Flash Gordon 2 - The Plague of Sound (14 page)

Dale let her hands fall to her side. “Give orders while you can, Pan,” she said.

“What are you insinuating, my dear?”

“I was just thinking that it would be too bad for all your plans if my helmet was not the only one that had stopped working.”

Snarling, Pan came to her and grabbed her arm. “What do you know about this? Is this some scheme of that fool Zarkov?”

“I don’t know,” answered the girl.

The bearded man shoved her away and ran to the far wall of the room. He pressed his fingertips to certain spots, causing a section of wall to move aside and reveal a bank of seven television monitoring screens. “Stations nine and ten report to me,” he demanded.

Only silence answered him.

Angrily Pan jabbed at buttons beneath several of the screens. Images appeared on the oval screens. Sound issued from speaker grids. “What’s this?” asked Pan. He heard the talking, shouting, and laughter of his slaves as they departed Perfect City. “Nothing’s working—none of the helmets.”

The seventh screen remained black. Pan, an angry rumble in his throat, pushed at the control buttons beneath it over and over. “Come in, control room. Come in, I say.”

“Things are falling apart,” said Dale.

Pan turned and slapped her across the cheek. “I told you I won’t stand for any flippancy.”

The girl fell back.

“It’s your fault,” accused Pan. “You and Gordon and that fool Zarkov.” He raised his hand to strike her again.

“That’s enough, Pan,” said a grim voice.

Pan’s head pivoted, scowling. “Gordon!” He said that one word, then turned the pistol toward the big blond man who was striding toward him.

Dale acted. As hard as she could, she brought down both hands across Pan’s gun arm.

The bearded man howled in pain, letting the silver gun fall.

Flash was on him. He grabbed Pan by the front of his dark tunic. Hit him on the jaw, once, and then again.

Pan staggered backwards, his black cloak billowing out. He ripped the garment from his shoulders, and threw himself at Flash.

Flash dodged the charge, giving a chopping blow to Pan’s neck as he sailed by.

Pan went down on his knees.

Flash stood over him, watchful.

All at once Pan butted up with his head, taking Flash hard in the pit of the stomach.

His breath knocked out of him, Flash staggered backward across the ivory floor.

With a roar, Pan grabbed the pseudomarble tabletop and sent it cartwheeling straight at Flash.

Flash couldn’t avoid it in time. He fell, cracking his head against the hard tabletop.

Pan had the pistol in his hand again, but he did not use it on Flash. Instead he ran for the doorway. “Out of my way or you’re a dead man,” he told Flip, who’d been standing near the entrance to the room.

“Okay, man.” Flip moved aside.

Pan ran along the corridor.

Tossing the pseudomarble circle away from him, Flash got up and went running in pursuit.

“Sorry I didn’t grab that dude, Flash baby,” apologized Flip as Flash went by.

“We’ll get him now.”

But when Flash reached the corridor there was no sign of Pan at all. The long ivory-white hall was empty.

D
r. Zarkov dashed across the foggy airstrip in great leaping strides. “Is it ready to go?”

A captain in the Air Service was trying to keep up with him. “Well, yes, Doctor,” the young man replied. “You must realize this isn’t a truly good flying night. I mean to say, even with all the sophisticated equipment in our military aircruisers, we still tell our boys not to go up in a heavy fog like this unless it’s a national emergency at least.”

“This is a national emergency,” Zarkov boomed. He pulled himself up into the cabin of the olive-green ship.

“Even so, Doctor, I mean to say—”

“With Zarkov at the controls, there’s nothing to fear,” Zarkov assured the young captain. “Who the hell is this?”

Seated in the black nearleather chair next to the pilot’s seat was a chrome-plated robot. When it noticed Zarkov, it brought its shiny fingers up against the forehead of its ball-shaped head in a clanging salute. “Rattlin-203-AP at your service, Colonel.”

“I’m not a colonel, you nitwit pile of junk.” Zarkov scowled out at the young captain, who was uneasily standing on the misty field. “Who the hell is this?”

“Your copilot, Doctor.”

“I don’t need a copilot.” The burly doctor began to check the controls.

“Regulations, Doctor,” explained the young Air Service captain. “On any occasion when there is fog in excess of—”

“Okay, okay,” bellowed Zarkov. “I’ll put up with him. I don’t have time to toss him out. Stand back now, Captain, and I’ll get this crate in the air.” He activated the lever which slammed the cabin door shut.

“We haven’t yet,” pointed out Rattlin-203-AP, “gone through the twenty-seven prescribed preflight takeoff procedures, General.”

“Shut up,” suggested Zarkov. He glanced at the controls, flicked on the engines, and guided the heavy ship along the runway.

“I don’t mean to nag,” said the copilot robot “You’ll understand I’m sure that this fastidiousness was built into me. Is there anything else I might do to help out? Perhaps you’d like me to help you get your beard stuck on better.”

It reached a chrome hand toward Zarkov”s face.

“Watch out,” warned Zarkov as he jerked his head out of reach. “It’s not my beard.”

“Oh, really?”

The aircruiser bounced twice, then rose into the fog.

Zarkov’s eyebrows moved closer together. “Huh,” he muttered as he watched the monitor screens of the ship’s infrared scanners.

“Someone you know down there?” inquired the shiny robot.

The two small rectangular screens mounted on the control panel showed the Mazda Territory jungle they were flying over. A stream of people was moving along a jungle trail. Men and women, all similarly clad.

“Some kind of migration,” the doctor decided. “But from where?”

“Possibly this Perfect City we’re seeking.”

“That’s the most logical conclusion.” Zarkov scratched the imitation beard, causing more of it to detach. “Which would mean something’s gone wrong out there.”

“We might,” suggested Rattlin-203-AP, “drop down and make inquiries. I’ve had quite a good deal of experience conducting public opinion surveys. You see, before I was assigned to the Air Service I worked for the Welfare Department.”

“Maintain a judicious silence for a while,” Zarkov told the mechanism. “Were going all the way to Pan’s hideout.”

Rattlin drummed his metal fingers on his metal thighs. “They all look quite pleased.”

“Who, the people down there?”

“Yes,” answered the robot. “I can’t help concluding that whatever may have happened, it was not a disaster.”

Zarkov said, “It’s possible Perfect City has fallen. Do you know what Flash Gordon looks like?”

“Oh, yes, Major. We all got pictures of him, front view and profile, a few days back,” said Rattlin. “Because he’s wanted for murder.”

“He’s not wanted for murder any more.”

“Oh, really?”

“Keep your glass eyes on those screens and if you spot anyone down there who resembles Flash, give a yell.”

“Noryl,” said the copilot robot.

“What?”

“All military robots have eyes made of noryl plastic,” said Rattlin. “Has the murderer of Minister Minnig been apprehended then?”

“Yeah, by me.” Zarkov scanned the control panel. They were still two hours from Perfect City.

“That’s not him.” Rattlin had his ball head tilted toward the scanner screens. “No, that’s not him, either.”

Zarkov thumped the robot on its hollow elbow. “Just tell me if you
do
see Flash Gordon.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant. As I explained earlier, I’m programmed to be efficient,” said Rattlin, “so there’s nothing much I can do about it. No, that’s not him.”

Zarkov concentrated on his flying.

P
an stepped out of the wall.

His head swiveled as he took in the state of the control room. “Where are the fools who are supposed to be on guard here?” he demanded aloud.

He went bounding across the room, climbing up on the catwalks. Before he even reached the section of controls which activated the slave helmets he saw what had been done.

“Smashed—everything smashed.”

The bearded man halted before the ruined control panels, gently touched the broken dials, the battered knobs and switches. “It will take weeks,” he said, “even for someone of my technical skill to repair this wanton destruction.”

Further along was a bank of scanner screens which gave views of the streets of Perfect City. Feet dragging, Pan moved to those. “Even if I do repair all this,” he mused, “what good is it? The streets are empty, my Perfect City deserted.”

He walked away from the disheartening images of the empty city. Slamming a fist into his hand, he said, “But I still have my sound-wave equipment,” he said. “With that I can humble this entire planet. I can make them send me as many new slaves as I wish. I can make Perfect City flourish again.”

Then he heard it. Distant, several rooms away from where he stood. A faint hammering.

In his anger, Pan had forgotten that there must be someone who had done all this damage, forgotten that this someone might still be here.

His fingers tightened on the grip of his blaster pistol and he went running along the catwalk.

Three rooms later he saw the old man. High up on a catwalk, pounding a delicate oscillating device to ruins with a silver hammer. “Stop that, you old fool,” roared Pan as he jogged out along the narrow catwalk.

Sawtel lowered the weapon in his hand to glance at his former partner. “I’ve been expecting you, Pan.”

The ruler of Perfect City halted five feet from the white-bearded old man. “Who are you?”

“Yes, I suppose long months of living in the jungle have changed me,” said Sawtel. “I am Sawtel.”

Pan took one more step forward. “And you’re the one who has done all this damage, the one who has tried to destroy what was, after all, our mutual dream.”

“This was no dream of mine, Pan,” the old man told him. “Not what you’ve done here. Had I been less of a fool and less of a coward, I would have done what I’m doing now before I fled.”

His gun aimed at the old man, Pan looked around him. “You realize what you’ve done? Tomorrow I am going to deliver my message to those fools in the capital of Estampa. Should they not capitulate, agree to my terms, I will use this sound-wave equipment to destroy their city,” Pan said. “But look. You’ve destroyed most of this, too, Sawtel.”

“It’s mine to destroy,” he said. “Most of what you’ve had your slaves build in this room was based on my inventions. I never intended any of this to be used for the purposes you have used it.”

Pan laughed. “No, and that’s why you will live and die a fool,” he said. “You create something which can give you absolute power, a weapon that no one can withstand. Then you stuff the notes in a drawer and go on to a new problem. Granted, Sawtel, that many of the ideas I have used are yours, but you never would have been able to do what I have done.”

“Yes, that’s one of the few consolations I’ve had.”

Pan gestured with the gun. “Well, it’s all over now. Get away from there. I see you’ve left a few of the machines in working condition. Perhaps I’m—”

The old man threw himself toward Pan.

The blaster crackled, and the old man’s side burst into tiny flames.

Before Pan could fire again, Sawtel fell into him. “Watch out, you fool!”

Sawtel grasped the catwalk rail and saved himself from falling.

However, Pan caught nothing but air in his clutching grasp. He fell straight down through the network of catwalks, a fall of a hundred feet. He landed face down and did not move again.

The old man, using the catwalk railing, pulled himself along. “There’s still time to do what I intended.”

It took him several long painful minutes to drag himself the twenty yards to the huge machine he had not yet harmed. It was, he had deduced, one of those which manufactured the waves of sound which had been used to topple the towers and ramps of the cities of Estampa.

Sawtel was unable now to use his left arm. But with only his right hand he began to make adjustments to the dials and controls. Everything seemed to be closing in on him. The control room, which had been large, now only extended a few feet on each side of him. Beyond that there was only a soft blurred darkness. A darkness which kept inching closer to him.

“I must do this.” The pain from the deep wound in his left side began to work its way through his body, making him clench the fingers of his right hand and cry out.

He lived less than five minutes more, just enough time to set the machine and throw the necessary switches. It began to hum faintly as Sawtel sank to the catwalk. Then darkness closed in completely.

“W
e’ll find them around the next turning,” Tad had said a few moments earlier, a smile breaking out on his face.

Jillian’s brother was with them now, a tall red-haired and freckled young man in his late twenties. He walked along the palace corridor close beside the girl, one arm around her waist.

Flip appeared first, moving with an elated sort of walk which was almost a strut. “Hey, you cats missed my best gig,” he called when he came around the bend and recognized Tad and the girl. “I was a wow, really boffo.”

“Have you seen anything of Pan?” asked Flash.

Tad said, “He’s over in the control-room area and—” He stopped speaking, closing his eyes and shaking his head slowly from side to side.

Flash left Dale and moved close to the lanky boy. “What is it, Tad?”

Tad did not immediately reply. His face had turned deathly white. “They’ve met,” he began, then stopped. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “We have to get out of here fast, out of the palace and out of the city.”

“Something’s happened to Sawtel?” said Jillian.

“If he’s in trouble,” said Flash, “we have to help him, Tad.”

“No, there’s nothing to be done,” said the boy. “It’s too late. You must believe me. We have to get clear of here.”