Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus (8 page)

“Fifteen miles?” said Booker. “I can’t walk any fifteen miles in the shape I’m in.”

Flash went over to the bound trapper. “We have to leave you here,” he said, pointing at the ropes. “But you should be able to work yourself free in a few hours. Or maybe someone will find you.”

In another minute, with Mallox muttering about the folly of allowing the blue man to remain alive, they resumed their trek.

The dusk was filled with enormous scarlet-and-gold butterflies. The rain had ceased as the day began to wane. The butterflies drifted silently through the treetops high above.

“Still about five miles to go,” the hawkman told Flash.

“We should be able to keep on for another hour at least before we stop for the night,” decided Flash.

Back at the tail end of the line, Booker said, “When are we going to call a halt? Seems like we must have come fifty miles by now.”

“Why don’t you stop by yourself and rest up?” suggested Sixy. “You can catch up with us later.”

“Are you joking? I’m not about to try making my way through this wilderness by myself,” said Booker. “I’d get lost for sure.”

“That possibility had occurred to me.”

Jape came trotting up to Flash’s side. “I think I’ve got this thing figured out.” He was holding the blue man’s radio in two of his hands, the earphones over his ears.

“So they do communicate by means other than telepathy?” asked Flash.

Removing the earphones, Jape fell in step with Flash. “The whole process isn’t exactly telepathy at all,” he said. “After listening to this radio for a while I began to hear something. It makes sense, because if the people of Mesmo are completely telepathic they’d have no need of earphones at all.”

“You heard something!” said Flash. “What?”

“A human voice,” replied Jape. “So I turned the volume up as high as it will go. Here, listen.”

Flash took the proffered earphone and held it to his ear. “You’re right, Jape, that’s a human voice. Sort of a low muffled growling, though.”

“Here’s what I’ve concluded,” said the four-armed physicist. “The language of the blue men is what you might call ‘ear-mitted.’ That is, they talk by way of their ears.”

“Their ears?” said Huk.

“It’s not that unusual a thing,” continued Jape. “That’s why they all wear earphones. To help transmit and pick up messages. You see, it’s a much less raucous way of communicating than ours. Which explains why they think of us as rough beasts.”

“Then they aren’t using extrasensory powers at all?” said the hawkman.

“I’m not sure of that,” said Jape. “They may be able to communicate telepathically, but only at close range.” He shrugged with all his shoulders. “We may never know, since I don’t think I’m going to have an opportunity for much detailed study.”

“Let’s hope not,” said Huk. “I want to stay as far from the blue men as we can.”

“What you’re listening to on the earphones,” said Flash, “is there any way you can translate it?”

“I’m only guessing at this point,” answered Jape. “The language sounds fairly close to that spoken on the planet of Yasmin. This could mean Mesmo was colonized from there centuries ago. I know a little Yasminian, and if I stick with this radio a few hours longer it’s just possible I can pick up this Mesmo version of the language well enough to understand what they’re saying to each other.”

“It would be helpful to know what they’re saying about us,” said Huk.

“That’s important now,” agreed Jape, “but equally as important is the fact that if I can understand the language we’ll be able to find out a lot more about this planet.”

“Such as the location of the spaceports,” said Flash.

“Well,” said Huk, “you two can handle the long-range planning for the time being. I’m more concerned with seeing we get clear of any blue men who may be tracking us.”

“We’ve been pretty careful,” said Flash. “I don’t think any more trappers are going to sneak up on us.”

“You’ve decided that’s what that fellow was?” asked Jape.

“I have a feeling that snare that caught me was one of his,” said Flash. “And he wasn’t dressed in the style of the blue men we encountered in the city.”

“Yes, he had a woodsman’s look about him,” said Huk.

Darkness gradually dropped down on them. The party continued on. When they stopped to make camp for the night, they were still two miles from the vast jungle.

“T
he trees grow thick here,” said Huk, who was kneeling in front of the small campfire he’d started. “They should conceal the flames from anyone flying over.”

“Don’t see why we need a fire at all,” said Booker as he chewed on a cake of the dry food they had salvaged from the wreck. “We got nothing to cook.”

“A fire’s good for more than cooking,” said Flash. “It’ll keep curious animals at a safe distance.”

“What kind of animals?” asked Booker. “I haven’t seen much around here except butterflies.”

“Well, since the fellow who almost caught us had animal traps set,” replied Flash, “I figure there must be animals.”

“Probably a few nocturnal types at least,” said Huk.

“I noticed signs while we were traveling,” said Sixy. “Tracks on the ground, marks on the trunks and branches. Some kind of big cats, I’d say.”

“How big?” asked the strong man.

Sixy ripped open a food packet with his toes. “Oh, as big as the lions we worked with in the circus.”

Mallox laughed. “There’s nothing to worry about then,” he said. “Cats that size, I can just snap their necks.”

“We don’t all have that ability,” Sixy reminded him. “If one of those big cats comes along tonight while you’re asleep and—”

“I don’t need any sleep.”

“We’re all going to need rest,” said Huk.

“What we’ll have to do,” said Flash, “is divide the night into shifts. We should keep at least two on watch all night.”

“I need my sleep,” said Booker. “I’m still not recovered from the train wreck.”

“You and Narla can have the last shift before morning,” said Huk. “That way you can sleep from now until then.”

“How early you going to wake me up?”

“I can take all the night shifts,” said Mallox. “Then everyone can sleep. There’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Huk shook his head. “No, we have to divide the work, Mallox. And everyone has to do part of it. There’s no telling how long we may be together and it’s best to get a system worked out now.”

The giant made a rumbling sound in his chest, letting his huge hands slap against his thighs. “Very well, I’ll go along with the system.”

Flash, after the shifts were set up, went and sat beside Jape. “Making any progress?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered the physicist. “The language they use here on Mesmo is definitely a variation on that spoken on Yasmin. I’m beginning to understand a few words here, a phrase there.”

“Any reference to our train wreck?”

“I believe they’ve been sending out a warning all day,” said Jape, patting the radio with one of his hands. “Something to the effect that several wild animals have escaped from the crashed circus train.”

“The wild animals being us?”

“Yes, though as far as I can gather they aren’t advocating that we be shot on sight,” said Jape. “Some group—I think the right name would be militia—is apparently searching for us.”

“Are they searching the forest we’ve just passed through?”

“I can’t tell,” said Jape. “But by tomorrow I think I’ll be able to figure out most of what’s being said on here.” He smiled. “That is, if we don’t get captured before then.”

The silence awakened Flash. It was a misty morning, the chill hour of dawn. Flash sat up from the bed he’d made of leaves.

The campfire had died; a trickle of sooty smoke spiraled up from it.

Flash looked to the place, some hundred feet from the camp, where Narla should have been standing watch. The girl was not there.

Jumping up, he turned to where Booker ought to have been. The black man was nowhere in sight.

“What is it?” asked Huk, coming awake.

“Narla,” said Flash, “and Booker. They’re not here.”

“I thought he looked too drowsy when I roused him to take over for me,” said Sixy, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.

Flash moved quickly to the spot where Narla had been. He cupped his hands, calling her name.

No answer came back to him out of the misty woods which surrounded them.

“Better if I had stayed up all night.” Mallox stretched his enormous arms above his head. “Where have they gotten to?”

Huk had been looking over the spot where Booker had kept watch. “There appear to be other prints here. What do you think, Sixy?”

Squatting, Sixy said, “Yes, it was two men. Wait—no, three. There’s the heel print of a soft leather boot mixed in with the others.”

“Looks like two more men grabbed Narla,” said Flash, after examining the ground.

“How could they have come so close?” asked Jape.

“For one thing,” said Sixy, “Booker may have gone back to sleep.”

“I would have heard anyone approaching,” said Mallox. “Even the smallest animal.”

“But you didn’t,” said Huk. “None of us did.” He unfurled his wings. “I’d better go up and take a look around.”

Flash returned to the place where they’d piled their supplies. He took up the stun rifle, scanning the trees around them. “They may still be out there.”

Jape rubbed one of his hands over his chin. “If it’s the national militia I’ve been hearing about,” he said, “I don’t see why they didn’t take us all.”

“Once when we played a little town on the jungle’s edge, I got to talking with a fellow who worked as a slave for one of the food vendors,” said Sixy. “He told me there’s more than one kind of slaver on Mesmo.”

“Men who don’t travel to other planets, you mean?” said the hawkman.

“Exactly,” said Sixy. “Bands of renegades who are more or less pirates, land-going pirates. This fellow knew of a man who’d escaped from one master only to be caught by a band of roving slavers. These fellows will even capture their own kind.”

“That might explain,” said Jape, “why they only took the girl and Booker.”

“I’ll wager they were afraid to tackle all of us,” said the strongman.

Flash said, “Huk, you go on and take a look around from above. If you don’t spot anything, then we’ll follow their trail on the ground.” Carrying the rifle, he went again to examine the tracks around the place where Narla had stood.

“A
nother Zarkov masterpiece,” said Zarkov, “if I do say so myself.” The light stripe which criss-crossed the ceiling of his large workshop, tinting him a pale yellow, threw prickly shadow images of his beard against the side of the spacecraft he’d been at work on. He stepped back, admiring the low cylindrical ship. “Not bad for a rush job.”

He glanced at the one-way pseudoglass walls of the big workroom, noticing it was night outside. He crossed to a table where he’d left a cup of broth. He took a sip, then scowled. “That sure got cold fast.”

“I brought the soup to you four hours ago,” said Dale as she came into the workshop.

“That accounts for its being cold.” Dr. Zarkov extended one hand, palm up and fingers spread toward the ship. “Handsome, isn’t it?”

“And certainly roomy enough to carry two.”

Zarkov frowned into the mug of cold broth. “This is going to be a solo rescue operation, Dale.”

“I don’t know why,” said Dale, “you keep thinking I’m not capable of handling myself—”

“It’s not that,” cut in the bearded doctor. “The thing is, we know very little about the planet Mesmo. The PlanExplo Foundation has never sent a survey team out there. Most of the data on the planet comes from a couple of EII robot-ship flybys.”

“I’ve gone into a heck of a lot of unexplored places with you and Flash,” the girl reminded him. “Including landing on several planets where no outsider had ever set foot before, from Mongo on.”

“There’s always a chance,” said Zarkov, “that I won’t come back. Even somebody as competent as Zarkov fouls up now and then.”

“Seems to me,” said Dale, “the chances of your fouling up will be less with me along to back you up.”

Zarkov banged the mug down onto the table. “Out of the question!” he boomed. He opened the door to the cabin of the revamped spacecraft and boosted himself in with a chesty grunt.

Dale came up beside the ship and stood looking inside. “You’ve finished your modifications?”

“Yeah, it’s ready to go,” he said. “With a few more little adjustments.” He clicked the tip of an electric screwdriver against his front teeth. “I’ve come up with an interesting variation on the conventional spacewarp equipment. Much more compact, and it should be a great deal more efficient. If I wasn’t in such a hurry to get off, I’d hop back down to Washington, and take out a patent on it.”

“To get to Mesmo,” said Dale, “we have to jump across both space and time then?”

“Unless you want to spend a couple of lifetimes or more enroute,” bellowed Zarkov. He hunched, frowning at the control panel. He tinkered for a moment, then said, “I notice you said we!”

“You know how I feel about Flash,” said Dale. “I have to go along.”

The doctor concentrated on his tinkering for another minute. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve appealed to Zarkov’s sentimental side.”

Dale laughed. “And most people say you don’t have one. I’ll get my spacesuit ready and pack some basic things in a rucksack.”

“Hum,” said Zarkov. “I just happened to pack an extra rucksack and stow it in here. To test the floor space. You can use that.”

“I see,” said the girl, smiling.

“What you can do, though,” said Zarkov, “is go turn the house down to its lowest operational level. I don’t want those nitwit servos mixing drinks and playing mood music all over the place while I’m gone.”

Dale climbed up inside the ship, caught hold of Zarkov’s arm. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said.

As she jumped from the cabin, the doctor said, “You had better be prepared for the possibility that we may not find him at all, you know, Dale.”

“Oh,” she said, “I know we’ll find Flash.”

S
ixy dug his toes into the mossy ground. “They all got together here,” he said. “The three who got Booker and the two who took Narla. Then they headed that way.” He poked a finger at the jungle looming up a quarter of a mile away.