Flash Gordon 2 - The Plague of Sound (8 page)

Flash chopped the rifle from the slave’s grasp as he landed.

Growling, the blank smile still on his face, the man swung a fist at Flash.

But the grinning blond man was no longer there.

As the blow whizzed harmlessly by, Flash reached out and dealt him another chop. This one to the slave’s neck.

The man stiffened, then went slack.

Flash ripped off his helmet as he fell.

While Flash had been occupied with the last rifle man, Tad had taken care of the first.

The lanky young man had used a different kind of surprise. He yanked the lead slave up off the ground with a lasso of vine which pinned the man’s arms to his side.

Tad relieved the man of his rifle and of his helmet before letting him drop back down to the jungle trail.

Jillian, meantime, had concentrated on two of the slaves who carried only handguns. Stationed by the side of the trail, masked by thick brush, she had waited until the instant Flash struck. Then she fired twice. Each crackling shot snapped a weapon out of a slave’s hand.

Sawtel was not as good a shot. It took him five tries, from his place of concealment, to blast away the guns of the remaining two men.

“Stick around,” Flash said to the nearest slave.

After rubbing at his singed hand, the chubby green man was about to dive into the brush.

Flash caught him by the shoulder, spinning him around.

He ripped off the helmet which made the man a slave of Pan. Then Flash blinked and dropped the helmet.

The chubby green man began to change. He grew taller. The color of his skin turned from bright light green to a soft cocoa brown; tight-curling dark hair began sprouting on his bald head.

“Hey, daddy,” the man said, “I’m glad that’s over.”

Z
arkov slouched slowly around the long worktable in his lab. He chewed absently on a kelp sandwich as he scrutinized the array of lists, charts, and maps he had spread out on the table. Grunting, he leaned over and crossed out another name with his electric pencil. “We’re narrowing it down,” he muttered.

A red globe commenced blinking. “Policeman to see you,” said the lab computer, showing him a picture of Inspector Carr.

“Let him in.” Zarkov reached out to cross another name off one of his lists.

“I hear you made threats against the life of one of our military dignitaries,” said the inspector as he came in.

“Come to drag me off to jail, have you?”

Inspector Carr smiled. “Officially I can’t approve of your conduct,” he said. “If you carried out your threat, at least partially, I would personally be quite pleased. What exactly are you up to, Doctor?”

Setting his sandwich down on a small patch of clear space on the table, Zarkov said, “I’m finding out who tried to blow me sky-high.”

The inspector moved along beside the worktable, studying the various lists and charts. “We found absolutely nothing to indicate an android was used to destroy that house, you know.”

“Exactly,” boomed Zarkov. “Which proves my point.”

“I’m not certain it does.”

“You’ve investigated a good number of explosions, Inspector. I’ll bet this is one of the first ones where you didn’t find even a smidgen of the bomb used, nor anything at all of one of the victims.”

“True, Dr. Zarkov,” admitted Carr. “As for the other victim, well, you did get a pretty nasty jolting in the explosion.”

“He was no hallucination,” said Zarkov. “If you won’t accept the idea of an andy with a bomb inside him, then what the hell blew up the house? Do you think I was smoking in bed?”

“I’ll grant this is an unusual case,” said the inspector. “Yet I’m wondering if you’re not going off on less than fruitful tangents.”

“Everything Zarkov does is fruitful,” he assured him in a booming voice.

The inspector’s exhalation of breath was almost a sigh. “What progress are you making?”

“Right now.” said Dr. Zarkov, “I’m narrowing down the list of possible people behind this. I’ve got it down to a few pretty interesting possibilities.” He picked up a list. “For instance, what do you know about a place called Paradise Park?”

“It was an amusement park, quite a sophisticated setup as I recall,” replied Inspector Carr. “They were located in the middle of several wooded acres out on the edge of the city. The whole place closed down over two years ago.”

“You failed to mention the most important point,” Zarkov told him. “Paradise Park was staffed completely by androids, and a goodly number of them were replicas of famous people, historical figures and celebrities.”

“Yes, that’s true. Still I don’t see—”

“Paradise Park shut down two and a half years ago.” said Dr. Zarkov. “As recently as two weeks ago they were ordering android components—zubertubes, shunt coils, gudgeon pins, autosyn transmitters, synth-flesh and so on.”

“Perhaps they intend to reopen the park.”

“Perhaps they built a simulacra Flash Gordon.”

Inspector Carr poked his tongue into his cheek, his left eye narrowing. “It sounds far-fetched.”

“But it doesn’t sound far-fetched that a man like Flash Gordon would commit a murder?” boomed the doctor.

“I’ve told you I was greatly surprised by the murder of Minister Minnig,” said the inspector. “By the way, do you think Miss Arden knows where Gordon is hiding out?”

“I have no idea. Why?”

“She managed to slip out of that villa of yours without my watch realizing it.”

A scowl touched Zarkov’s broad face. “Where’d she go?”

“We were able, some time after she left, to learn what she’d done,” said Carr. “She apparently rented an aircruiser this morning and took off for the Mazda Territory.”

“Damn,” said Zarkov. “That was a nitwit thing to do.”

“You have some idea of why she did that?”

“If I don’t crack things on this end pretty soon, I’m going to have to do that myself. Blast.”

“I wish you could see your way clear to cooperate a trifle more with us, Doctor.”

“When I catch the murderer, I’ll turn him over to you,” promised Zarkov. “Now I have to get back to work on my lists.”

A few minutes after the inspector left the blue pixphone light began flashing.

Zarkov, with an impatient snort, dropped a handful of papers and went to the phone. “Yes, what is it?”

The screen came to life. “Doc, I have only a few minutes,” Dale said. “I’m on to something. Can you meet me right away?”

The doctor watched her image for a long second. “Where are you?”

“At a place called Paradise Park. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes.” he replied slowly. “I’ll be there in half a hour.”

“Oh, good. I’ll meet you just inside the main gate. Her image faded away.

Dr. Zarkov kept looking at the empty screen, tugging at his beard.

T
he large ivory-colored room was filled with silence. No sound from outside penetrated the series of high oval windows. The footfalls of the tall man who paced the room were completely silenced by the ivory carpeting. He was wide-shouldered, nearly forty, with a stiff upright posture. His dark hair was thick and curling; a beard and moustache circled his mouth.

At the end of the room a colossal pipe organ had been built into the wall. The organ, too, was ivory white. Frowning slightly, the bearded man crossed silently to the organ. He sat on the bench, but with his back to the keyboards.

“It’s nearly time for my first message to those fools in Estampa Territory,” he said aloud.

He turned toward the instrument and activated various switches. Losing his rigid uprightness, he slouched, hunched, as he began to play. Wild, jarring music began to come from the huge organ. The tinted oval windows rattled.

Suddenly the bearded man stopped playing and spun angrily around. “I’ve told you not to intrude when I’m playing.”

“Oh, were you playing?” asked the heavyset green man who was standing in the middle of the room. “I thought you were only polishing the keys.”

Turning off the pipe organ, Pan stood and glared down at the man. “I don’t know why I suffer the pain of having you around, Manyon.”

“Because I am so very efficient, Master Pan.”

“Additionally, I don’t appreciate the way you say master,” Pan told him.

“Not enough awe and reverence, Master Pan?”

Pan said, “I can strap a helmet on you, too, Manyon.”

“But you won’t,” said the green man. “Then you’d have no one to take care of all the little details. Have you been working on your ultimatum speech to Estampa?”’

Pan made a vague gesture. “I was trying to compose my thoughts when you burst in.”

“How you can think with that calliope tooting is beyond me.”

Pan came stalking toward his underling. “I want no more slurs about my music out of you, Manyon.”

“Forgive me, Master Pan.” Manyon scratched his earlobe. “By the way, I’ve written out a little rough draft which might help you.”

A pout had formed on Pan’s thin lips. Saying nothing, he held out a hand.

Manyon gave him two sheets of ivory paper.

Pan took them and walked over beneath an amber-tinted oval window. He read over each page twice, slowly. Then, sighing, let the hand with the pages in it fall to his side.

“Not up to your usual high standard?” inquired the green Manyon.

Pan glanced at him, one eye nearly shut. “Somewhere in here I discern the germ of an approach. I’ll work on this crude skeleton you’ve patched together, and something viable may emerge.”

“Don’t take too long to flesh it out, Master Pan,” suggested Manyon. “We’ve picked tomorrow afternoon to intrude onto the Estampa airwaves.”

“Yes, leave me now and I’ll set to work.”

“Not yet, Master Pan. I have something further to report.”

“Well, what?”

“Looks like we’ve caught another aircruiser,” answered the green underling. “It’s being directed here right now.”

“Where’s this one from?”

“We believe it’s another from Estampa.”

“Those fools in Estampa,” said Pan. “They must know more about us than you think.”

“Not according to our sources in the capital, Master Pan.”

“The other ship,” said Pan. “All the equipment in it was built for the express purpose of finding me.”

“It didn’t help, though,” reminded Manyon. “We found their ship before it found us.”

“The ship, but not the pilot. Where is he, by the way? You’ve had a day to hunt.”

“It’s a big jungle out there, Master Pan. I wouldn’t worry, though. I’ve sent out several scouting parties.”

A smile appeared on Pan’s face. “Perhaps well be more fortunate this time,” he said. “Perhaps the pilot will be aboard.”

D
ale saw the jungle open up before her. She moved her hand down from her throat and began breathing again. She’d been certain her ship was going to crash.

The craft continued its downward journey. A large opening had appeared in the ground itself. Dale’s aircruiser passed through it.

“What is all this?” the girl said.

Her ship leveled out and passed over ivory-white towers and spires, curving white walkways. There was an entire city down here—a large, precisely laid-out city—all of it a spotless white.

“And no noise,” Dale realized.

The engines of her ship had turned off and it was drifting silently down now. Dale could hear no other sounds. Everything inside had ceased to tick, whir, and hum. Outside it seemed absolutely quiet.

Yet there were people out there. Men and women, moving about. But there was no noise, not a sound.

“They’re all dressed exactly alike,” Dale said.

All the citizens of this spotless and silent underground city were dressed in simple yellow tunics, with helmets of soft nearleather on their heads.

Frowning, the girl said, “And they’re all smiling, but there’s something unnatural about those smiles. They’re not quite right.”

Silently her ship had landed in what appeared to be a public courtyard. There was a large white pseudomarble fountain which shot up plumes of tinted water, making not a sound. The courtyard itself was paved with white squares of tile that seemed to absorb the sound of the feet which passed across them.

Her radio began to speak to her. “To anyone in the ship,” it said in a strange new voice, “listen and obey. You have exactly two minutes to step out of your craft with, hands held high. Should you fail to comply you will be stunned into unconsciousness.”

“End of the line,” the girl said, rising out of the pilot seat.

She crossed to the cabin door, opened it, and stepped out into the white silence.

Sawtel thrust his gnarled hand into the last of the slave helmets. “There,” he said after a moment, “this one is through working, too.”

Tad was watching the black man who had been green. “Show business,” he said. “You’re an actor, an entertainer.”

“You’re real hep, cat,” said the black man.

“Well, I read your mind,” admitted the lanky Tad.

“You’re not jiving me are you, daddy?”

Tad looked puzzled. “I can read your thoughts easier than I can understand your conversation, Mr., uh, Flip. Is that your name?”

“You got it, man.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

“Man, that’s the way everybody in show biz on my home planet beats their chops, daddy,” explained the entertainer. “I been gigging around with those dudes so long I got me the same line of jive, you dig?”

“It reminds me of something I read once,” said Tad.

“Well, man, it’s like a variation of the way they talked back on a planet called Earth,” said Flip. “Way they laid the scam on each other in a crazy era known as the forties and fifties. I ain’t exactly sure when that was, but those cats really swung, you know. That’s nuff said about me—who are all you dudes?”

“Don’t you know?” Flash asked him. “You were sent out to capture us, weren’t you?”

Flip winked at the pile of disabled helmets. “I don’t remember everything that went on while I was wearing that crazy lid, daddy,” he replied. “With that thing on, I just did what they told me, tommed around, and did just exactly what they told me with a happy grin. We was supposed to round up any strangers, that I know, and bring them in for processing.”