Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII (19 page)

“Are you heading for Arboria?” Sari asked.

“No, I want to see that Tempendulum. Scientific curiosity.” Zarkov grinned.

“You’re not the only one,” Sari said.

“Huh?”

She pointed to the rear of the saucer. Zarkov peered out. He saw two shapes—gleaming golden shapes in the form of flat poker chips. Two more flying vehicles.

“They’re following us,” Dale said nervously.

Zarkov nodded curtly.

P
rince Barin slowly crumpled the paper in his hand and held it in front of his chest. He turned to Minister Hamf and spoke sharply.

“Blue men, indeed. Who sent out this madman’s message?”

Hamf was properly deferential. “It was one of my most trusted agents, Your Excellency.”

“Indeed,” Barin snapped. “Zarkov warned me to pay attention to your reports. Perhaps I should.” He thrust his hands behind him and paced back and forth a moment. “And where is Zarkov, anyway? He went out of here hours ago, said he’d keep in touch, and I haven’t heard a word from him.”

“I’ve been keeping the lines of communication open, sire,” Hamf said.

“Any word of Flash Gordon and Dale Arden?” Prince Barin asked hopefully. He crossed to the window to look down into the capital’s square.

“No, Your Excellency,” Hamf said regretfully. “Perhaps they, too, fell into the hands of this strange group of undesirables.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Prince Barin said impatiently. “I don’t know what to think about this. What am I to do—postpone the ceremonies which start in twenty minutes? Send out a scouting expedition to wipe out these blue men your man has found? Tell me, Hamf, what do I do?”

Hamf shook his head. “It’s a difficult decision to make, Your Excellency. Although we have known for some time that there was a buildup of undesirables in the forest kingdom, we have been unable to spot where they might live. Now that we know there are those blue men—wherever they come from—we do not yet know where they now live.”

“Fine, fine,” Barin replied sarcastically. “Then we’ve nothing to go on. I simply cannot cancel the celebration. It would raise too many eyebrows in the kingdom. They’d think something serious is happening to the government.”

Hamf murmured contritely, “Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Oh, go on—get out of here! And don’t come back until you can bring me some good news about Zarkov or Flash Gordon. Or
something
decent.”

Hamf bowed and removed himself quickly from the throne room. Prince Barin stood at the window and gazed out over the crowd in the square. The people seemed to be massing in large numbers. It was obvious that they wanted to celebrate the liberation of the entire planet of Mongo from the grip of Ming the Merciless.

Prince Barin glanced at his digital dock by the window and noted that he had only a few more minutes before he was scheduled to make his appearance.

He turned and at that instant the door opened once again. Hamf was back.

“Didn’t I tell you not to come back here until you could bring me good news?” Prince Barin demanded.

Hamf said nothing, but simply stepped to one side.

Flash Gordon strode in, his blond hair glistening in the light.

“Prince Barin,” Flash cried, extending his right hand and striding vigorously across the palace floor.

“Flash!” Prince Barin cried, his voice friendly and his good nature restored. “You’re here at last!”

“Had a few minor delays on the way,” Flash replied, grinning.

“And where is the beautiful Dale Arden?” Prince Barin asked in his courtly way.

“It’s a complicated story,” Flash said, stroking his chin. “But she’s safe. I do know that.”

Prince Barin laughed. “Dr. Zarkov was so worried about you that he went out in an airscout to find you.”

“I know,” Flash said quietly.

“You’ve seen him?” Prince Barin asked in surprise.

“Yes,” said Flash. “He’s with Dale. And a girl named Sari.”

Hamf cleared his throat at the doorway. “She’s one of mine.”

Prince Barin turned in annoyance. “Are you still here? I thought I told you to go back to your decoder machines.”

“Yes, sire,” Hamf said obsequiously, and bowed himself out again.

“Well,” asked Prince Barin, “where are Dale and Zarkov?”

Flash cleared his throat. “Prince Barin, sit down for a moment, will you? This isn’t a simple story that I’m going to tell you.”

Prince Barin frowned. “If I must, I must.”

“You must—if you want to hear the truth,” Flash said gently.

They sat together in cellulogorm chairs at the side of the room and Flash told Prince Barin as tersely and as completely as he could what had happened not only to him but to Dale and to Dr. Zarkov and to Sari as well.

Prince Barin was visibly aroused when Flash had finished. He rose and paced back and forth in agitation.

“Good lord! It simply doesn’t seem possible! Men from the future? Blue warriors from Ming’s laboratories? All trying to destroy the forest kingdom.”

“It’s possible, all right,” Flash said gravely. “Now we’ve got to act.”

Prince Barin nodded. “I’m going out there and announce to my people that we have been having a great deal of trouble on the border. I’m sure they’ll support me if I call for troops and military supplies.”

Flash held up his hand. “No, I don’t want you to go out there at all.”

Prince Barin’s chest swelled out. “I’m the ruler of this kingdom, Flash. I
must
go out there.”

“I don’t mean to contradict you, Prince Barin,” Flash said slowly. “You’ve got to remember I’m from a democracy where we all have our say. I want you to let me go out there on that balcony. Then we’ll see what Ming XIII’s henchmen do.”

Prince Barin’s eyes lighted up. “I see what you mean! When they see Flash Gordon, the man Ming XIII had promised to take care of, they might—”

“—might kill me,” Flash interrupted, smiling.

Prince Barin frowned. “Let’s see how they react,” he said. He stepped over to the window and looked down on the square. Thousands of forest-kingdom people milled about, looking up toward the balcony where Prince Barin soon would appear.

Flash stood beside Prince Barin. He turned to shake hands with him.

“Good luck, Flash,” Prince Barin said.

Flash stepped through the French windows and walked across the balcony to the railing.

He raised a hand in salute to the people.

Wild cheering broke out in the large crowd. They knew Flash Gordon. “Flash!” they cried. “Flash!”

Flash smiled and raised his hand again. His eyes moved over the crowd, trying to spot anyone who might resemble in dress or aspect either Kial or Lari. He did not see anyone.

He took a deep breath and spoke.

A hushed silence fell over the crowd.

Now, thought Flash. If they’re going to kill me, now is the time . . .

O
rto was a young man in his twenties. Lanl was an older man, at least fifty. Both wore a disguise of hunter’s green. Both felt uncomfortable. Both stood in the crowd of forest-kingdom people who waited for the scheduled appearance of Prince Barin on the palace balcony.

Orto glanced around nervously. “I don’t like it, Lanl. There’s something not quite right.”

“You’re young. You’re eager. You’re unnerved. Don’t be that way. This is a waiting game. If you’re not up to it, let me do the job.”

Orto shook his head vigorously. “I’m still worried about Gordon.”

“Gordon, Gordon,” Lanl said disgustedly. “What’s so big about Gordon?”

“He’s written up in all our history books as the greatest liberator ever to hit Mongo.”

“Books are written by knaves and fools,” Lanl said cheerfully. “We’ll take care of history. Just follow orders and we’ll get Prince Barin. In spite of the readouts in the Annals of Time.”

“Aren’t you afraid of Gordon?”

“Certainly, I’m afraid of Gordon. Didn’t I insist that Ming have him taken care of by another time probe?”

“Well, then. Do you believe Ming succeeded?”

Lanl shrugged. “We have to believe in something, don’t we, Orto?”

Orto glanced furtively around. “Shh! I think people are listening to us.”

“Then let’s not talk,” Lanl ordered.

He stared up at the balcony where Prince Barin would appear. A flash of light reflected on a glass pane as someone opened the French doors.

“Here he comes!” a spectator shouted.

Lanl jabbed Orto in the ribs. “Come on.”

Orto nodded. He moved quickly with the older man to the edge of the crowd. Lanl had removed a small miniray pistol from his tunic. Orto had one, too. They stood by a wall and waited.

No one noticed them.

No one saw the miniray pistols, for they were no larger than a ballpoint pen.

The balcony doors opened and a figure stepped into the sunlight. Bright-yellow hair caught the light.

“Yellow hair,” Lanl said in a choked voice.

“It’s not Barin!”

“It’s Gordon,” Lanl whispered. He shoved the miniray pistol into his tunic and grabbed Orto’s arm. “You were right The probe team didn’t take care of Gordon.”

“Then the tape readout is true. Gordon survived whatever tactics Ming XIII brought to bear.”

Lanl nodded, his eyes narrowed. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where to?”

“The Tempendulum. I want to get back to Ming to explain what happened.”

“You think he’ll believe it?”

Lanl shook his head. “We’ll have to talk fast.”

“Flash! Flash!” the crowd chanted in unison.

“My friends,” Flash Gordon said over the loudspeaker. “On an occasion like today, words are inadequate to express my affection and love for the people of the forest kingdom.”

Orto and Lanl moved quickly away from the crowd and ran through a side street.

“Guards!” a voice shouted suddenly, booming out over the sound of the crowd responding to Flash’s speech, “Seize those men!”

It was Flash Gordon’s voice on the loudspeaker, interrupting his own speech.

Orto turned to Lanl. “He’s spotted us.”

They raced down the alley and turned at the corner. The safety of the woods lay not fifty feet away.

But a big guard blocked their way; he was dressed in forest green and wore a peaked cap. He had his enormous hands on his wide hips.

“Be ye in a terrible hurry, fellows?” the big man asked with a broad smile.

Orto stumbled over the big man’s feet in his haste to flee. Lanl tried to get away from the big man’s hands, but ended up in their grasp.

Another large guard then joined the first.

“What have ye here, anyway? A pair of runaways?”

“Aye,” answered the first.

“The prophecy was right,” Orto said, sighing.

Lanl shook his head. “Well, maybe it’s all for the best. I wouldn’t want to face Ming XIII without proof Prince Barin was dead.”

The big guard prodded them both in the back. “Move it fast. Ye’re going to see the prince, but first let’s search ye to see if ye’re carrying weapons.”

Orto looked at Lanl with an expression of hopelessness. A moment later, they had no weapons at all. The big guard had the miniray pistols in his pocket.

D
ale peered through the bubbleglass viewport of the fourcap saucer and pointed in triumph.

“There it is, Doc. You see that gleam of metal in the trees?”

Zarkov leaned forward, peering intently. “Righto, Dale. Good girl. Okay, let’s make a descent and get this saucer on the ground. This is an old crate and I don’t want to have trouble with it the way I had with my airscout.”

Zarkov grinned and fiddled with the controls on the small console.

The saucer dropped toward the treetops.

“Sari, would you look out the aft port and see if those clowns have picked up our trail again?”

Sari moved in her seat and squinted out through the rear viewport. Zarkov had gone through some exhaustive tactical maneuvers to evade their pursuers. Apparently, he had shaken them off. In doing so, he had almost taken off the saucer’s radar antenna on one of the high conifers.

“No sign of them, Dr. Zarkov.”

“Good, good,” Zarkov muttered, pleased, peering through the bubbleglass at the forest as it rapidly rose toward them.

“There’s a clearing around the Tempendulum,” Dale said.

“I see it, Dale. Thanks.”

Zarkov thrust the guidance disc forward and the saucer moved downward, slanting from fore to aft in a direct line to the estimated point of arrival. In seconds, the saucer had settled carefully on the retrothrust pile.

Zarkov flipped off the switches, slipped the dogs on the hatch, and jumped to the ground. He reached up and helped Dale and Sari down.

“Sari, you keep one eye peeled in that eastern sky, will you? I don’t want those blue men to come up here and surprise me. I want to give my full attention to this alleged time machine.”

“Right, Dr. Zarkov,” Sari said. She climbed the metal ladder to the top of the minisaucer and perched on its apex. Her eyes shaded by one hand, she sat and waited.

“Come on, Dale,” Zarkov said eagerly. “Show me the inside of this dome.”

Dale nodded and they hurried across the clearing to the open port. Dale pointed and Zarkov went in first, helping Dale in after him.

With mounting excitement and astonishment, Zarkov gazed about him. His eyes lit first on the pendulum hanging from the ceiling of the dome, the heart-shaped weight now once again attached to the bottom. Then he took in the floating globe of opaque black that hummed softly near the pendulum.

In moments, he was at the console, gazing in fascination at the gauges, dials, and readout ports.

“How about that?” he muttered to himself.

Dale came closer, looking over his shoulder. “Flash and I tried to figure out what they all meant.”

“Well, I don’t know myself,” Zarkov said abstractedly, stroking his beard. “But if we’re correct, and it is a time-travel operation, it’s obvious that the controls have to do with time, the speed of light, and velocity. Right?”

“Right, Doc,” Dale said uncertainly.

“So,” Zarkov said, “here’s the time control. That’s fairly obvious.”

“T.C.,” mused Dale. “We guessed that right.”