Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus (3 page)

The ship descended slowly and landed beside the straight, black, desert road.

“Do you think we’ll find some trace of Flash?” asked Dale anxiously.

“Sure, we’ll find a trace,” answered Zarkov in his booming voice. “But that doesn’t mean we’ll find Flash himself.”

“I can’t understand what could have happened.”

The bearded scientist hopped from the ship. In a rucksack strapped to his wide back was an assortment of instruments and devices, some standard and some of his own invention. He trotted around the aircruiser to help the girl alight. “We’ll find out what happened,” he told her. “I guarantee it.”

“There are the tracks of a car going off the roadway,” said Dale, pointing. There was enough moonlight to illuminate the marks left by the landcar.

Zarkov fished a small ball-shaped robot camera out of his pack. He set it on the desert ground and gave it a pat on its black metal backside. “Get me pictures of those car tracks,” he instructed the camera.

The mechanism rose a few inches into the air, and started clicking off pictures of the car’s trail.

“It’s Flash’s car sure enough.” Zarkov knelt carefully beside one of the tread patterns. “And he didn’t skid.”

“There’s no sign of any other car being involved.”

“Nope,” agreed the doctor as he stood upright. “Seems like Flash went off the road voluntarily.”

“But why?”

“Well, either he saw something in the desert here that he wanted to investigate,” said Zarkov, “or something was chasing him.”

“There are no tracks to indicate that.”

Dr. Zarkov jerked a thumb up at the chilled black night. “Something might have come at him from above.” He started walking along the ground parallel to the tracks Flash’s car had left.

“One of those mysterious objects Agent Cox was talking about?”

“Possibly.” He stopped for a moment, scanning the prints of the tire tracks which stretched ahead of him. “It does look as though Flash was trying to outmaneuver something.”

The ball-shaped camera floated by, clicking off more shots. It traveled ten yards beyond Zarkov and stopped.

“No more tracks.” Zarkov moved on until he came to the spot where the robot camera was waiting. “They’re wider here at the end, blurred.”

“What would cause that?”

Zarkov, yanking hard at his beard, frowned at the tread marks and then up into the black night. “Something grabbed him from above and lifted him into the air.”

Dale put her hand against the doctor’s arm. “Some spacecraft from lord knows where.” She shook her head, looking up at all the distant stars above them. “He could be anywhere. They could have taken Flash anywhere.”

Dr. Zarkov took two small boxes, each the size of his palm, out of his rucksack. He adjusted a series of dials on each, then released them. One drifted to the ground and the other rose into the air. “We should be able to narrow that down some, Dale,” he said. “Whatever it was that grabbed him should have left some clues behind.”

“Will you find enough to help us get Flash back?”

“Trust me,” said Zarkov.

T
he auction began an hour after Flash arrived.

At first, since the blue men communicated by thoughts and not words, Flash wasn’t sure what was going on. An elderly blue man, wrapped in a sea-green silk cloak, had begun to move from cage to cage. He would point at one and the crowd would press closer to that particular cage. A few silent minutes would pass. Then the elderly man would continue on to the next cage. Soon the cage he’d been in front of would be hauled away with its occupant.

As Flash studied his surroundings, his captors, and the prisoners in the other cages, he decided the blue men must have been carrying on hunting expeditions, similar to the one which caught him, all through the universe. He noticed a caged lizard man who was probably a native of Jupiter, several bird men from the planet of Gamaliel, a lion man from Mongo. Besides a dozen or so caged men there were at least ten captive animals. These too, Flash recognized as coming from several different planets.

“What’s that old guy up to?” Booker wanted to know.

“I’d say,” said Flash, “he’s probably holding some kind of auction. Judging by the expressions on their faces and by what happens to the people in the cages, I figure they’re bidding on us.”

“They can’t do that. I’m not going to be anybody’s slave.”

“We don’t have much to say about it,” Flash reminded Booker. “And we don’t even know if it’s slavery they have in mind.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know anything about this planet,” said Flash. “It could be they eat outsiders.”

Booker shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t thought of that.”

“We’ll find out soon. They’re coming to my cage,” said Flash. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” he asked the bent old man who stopped in front of his cage.

The auctioneer ignored Flash and, with his back to the cage, began gesturing at the silent audience.

There was considerable interest in Flash. Nearly all the bidders pushed in close to his cage. One blue man came forward hesitantly, and started to reach through the bars to touch Flash. Thinking better of it, he hopped back.

Flash watched the faces of the blue men watching him. He could tell who was bidding on him by their expressions of interest and cunning and sudden anger. A few of them also gestured with their hands while putting forth a bid. Flash noticed one man who gestured considerably. He was a good deal heavier than most of the others and had a full red mustache. His crimson-silk cloak was trimmed with gold.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Booker asked Flash.

“What I’m going to do,” replied Flash, “is wait and see what happens.”

“Yeah, but suppose you’re right? Suppose these guys are cannibals, or even something worse?”

Flash grinned. “I’m not in the cooking pot yet.”

A few low moans rose from the crowd of bidders. They shuffled, then moved over to stare into Booker’s cage. The fat blue man with the red mustache remained in front of Flash, his plump hands locked behind his back. In a moment, a landtruck was again hooked to the cage.

Flash was carried away, out into the hazy afternoon.

The fat blue man remained, hands behind his back, in the huge auction hall. When the cage holding Flash was gone, he turned to inspect Booker.

“A fine specimen,” the bent old auctioneer was saying, his thought traveling into the minds of all of the blue men watching him. “Captured, after a ferocious struggle, on the distant planet of Mars. He’d make an excellent addition to your enterprise, Barko.”

Barko, the fat man, drummed his plump fingers on the earpiece of his helmet. “He seems surly, likely to be uncooperative.”

“He’s nearly as strong as the one you’ve just purchased.”

Barko studied the protesting Booker. “Perhaps we could use him. Not as a major attraction, however. Most certainly not at the price I was forced to pay for the other one.”

“Shall we start the bidding at five hundred harlans, gentlemen?” asked the old man.

Barko smiled. “I bid four hundred.”

“Four hundred? How often does one have the opportunity of bidding on a remarkable Martian specimen such as this?”

“Why are you all staring at me?” shouted Booker. “Let me out of this damn thing!”

“Four hundred twenty-five,” offered another of the blue men.

“Four hundred fifty,” countered Barko.

“Surely he is worth much more than four hundred fifty harlans, gentlemen.”

“Four hundred seventy-five.”

“Five hundred.”

“Ah, we have arrived at the price I originally suggested. Much too low at that.”

“Five hundred twenty-five.”

“Six hundred,” bid Barko.

“Ah, so you do wish him as an attraction, Barko. I thought as much,” said the auctioneer, a smile revealing yet more wrinkles on his wrinkled blue face. “Are there any further bids?”

There were none.

“Sold for six hundred harlans to Barko’s Interplanetary Circus.”

A
shimmering glare filled the amphitheater. The place was as large as any outdoor stadium Flash had ever seen. Several thousand round-headed blue people sat on the stone benches that ringed the oval field. The field itself was covered with a soft flaky substance that reflected the harsh light of the afternoon sun.

Flash surveyed the place as his cage was rolled out of an entry tunnel. That stuff must be the local version of sawdust, he decided. And, I’m willing to bet, this is a circus of some kind.

A number of things were happening in the arena. A green man was walking a high wire stretched between golden poles. A blonde-haired girl was galloping around a circular enclosure on a huge shaggy mount which vaguely resembled a horse. A half-dozen elephants, lumbering and swaying, paraded around the field. There was a four-armed juggler; a hawkman flew high overhead, a fine silver chain anchoring him to the ground. Giant scaly lizards, almost as large as the marching elephants, were being forced to leap through hoops of fire. And there were clowns, at least ten of them—somersaulting, cartwheeling, pummeling each other.

“There are always clowns,” observed Flash to no one in particular, “no matter where you go.”

The barred door of his cage grated open. A shockstick was thrust in at Flash.

Guess this is my stop, he thought. He avoided the blue man who was attempting to prod him and leaped out of the cage and onto the glistening turf.

Two other blue men approached him. They wore black-silk cloaks and carried silver shocksticks.

Flash stood, hands on hips, looking around him, thinking. Seems like they book their acts by raiding other planets. Wonder what they’ve got in mind for me.

A silver shockstick pointed at him and then to the left. One of the blue men nodded in that direction.

“You mean that ladder?” asked Flash.

A gilded metal ladder rose two hundred feet straight into the air a few yards away from them.

The tip of the silver stick touched Flash’s arm. He leaped back from the shock.

He went to the ladder, glanced at his escorts, and pointed upward.

Both round blue heads nodded.

“Onward and upward,” said Flash, grinning as he commenced his climb.

As he neared the top of the ladder he noticed that there were no nets of any kind below. At the very top of the ladder was a small platform about four feet square.

I guess this is my destination, he concluded. Flash stepped out on it.

An instant after his feet touched the metal square, it began to sizzle with a powerful electric charge.

“Hey!” exclaimed Flash, hopping.

Then the platform twanged and he was flipped out and away. He began to fall down through the bright afternoon.

Barko had returned to his circus a few moments before. He stood in the shadows of one of the entry tunnels, watching the many performers in the glaring light of the arena.

A thin lopsided blue man shuffled up to him. His left arm was bent in an unnatural way; the left side of his face was immobile. “I like the looks of the new recruit,” his thoughts said to Barko.

“I had to pay enough for him,” returned the circus owner.

The bent blue man gestured with his right arm. “He should make an excellent aerialist. They’re sending him, at my suggestion, up the ladder now.”

Barko grimaced, watching Flash make his ascent. “Your appraisal of his potential better be right, Nord.”

“I know what it takes to make an aerialist,” replied the bent man. “Even though I don’t have it any more myself, Barko.”

Nodding, the rotund Barko thought, “I don’t know why you ever wanted to risk your neck up there. Much easier to let these outlanders take the risk.”

“Ah, but the thrill of it,” thought Nord, “the feel of soaring through the empty air. There is nothing like it.”

“Nothing like the inevitable fall either, I wager.”

Nord concentrated on Flash, but made no reply.

Barko thought, “He seems to be well coordinated. He’s in very good shape, trim.” Absently, the circus man rubbed at his own large stomach.

Nord was breathing through his mouth, hands clenched. “There he goes.”

“Let’s hope he’s as good as you think, Nord. I’d hate to lose my investment so soon.”

A rope with a large metal ball at its end was swinging through the air toward the plummeting Flash.

“Catch it, catch hold now,” thought Nord.

Flash did. He grasped the ball at the end of the rope and was jerked to a stop.

“Very good,” commented Barko. “Look at those muscles ripple in his back. The audience likes that sort of thing.”

Nord was intent on watching Flash. He knew what was coming next. “Don’t lose your head. Keep calm—that’s the secret.”

An electric shock was sent into the ball Flash was holding on to. The shock was sufficient to force him to let go.

Flash fell again. Now three more ropes were swung out at him from the complex mechanism that loomed above the area where he was being forced to perform.

Flash caught one, swung himself halfway across the arena, and let go. He dropped another fifty feet before catching hold of another rope. This put him not more than fifteen feet above the glittering turf.

“Ah, very good,” thought the admiring Nord.

Flash let go of this rope, turned a full somersault in midair, and landed on his feet on the ground.

The audience had been concentrating on him, too, and they applauded thunderously now.

“I don’t know if I like that final touch of his,” thought Barko. “It’s almost as though he were thumbing his nose at us.”

“Perhaps,” thought Nord, smiling with half of his face. “But he’s very good, Barko. You can see how they like him.”

The two blue men with the silver shocksticks came running for Flash. They prodded him back toward his waiting cage.

“We’ll see,” thought Barko. “I admit he’ll be a good attraction, but he may turn out to be a disruptive force among the other performers. I won’t tolerate that.”

“I wish there were a way to communicate with him.”

“You’re incurably sentimental, Nord. You know there can be no communication with the lower orders.”