Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII (17 page)

Sari got up and walked back and forth. “Oh, come on, Dr. Zarkov. It isn’t all over yet. We’ve got to get out of here, that’s all. I must report to Prince Barin before the blue men attack.”

“You never did tell me what happened at the inn,” Zarkov said curiously. “Was there a laserphone in the back room?”

“Oh, yes. But the moment I got there and punched in the call letters, that innkeeper grabbed me and held me until he could call for Captain Slan and that grimy Lieutenant Brod. They had just gotten there when you came in. And then they tied up the innkeeper, so he wouldn’t demand payment for helping them.”

Zarkov shook his head. “Selective breeding,” he muttered. “I never would have believed it. Cat men. Claws. Blue skins. Yellow eyes. Ridiculous!” Zarkov snorted. “Yet, here they are, waiting to take over Arboria.” Zarkov beat his fists against the wall again. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He turned abruptly. “Dale, you say Flash is in some kind of time trap?”

Dale took a deep breath. “I’ve told you all that already, Doc. He disappeared before my eyes when one of those creeps who tried to kill us threw the master switch on that pendulum.”

Zarkov stroked his beard. “Pendulum. It’s a sure-fire manner of measuring time, all right, and of keeping time at a regular pace. Probably regulates the speed with which the time capsule operates, too.” He frowned. “You say they strapped Flash into an astro-seat?”

“No. He just sat there. They put the weight of the pendulum in his lap.”

Zarkov blinked his eyes. “And that floating globe?”

“Tower, Doc. Light and heat and energy. All trapped inside a black opaque lining.”

“Mmm . . . interesting. We’ve got to get out of here. I want to see that thing. If, as you say, Flash is swinging back and forth in time, helpless to come back to the present, we’ve got to help him.”

“That’s why I wanted to find you,” Dale said quietly.

“You found me. Tied up!” Zarkov smashed one fist into the other open palm. “Damn! This is intolerable. All the time Barin waits around there at the palace, ready to proclaim the anniversary of Arboria’s independence, and this army of blue fiends is preparing to attack the city.”

There was a moment’s silence as Zarkov paced.

“That ray gun,” he said to Dale. “Do you think these blue monsters are responsible for that?”

“I don’t really know,” Dale replied. “It’s terribly powerful. I told you what it did to the suspension system of that jetcar you designed.”

Zarkov waved his hand airily. “Yes, yes. Well, we’ve simply got to get out of here.”

He ran to the barred door and shook it once again. “Out!” he screamed. “Out!” His voice echoed in the hollow stone corridors of the prison. “Out!”

He slumped on the bunk, depressed.

It seemed hours later before Captain Slan appeared. He was smiling and clean-shaven. His yellow eyes were bright in the flickering fight from the dirty torches hanging in their wall niches.

He peered in through the bars. “Zarkov.” He smiled broadly. “Come, we’re going on a stroll through Cerulea.”

Zarkov glanced at Dale and Sari. He winked. Then he turned to Slan. “It’s about time. I don’t mind telling you, I feel like I’m rotting away in this airless prison of yours.”

Slan nodded. “Spunky one, aren’t you?”

“Well! Aren’t you going to let me out?”

A blue man with a set of keys appeared at Slan’s side. Slan gestured to the lock on the barred door. The keeper of the keys bent over and inserted a metal key into the lock and turned it. The iron barred door swung inward.

Slan stood outside, smiling sardonically. “Aren’t you coming out?”

Zarkov moved quickly, leaping for Slan’s body, hurtling with his shoulder aimed for Slan’s stomach, and wrapped his hands around the man’s body. Slan grunted and kicked his knee, hitting Zarkov in the chest.

Zarkov leaned backward and cartwheeled back into the room, bringing the blue man with him. Slan cuffed at Zarkov, and grunted loudly in his exertions. Immediately, Sari and Dale leaped on the struggling men, grasping at Slan’s red cloak.

Sari chopped at him with stiff hand motions.

Slan’s claws tore Zarkov’s battle jacket, but not his skin.

The keeper of the keys ran down the corridor, shouting.

Zarkov rushed out into the corridor, waving to the girls to follow. Sari gave Slan a push and he reeled backward, and smashed his head hard on the wall. Slowly he slumped down to the floor and lay there, unmoving.

Sari leaned over him. She felt the pulse. There was none. The man was dead.

Dale and Sari ran out after Zarkov. They were at the turning of the corridor when a portcullis of iron bars resembling the cell door fell suddenly from the ceiling, slamming down in the corridor and locking in place.

Zarkov grasped the bars and tugged, shouting insanely.

Beyond the bars, several blue men appeared, carrying torches. One of them was the second-in-command, who had been with Slan at the Stag’s Horn Inn.

Lieutenant Brod grinned at Zarkov. “How interesting—Captain Slan was right.”

Zarkov growled at him. “Your Captain Slan is dead. How do you like them apples?”

“Apples. Staple of an Earthling’s diet,” Brod said with a smile. “Slan is dead, you say?”

“Yes,” Zarkov hissed. “We’d be out of here now if you hadn’t dropped that damned portcullis on us.”

“Slan may appear dead, but I assure you he is not,” Brod said with a faint smile.

He moved forward and thrust his torch through the bars of the portcullis. Zarkov turned to stare behind him.

Captain Slan approached them with a sardonic and evil smile on his blue face. “One thing about selective breeding, Dr. Zarkov,” he said smugly as he came up to the group cowering at the portcullis. “You can create a body that will almost instantly renew its own life, even if totally extinguished. You see, it’s going to be rather hard to get rid of me. How do you like them rutabagas, Dr. Zarkov?”

“Rutabagas,” Zarkov muttered.

“Oh, we have interesting langtapes here in Cerulea that we play in our sleep. We know a little bit about everything.”

Zarkov sagged against the bars.

Dale bit her lip and Sari stood without moving.

“And now, Dr. Zarkov. If you’ll come with me, I would like to show you exactly what we are doing in Cerulea. It will interest you greatly, I am sure.”

They were cages, actually. Large cages built of drog-iron. They were suspended from large wooden beams that crossed the huge room at intervals of ten feet. Each was about the size of a small leopard cage. A trap door was built into the bottom, of each. The floor below the cages was covered with a thick and very soft carpet.

The room contained twenty cages.

Now they were empty.

“The dormitory, Dr. Zarkov,” Slan told him as they came in through the one entrance to the room.

Zarkov felt cold. “And the cages? What are they for?”

“They keep the inmates from attempting escape, murder, or, as a last resort, suicide.”

“Suicide?”

“Oh, many attempt suicide. Before I thought of the cages, I used to keep them in very nice rooms. Drapes. Carpets. Vidscreens. All the comforts of home. As befitted a woman. But they strangled themselves on bathrobe cords, bedsheets, and similar sordid things. I simply had to move them to safer areas of concentration.” Slan smiled. “Hence the cages.”

“But who—?”

“We are men of the world, Dr. Zarkov,” Slan said carefully. “Not for us the gilded cages. Not for us.”

“The girls?” Zarkov gasped, his face turning pale.

“Exactly,” Slan said with a smile. “With selective breeding of the warrior class, we do not waste time on the clothing, feeding, and the training of women. Naturally, we bring them in from outside. An occasional kidnapping. A girl lost in the woods, that kind of thing. Don’t worry. Dale Arden and Sari will not be all that unhappy.”

Zarkov exploded. “You’re a monster, Slan. Do you know that?”

Slan smiled. “And those who are especially favored are sent to Ming the Merciless, there to lead the life of a princess of the royal harem. What could be sweeter, Dr. Zarkov?”

“Unspeakable!” Zarkov boomed angrily.

Captain Slan leaned against the wall of the enormous laboratory and folded his arms across his chest. With his crimson cloak, his yellow eyes, and the fangs of his yellow teeth showing against his blue face, he was the representation of the devil incarnate.

Zarkov shivered.

“And this will also interest you, Dr. Zarkov. It’s our laboratory. The finest one on Mongo, actually. No one knows about it except Ming and us. This is the largest and most complex computer in the universe, Dr. Zarkov.”

Zarkov nodded. He looked over the banks or teletype keys, readout ports, blinking lights, and whirring reels of tape turning clockwise and then counterclockwise in monotonous rhythm. There must have been forty computer blocs, all arranged in two rows, both facing an aisle down which Captain Slan was taking him now.

“We are computing the knowledge of the universe, Dr. Zarkov,” Captain Slan said complacently. “We are experimenting with the probabilities of the ideal society. We have already computed over twelve million Utopias. But each of them has been found to have one fatal flaw. So we do not even need to try and build them. The computer tells us what is wrong.”

Zarkov stared. “You are absolutely mad, Slan.”

“Nonsense! Democracy. Socialism. Marxism. Social democracy. Religious fanaticism. All the world’s religions. All the world’s philosophies. We have put them to the test in the computer, and each has failed. Now we are working on a combination of the best—to try to find one which has no flaws. And then Ming will rule that society and man’s impossible dream will be realized!”

Zarkov was staggered. “You’d let Ming rule a utopia? It would be similar to Satan’s rule of heaven.”

“With the proper social mechanism, we can create the everlasting society. But we must destroy Arboria, so that Ming will not have to plot and scheme to keep the forest kingdom from blocking his plans. And Ming will be god over the greatest society in the history of the universe.” Captain Slan waved a hand. “We started out with these computers years ago. We built most of them here in Mingo, but the machinery proved to be only as effective as the human beings who fed the information into the computers. You see?”

Zarkov frowned. “What are you saying?”

Captain Slan nodded, his eyes gleaming. “I thought that would interest you. And what is the greatest computer in the universe, Dr. Zarkov? Of course, the human brain itself. But as man uses his brain, he is only fulfilling its potential to a mild five or six percent of capacity—if that. Why, many humanoids only think with one or two percent of their brains, maximum!”

They had come to the end of the long aisle. Captain Slan gestured with his head, indicating for Zarkov to follow him around in back of one row of computers.

Zarkov followed.

“My god!” he boomed, turning to stare at Slan. “You’re a maniac.”

Slan smiled, bowing slightly. “You flatter me, Dr. Zarkov.”

Behind each computer, there was a filthy bunk upon which a human being sat staring into space. And attached to the man’s skull were dozens of wires, which led into the backs of the computers.

“You’ve wired these men—”

Slan smiled. “I knew it would be unnecessary to describe it all to you, Dr. Zarkov. You are very perceptive. Yes. Instead of mechanical brains, we use real brains. And these brains in turn operate the computers. These men are the terminals, not the small memory banks of the computers. Yes, Dr. Zarkov. The very best machines in the universe. Human brains.”

Zarkov wiped the perspiration from his face.

“We’ve got very good people here, you know. Most of them with university educations. Scientific geniuses. Doctors.” Slan paused and smiled.

“But they’re not able to function as human beings,” Zarkov commented in horror.

“Of course not, Dr. Zarkov. They must simply be fed and clothed and nurtured like cattle so the machines can use their brains. We treat them decently enough. They have no wills. Total frontal lobotomy has been performed on each of them as the first step in their incorporation into the computer bank, naturally. Their brain cells are free then to perform the instructions fed into the computers to which each is attached. No emotional problems can interfere with their efficient functioning.”

“You’re totally inhuman,” Zarkov gasped, almost unable to speak.

“We must be, to find the world’s best social structure, do you not agree, Doctor?”

Zarkov watched the vegetable on the nearest bunk with pity. “Who was he?”

“A Professor Burke, as I recall. Captured on board a rocket from Earth years ago. They live longer, you know, without the stress of emotional problems.” Slan smiled.

Zarkov almost choked.

“I surmise that you will have a hundred years or more ahead of you, Dr. Zarkov. We consider you our best catch yet, you know.” Slan smiled broadly.

“Me?” Zarkov exclaimed, grabbing for his throat. He felt the room spinning around him. “You’re going to plug me into one of those computers?”

“Our very best model, Dr. Zarkov,” Slan said as his yellow eyes gleamed.

T
he violet haze lifted and Flash saw a darkened room with rock walls and a stone floor. The faces of the people in the room suddenly became clear enough to see. He strained at the astro-seat, and felt the speed of the pendulum slow down. There was no vibration at all. He stood up.

Three people. Dr. Zarkov. Dale Arden. And a strange girl dressed in hunter’s green whom he had never seen before.

“Flash!” Zarkov cried.

“Hi, Doc,” Flash said with a grin. “You don’t know where I haven’t been looking for you.”

“Heard you found yourself a time machine, Flash,” Zarkov boomed, slapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, let us in on the secret.”

Flash turned to Dale. “First, I want to know how you got here, Dale. And when is this? Past or future?”

“Depends,” Zarkov said, laughing. “Depends on what point is present.” He boomed out in laughter.

“When Kial sent you into time and space, I escaped, Flash,” Dale said quickly. “But when I tried to rescue Doc and Sari, the blue men caught me.”