Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII

THE TIME TRAP OF MING XIII

THE TIME TRAP OF MING XIII
is the forth in the series of fabulous novels inspired by the famous comic strip
FLASH GORDON
, read daily and Sunday by millions of fans throughout the world.

After his scientists design the Tempendulum, a machine that can transport people backward and forward through generations of time, Ming XIII sends his evil henchmen back to change the course of history by assassinating
FLASH GORDON
. After a series of hair-raising adventures, Flash turns the tables on Ming's men and propels them back to their own century.

OTHER FLASH GORDON ADVENTURES
from Avon Books

#1
The Lion Men of Mongo

#2
The Plague of Sound

#3
The Space Circus

#4
The Time Trap of Ming XIII

#5
The Witch Queen of Mongo

#6
The War of the Cybernauts

THE TIME TRAP OF MING XIII is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form.

AVON BOOKS
A division of The Hearst Corporation
959 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10019

Copyright © 1974 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Co-published by Avon Books and King Features Syndicate, Inc.

ISBN: 0-380-00111-X
Cover art by George Wilson

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Avon Books.

First Avon Printing, January 1974

Printed in U.S.A

THE TIME TRAP
OF MING XIII

T
hey were deep in the primeval forest, not far from Arboria on the superway from the spaceport, when the trouble began. The power in the jetcar failed. Then, abruptly, it returned.

“What’s the matter, Flash?” asked Dale Arden, turning to the driver. She was a slender, dark-haired girl in her early twenties dressed in a pale-green stretch blouse, wide crimson belt, and informal spacetravel skirt.

Flash Gordon turned to her with a frown. “I don’t know, Dale,” he said. “I thought for a moment I was losing jet thrust.” He was a strappingly muscular man with curly blond hair, blue eyes, and a deep solar tan. He wore a one-piece military uniform with the World Councl ranking of colonel on the collar.

Dale frowned. “This is a mighty lonely part of the forest.” Strange tropical vegetation towered above the curved superway as it wound through the Forest Kingdom of Mongo. Giant specimens of Earth’s ferns and conifers abounded in the region.

“I guess the thrust pack is all right,” Flash said, testing the foot pedal. “I’m not used to this hydrogen-powered model of Zarkov’s.”

Dale was lost in deep thought. She stared out at the oranges and lavenders and beiges that seemed to glow among the lush vegetation.

“Cat got your tongue?” asked Flash.

“When I’ve been away, I always forget how beautiful the trees of the forest kingdom really are,” she said, sighing.

“Erratic evolutionary development,” Flash said. “Earth plant growth followed a more leisurely pattern of change. Mongo’s suffered a slowdown, due to the planet’s erratic cooling process, and then a quick speedup.”

“Oh, I know all that,” said Dale. She fell silent.

“That isn’t what you’re really thinking about, is it?”

“No.” Dale smiled. “I’m thinking how glad I’ll be to see our old friends on Mongo. Prince Barin. Dr. Zarkov.”

“It’ll be like old home week.” Flash chuckled. “Doc Zarkov sounded just the same when we talked to him by laserphone from the Spaceport Inn, maybe a little louder and boomier than ever, but that’s Zarkov’s style.”

“I don’t know how you talk to him,” Dale said. “It’s always hydrogen packs or suspension systems or thrust pedals. I can never make head nor tail out of what he’s saying. Sometimes I’d just like to pull his beard and make him scream.”

Flash laughed good-naturedly.

As they shot along the newly constructed, delicately cambered roadway, only the swishing sound of the plyolact tires whispering over the surface of the slick copoly-petrol pavement broke the silence of the giant forest about them. Now and then a gold-and-red bird flashed into view, only to vanish instantly amidst the purple and beige of the trees and vines. They were alardactyls, mostly, similar to Earth’s flying mammals—strange beasts with brilliant silver eyes that turned gold when they sighted prey.

“Something’s bothering you,” Flash said suddenly.

Dale glanced at him. “Yes. I am worried.”

He laughed. “That’s obvious. But I don’t know why you should be.”

Dale was silent a moment. Then she said: “There have been so many delays.”

“Delays?” Flash kept his eye on the road. The superway wound lazily through towering ferns and gigantic conifers on either side. He could feel that slight lack of thrust in the pedal under his foot. And then, almost immediately, the power was back. “What delays?”

“Oh, the delay in getting the jetcar papers, for example.”

“That’s just bureaucratic paper juggling, Dale. Nothing to worry about.”

“And before that. The long flight from Earth’s system.”

“Sun spots, Dale.
Our
solar sun spots. You can’t blame that on Mongo.”

“I suppose not.” Dale frowned.

“Well?”

“And then there was that unexpected traffic tieup in the spaceport.”

“Population density, Dale.” Flash laughed. “Even on Mongo.”

“You haven’t said a word about that break-in at the Spaceport Inn.”

Flash frowned. He glanced at Dale. “A simple burglary, Dale. They have cat burglars on Mongo as well as on Earth.”

“I don’t like it at all—and to have the two of them so—well—so strange.”

“Strange? Oh, you mean the innkeeper’s daughter and her description of them? Weird dress? They were actors, Just as they said they were, doing a science-fiction play.”

“I don’t know,” Dale said musingly.

“You know what?” Flash asked with a grin.

“What?”

“You’re just being a worry wart.”

Dale frowned and slid down, into the plyoform seat, folding her arms irritably over her chest.

“What would the the purpose of delaying our visit to Arboria and Prince Barin?” Flash asked after a moment.

“I don’t know,” snapped Dale. “Forget I said it.”

Flash was watching the dials on the jetcar’s console. Thrust: okay. Hydrogen content: half. Reactor well: okay. Heat exchange: pressure good. E.T.A.: minus fifty-five seconds.

He drew up sharply. “Something’s wrong, Dale! We’re losing speed!”

Dale glanced at the Estimated Time of Arrival, readout in the digital port. “Almost a minute slow! What’s happened?”

The digital port spun with figures: 150s 200s.

Flash pushed on the thrust pedal. The figures continued to speed by in the digital port 250s. 300s.

“We’re losing power!”

The jetcar suddenly shuddered and wobbled on the superway as if the road itself were trying to buck it off. Flash gripped the wheel desperately. The jetcar steadied down to a straight course.

“What was that all about?” Dale’s face was white.

“I don’t know,” Flash admitted.

“Is the roadbed pitted?” She peered ahead through the plyoglass windscreen. The superway stretched out ahead of them like a band of ribbon laid through the wild growth of vegetation. There were no pockmarks in the slick, expertly fabricated copoly-petrol surface.

“Impossible,” said Flash. “Mongo’s minerals make a firm bond with the carbon molecule. Copoly-petrol simply cannot break up like Earth’s macadam base.”

“Then the trouble must be in the car,” Dale whispered, glancing about her at the expertly engineered interior of the revolutionary hydrogen-powered zarcar—named after Dr. Zarkov and his scientists who had designed it.

“Absolutely negative,” snapped Flash. “This is the finest piece of equipment made on Mongo. According to Doc Zarkov, anyway. Hydrogen reactor made of lexmat, the most durable metal in the whole Mongo system. Jet thrusters of litelep, the least weighty alloy known. Indestructible tires of plyolact, combining the elasticity of Mongo’s famous milktree sap and the durability of plyomatt. Zarkov designed it. There’s nothing that could go wrong!”

Dale shook her head helplessly. “I know, Flash.” Her eyes widened. “Hey! What’s that odor?”

Flash sniffed. The zarcar was suddenly filled with a smell that was utterly foreign to his nostrils.

“It’s unlike anything I ever smelled before,” he said, sniffing hesitantly. “Oranges? Loquats? The tang of tomato vines in the rain? Dale, it’s all three smells combined. I don’t know what it is!”

The forest on either side of them hurtled by, the superway trembling beneath the weight of the speeding jetcar. As abruptly as the smell had come, it vanished, and they were once again breathing Mongo’s slightly saline air, with its additional units of nitrogen.

Dale opened her mouth to cry out, but gripped Flash’s arm instead. “My ears!”

Flash held onto the wheel of the jetcar. “Mine, too!” he cried. “It’s not a sound, it’s an agonizing pain! What is it?”

“I can’t stand the vibrations.”

“Overtones! Beyond the audibility range of the human ear,” gasped Flash, straining to keep from screaming. “It’s some extremely high vibration, a fantastically powerful resonance, some tremendous shaking.”

“My head!” Dale slumped into the plyoform cushion. Her eyes closed.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the pain left Flash’s ears.

Dale opened her eyes and sat up.

“It’s all over,” Flash muttered. “What do you think it was?”

“First a weird smell, and then that sound you can’t even hear.” Dale trembled. “I don’t think we should have come here today, Flash.”

“Nonsense!” said Flash. “It’s just your imagination.”

Dale never had a chance to respond.

The jetcar swerved and tore away from Flash’s iron control. He twisted the steering wheel over and over to the left, but the zarcar continued of its own accord to the right, careening off the ribbon of superway, slashing through the blue forest into the lavender-and-orange mists.

“We’re going to crash!” screamed Dale. “Look out!”