and picked up a large smooth stone that lay in the woods. She hurled it with all her might through the ferns. It hit one of the fronds with a loud smash and the sound echoed in the woods.

She picked up another, and threw it closer to the clearing where the blue men had Zarkov and the girl tied up.

“All right,” Slan cried, staring into the darkened woods. “There’s something there!” He turned to his men. “Leave the two of them here. And double-time into the woods.” He pointed with his arm. “That way!”

The men moved out quickly.

Dale ran into the clearing and bent over Zarkov.

“Good girl, Dale,” Zarkov cried. “You’re a smart kid.”

“You bet I am.” Dale laughed. She turned to the girl’s bonds and loosened them.

“Meet Sari, Dale. That’s Dale Arden, Sari.”

Sari said, “Hi.”

“Doc,” Dale said, “they’ve got Flash. You’ve got to help him.”

“Where is he?” Zarkov asked.

“He’s in the Tempendulum.”

“What’s that?” Zarkov frowned.

“A kind of time-travel dome.”

Zarkov shrugged. “Well, then,” he bellowed, “let’s get out of here and go find Flash Gordon!”

Zarkov grabbed Dale’s arm and Sari’s, and started across the clearing.

The woods rustled.

The six blue men appeared, spread out, and surrounded the three of them. Their yellow claws were extended out from their hands as they held them poised for attack.

Dale screamed.

“Very neat, Dr. Zarkov,” Captain Slan said smoothly. “And that makes one more for the party back to Cerulea.” He laughed. His yellow fangs showed. “The more the merrier is the way we say it in Cerulea, Dr. Zarkov.”

“In Arboria we say you win one, you lose one,” growled Zarkov.

N
ow the violet haze cleared once again and Flash knew exactly where he was. He recognized the interior of the Spaceport Inn, where he had taken a room just after arriving by rocket from Earth with Dale. He saw himself asleep in the bed and he saw the man he now knew as Kial sneak into the room.

Flash felt the tremendous speed of the astro-seat as it slowed almost to a halt. He gripped the heart-shaped pendulum weight, but could not budge it from his lap. Instead, he watched.

He saw Kial reach for the blaster pistol holster hanging on the bedpost, and then he knew instantly what had happened.

“He took my blaster pistol and left me an empty holster,” Flash said. “When I tried to use it on the superway later, I suddenly didn’t have it. I only thought it vanished in my hand. I actually never did have it.”

Then, as Kial stood there hanging the empty holster back on the bedpost, Flash saw his own figure rise from the bed and rush out at Kial. He saw Kial go through the open window and into the backyard. He saw the man struggle from the slop pit in the yard, and then Flash ran through the corridors of the inn, and Dale ran beside him.

He tried to move out of the chair, but he could not.

The violet light closed in on him . . .

Then the astro-seat slowed down once again. He saw the mists clear and he was on the superway. The astro-seat was almost still now. He could not even feel the weight of the pendulum on his lap. He saw Kial and Lari, and he saw himself, in that earlier time with Dale.

He struggled against the force of inertia that gripped his muscles, and now, to his immense surprise and pleasure, he broke through the gravity barrier that seemed to have enveloped him as he sat supine in the chair.

He was out of the seat and running across the superway. He saw Kial and Lari menacing Flash and Dale. He saw Lari knock him down with the butt of the blaster pistol rather than risk zapping Kial with a straight shot. Then he saw Dale lean over him to try to revive him.

Lari pointed at Flash, and Flash shook his head and tried to rise from where he had fallen. But he could not. He fell back.

“He’ll never get up,” Kial snorted derisively.

“I don’t like it, Kial,” Lari said.

“Get on with it,” Dale said defiantly. “If you’re not going to use that blaster pistol, then give it to me.”

Good for Dale, Flash thought.

Kial grinned. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, lady?”

Dale stared hard at him.

Flash ran up to the group on the roadway. “Now, now,” he said. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with guns?”

Dale stared at him. He saw her shock and surprise. He saw her look at the other Flash lying on the superway, trying to get up.

“Hey!” yelped Kial as Flash reached out and grabbed Kial’s right hand, which held the blaster pistol.

“What is this,” Kial cried, trying to turn around.

Lari gaped at Flash. “It’s Gordon!”

“Gordon?” repeated Kial. Now he turned and stared in bewilderment at Flash. His hand opened and the blaster pistol fell to the pavement from the pressure of Flash’s grip. “Gordon?”

Flash exerted more pressure on Kial’s arms and twisted him around toward him.

“It’s just like dancing,” Flash said merrily. “I’d rather have a more attractive partner than you, but if it has to be you then it has to be you.”

“Shut up!” cried Kial.

“You shut up!” Flash twisted Kial’s arm in a hammer-lock and gripped him around the waist. “Now, get out of here and leave us in peace and quiet.”

Perspiration ran down Kial’s face. Flash spun him away. Kial staggered over into a heap on the pavement.

“Look out, Flash!” Dale cried. “It’s Lari!”

Flash turned just in time to see Lari running at him, aiming the second blaster pistol. Flash slammed his fist into Lari’s stomach.

“Oof!” Lari said. The blaster pistol fell away from him. He went down on his back.

“Dale,” Flash called, “are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Dale. “But how did you do that?”

“It’s a long story,” Flash began slowly.

Kial was crawling over the pavement. “Lari, let’s get out of here quick!”

“Yeah,” Lari said. “Right now!”

“Tell me,” Dale said to Flash.

Now the pendulum once again exerted its irresistible force upon Flash. He opened his mouth to speak to Dale, but he could not hold himself away from the astro-seat. Impelled by a power greater than gravity and light, he was drawn forcibly back to the astro-seat, which waited in the mists rising around him.

He saw the blaster pistol lying on the pavement of the superway. Reaching down, he scooped it up and stuck it in his belt. Still moving, he glanced back to see Dale’s puzzled face.

“Poor Dale,” he said. “She looks so confused. I’ve got to tell her somehow! Maybe I can—”

He saw the milestone marking the distance from Arboria by the side of the roadway. Quickly he took out a pencil he carried and scratched a message on the stone:

FLASH AND DALE—THE ANSWER IS THIS WAY.

He finished the note off with an arrow pointing in the direction of the Tempendulum in the woods. That should give them a head start on Kial and Lari. And if they found the Tempendulum . . .

Then he was in the astro-seat and the weight of the pendulum flung him once again through space as the violet mists closed in.

I
t was a fairly large cell without openings of any kind except for the one barred entrance. The bars were made of annealed drogiron from ore mined on Mongo. Zarkov grasped the bars and shook them. The bars were solidly embedded in a metal doorframe.

Finally, he turned from the door and paced across the stone floor of the cell.

“Ten steps one way. Eight steps the other.” He fumed. “A prison. Me, Zarkov, incarcerated!” He walked over to one of the walls and pounded his fists against it. “Klang rock. Too hard to drill through, even if we had a drill. Damn! To think that a fine mind like mine is chained here in a cage, while the fates of Arboria and the forest kingdom are being decided by that miserable indigo warmonger upstairs.”

Dale sat up on the bare bunk that lined one wall. “Please, Doc, must you emote so?”

“Yes, I must emote so,” Zarkov snapped, his voice vibrating. “Dammit! I came out of Arboria to find you and Flash. And since that time, all I’ve gotten into is trouble. My airscout crashes and sinks to the bottom of the Dismal Swamp. I’m joined by an agent of Barin’s intelligence council. We’re set upon by strange armies of blue humanoids bent on destroying the forest kingdom, obviously mercenaries in the employ of Ming the Merciless. And then through some idiocy we’re brought here to Cerulea, where the monster and his gang of undesirables hang out.”