Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII (8 page)

They listened.

Trees seemed to be crashing to the ground in the distance. There was a great deal of shuddering of the earth’s surface under the superway. Then there was an ominous silence.

“What made that noise?” Lari asked, his face covered with perspiration.

“How do I know?” snapped Kial. “But we’ve got to find out.”

“I make it on a direct line south,” Lari said nervously, glancing at his digital grid setting.

“Me too,” said Kial. “Let’s go.”

Huey activated the space packs and faded in on a stretch of superway some distance away.

“Look!” cried Lari.

“I see it,” Kial muttered between clenched teeth. “Come on. Get out that blaster pistol you took from the jetcar. I’ve got Flash Gordon’s.”

They moved cautiously down the superway.

In the distance a purple iridescent creature that resembled a giant aphid stood in the middle of the superway and watched them approach.

“It’s some kind of insect from Mongo’s past,” explained Kial.

“What kind?” Lari wanted to know.

“I’m no biologist,” Kial retorted.

Lari halted.

Kial halted.

“It’s watching us,” Lari said. “Now it’s moving toward us, Kial!”

“Get your blaster pistol ready, dummy,” Kial said impatiently. “We’ll both take him simultaneously.” Kial shook with anxiety and fear.

The purple monster’s eyes were focused directly on Kial and Lari. Suddenly it hunched forward and glided over the superway toward them. As it moved it exuded a glistening web of purple spoor. It moved quite rapidly.

Lari’s hand trembled as he lifted the blaster pistol and pointed it at the enormous insect. Suddenly he cried out, “Kial! By the side of the superway. It’s—it’s Flash Gordon and Dale Arden!”

Kial stared past the advancing purple aphid. He could see the two human beings frozen in a large blob of purple jelly.

“By the orange moon of Mongo!” gulped Kial “I don’t believe it! This monster must have frozen them into eternity.”

“Then we can go home. Flash Gordon is dead and we’re safe at last”

Kial shook from head to foot. “Hold it, dummy! We don’t know that for sure.” He swallowed hard. “Maybe it’s a trick.”

“What trick?” Lari yelped. “Let’s set our time packs, hit the Tempendulum, and get back to Ming XIII.”

The purple aphid was rapidly closing the distance between them.

“Fire, dummy!” screamed Kial. “We’ve got to do this thing in, no matter what.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Lari, and squeezed the grip of the blaster.

The ray missed the monster and disintegrated a stand of club moss. By the time Lari had compensated for this angle of fire, Kial’s ray was focused on the purple monster.

There was a high-pitched screech that offended Kial’s ears, and the purple creature froze in its tracks on the superway and stared in astonishment at the blaster pistol in Kial’s hands.

Lari’s ray centered on the creature’s chest? Neck? Head? Thorax?

“Keep firing!” cried Kial.

Slowly the purple monster swelled and swelled, like an overinflated balloon.

“It’s getting bigger,” cried Kial. “What can we do? It’s apparently feeding on the energy from the blaster pistol.”

Lari’s face was white. “Kial, I can’t turn the blaster off. It’s eating up the ray. It’s keeping me from turning it off!”

The high-pitched screaming laughter erupted again, louder this time, making the air reverberate.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kial screamed and turned to run.

Lari fought for control of the blaster pistol, which seemed to be controlled by the giant aphid. He could not move the blaster at all. The purple creature swayed toward him, hovered over him, looked directly at him.

Lari could hear Kial crash through the undergrowth, small sounds of utter despair issuing from his throat.

Lari watched the purple monster in front of him, his eyes bulging from their sockets.

Then the aphid thrust forward its head on its neck, its offensive oral cavity opened, and a gelatinous blob of purple jelly spewed forth toward him.

The gelatinous spittle touched him.

Lari recoiled, turned, and ran.

The jellied substance ran over him and covered him as he froze in his tracks.

He could not move.

The jellied effluence pressed in on him, crushing the breath out of his body.

The forest turned purple around him.

I
n the dull glow that illuminated the inside of the air-scout, Zarkov saw only the instrument panel and his immediate surroundings in the cockpit.

“I’ve been out cold,” he announced. “Didn’t the airscout turn turtle?”

He glanced around.

Yes. He knew it had turned over, but now it was right-side-up again.

“My gyroscopic restabilizer,” he said proudly. “I forgot I’d invented it. It turned the airscout right-side-up after it crashed. It works!”

He peered out through the forward porthole directly over the instrument console, but saw nothing. It was too dark and murky outside.

“It’s not night. What happened? Did I land in the trees?”

He got up and peered closer through the porthole. It was at that moment that he heard the gurgling.

“I must have lost some brake fluid,” he muttered, turning and glancing down at the deck of the airscout. “Hmm, I don’t remember that half inch of water on the deck.”

Then he realized that the gurgling was a continuous sound now, rising steadily in pitch.

Startled, he stared at the porthole and reached up to flick on the exodermal spotlight mounted on the prow of the airscout.

“As I feared,” he said heavily, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “Fish. Mammals. A string of algae. And some floating plankton. I’m in the water.” He gave his beard a furious tug. “And sinking fast, too, if I’m not mistaken.”

Zarkov stirred restlessly in the pilot seat. “Must have landed in one of those confounded swamps that dot the forest kingdom. Hit with a splash, but I was out cold. And by the looks of things, I’m sinking straight to the bottom!”

The gurgling rose in pitch and volume.

Zarkov felt his plyoboots suddenly fill with water as the incoming flood spilled over the tops. He lifted his feet and shook them.

“Never thought about landing in the water,” he said thoughtfully. “Should have, though. Those early Earth astronauts always landed in the ocean. No way to get down gently in those days. Damn! I should have checked out those air-vent valves. I thought they were a-okay.”

Zarkov moved the exodermal spotlight back and forth in the water. He saw the submarine life move upward as the airscout plummeted toward the bottom of the pond.

“Hmm. I could blow the oxygen capsule to equalize the air pressure against the water pressure, but I’d give myself the bends or worse.” He shook his head. “Besides, I know I couldn’t get enough oxygen into the airscout to equalize its weight and send it to the top.”

Zarkov stroked his beard slowly.

The water was up to his waist now. And still the airscout sank further and further through the strange underwater world outside. Zarkov saw several starfish, and a deep-sea decapod with a quite lifelike face seemed to grin at him.

He shook his head musingly. He was getting hyperventilated because of the increase in air pressure in the airscout. The area in which the air was now compressed was equal to about half the interior of the airscout . . . Zarkov felt the pressure and the heat generated by the compression.

As he frowned thoughtfully, the airscout slammed to a stop and a great cloud of mud and slime rose before his eyes, obscuring the exodermal spotlight for a long moment.

The airscout sank a little further in the black muck and came to a teetering rest.

The spotlight penetrated the murk, which gradually settled. Zarkov saw that the mud came about to eye level.

“The damned thing is stuck and stuck good,” he said matter-of-factly. “What do I do now?”

He reached into his pocket for a neuropill and swallowed it. He chewed thoughtfully.

“Bah! The damned things are supposed to calm you down. I’m not calm. I’m scared.” He blew air out of his cheeks and fidgeted nervously in the seat. “You’re a scientist, Zarkov, damn it! Why can’t you think of something?”

The hatch? The hatch opened at the bottom and side of the airscout. If it opened at the dorsal, or top portion of the airscout, he could flip the dogs and escape with the bubble of air still inside the interior.

But with the hatch on the ventral surface, or bottom, he would have to blast out the carbon cartridges and take a chance on reaching the surface of the pond without any air bubble to protect him.

The water frothed up around his neck. He began to feel the intense pressure of both air and water against his body.

“I’ve got to do something—fast.”

He fumbled with his flying gear and touched the backpack which contained his pop-out chute, his energy rations, and his spare blaster pistol. At least he had that! He slipped the blaster pistol into his waist belt and looked at the rations in the backpack. They were dry; the pack was wrapped securely in waterproof plyowrap.

Plyowrap! It was the most versatile of Mongo’s all-purpose sheeting. Transparent, airtight, watertight, and unbreakable, it was self-sealing with a permanent bond when heated.

Zarkov unhitched the backpack and lifted it up above his head where the water had not yet reached. If he could remove the plyowrap outerskin from the pack, inflate it with the air left in the airscout, and seal the airpack around his head . . .

Zarkov chuckled softly.

“I’d be a fool to call myself anything but a genius,” he said, chortling. The water bobbed about his chin now, and still rose. “But I don’t really have time to congratulate myself. Must get to work.”

He quickly tore the plyowrap from the backpack, dropped the pack in the water, watched it emit bubbles as it cascaded to the deck, and quickly formed the plyowrap into a large balloonlike object, using a heat cube from the emergency pack commonly used for starting cooking fires.

He blew hard into the newly constructed balloon, feeling his temples throb with the exertion. The air inflated the plyowrap quickly, until it was pressing down into the water around Zarkov’s ears. Soon the plyowrap balloon filled the entire space in the airscout where air had been.

Zarkov, underwater now, slowly enlarged the hole through which he had inflated the balloon, and slipped his head through it as if putting on a very tight ski cap. Now he had the balloon full of air around his head.

He picked up a wrench from the toolkit attached to the instrument console, and dove downward toward the hatch dogs. Quickly, he turned them from the inside, and the hatch loosened.

He pushed hard, sending the hatch out at a slanted angle. Oozing slime bulged over the top and poured up into the airscout. Zarkov quickly wriggled through the opening, his airbag balloon half-pulling him upward in the water.

As he pulled his boots through the opening, he realized the hatch was closing once again, and he had a moment’s panic when his left boot caught in the steel jaws.

But after a fierce struggle, he was free and ascending quickly through the cloudy water.

The air in the balloon was very bad, and the pressure on him from the water made him dizzy. He kept spiraling upward, paddling his boots slightly, and making swimming motions with his hands.

Something slimy and scaly touched him on the side. He turned, looking out through the weird transparent balloon around his head. The water was lighter now, since he was obviously approaching the surface.

He saw an enormous tadpole, a good five feet in length, the first growth stage of Mongo’s giant killer frogs.

It stared at him out of its slitted green eyes, and fishtailed quickly away.

Zarkov broke surface a few seconds later, his body absolutely exhausted from immersion and pressure. He bobbed on the surface for a moment or two, the big balloon flailing in the air. Then, with an earth-quaking bang, it exploded.

The air which had been pressurized in the airbag escaped into the atmosphere.

Zarkov was stunned.

He sank.

The chill of the water revived him, and he swam for the surface again, blinking his eyes when he emerged into the air, trying to see where he was.

Enormous lily pads floated in the water, big enough for a dozen men to walk on. In the distance, he saw high oak trees with some type of hanging moss suspended from their branches. It was called mongomoss. Even though it was an unearthly bright yellow, it resembled Spanish moss.

Zarkov saw the shore, and he turned to make his way toward it.

He finally dragged himself up onto the bank and flopped down on his back. He wheezed and coughed.

He lay there, his eyes closed.

“I’ve had it,” he said. “Just let me lie here.”

Then he heard something.

One eye opened.

He stared.

Above him, not five feet away on the grassy bank of the swamp, stood a youth. He was dressed in a plain earth-colored tunic laced with leather thongs in the center. He had on roughspun trousers tucked into boots made of soft animal hide. He wore a skullcap with a bright-yellow feather, apparently from some alardactyl. Under the cap Zarkov saw long brown hair tied in a pirate’s pigtail.

The youth stared down at him without a flicker of expression. In his hands he held a huge crossbow, longer than he was tall. He had it fully drawn. The arrow in the string was aimed directly at Zarkov’s throat.

“Should ye move a muscle,” said the youth in a voice which had not yet changed, “ye’re a dead man.”

“Friend,” Zarkov said tiredly, trying to smile. “Friend, do not mistake me for an enemy. I am a friend to those of the forest kingdom.”

“Now, ye don’t say so, do ye?” said the youth. “Ye nay would be pulling me leg?”

Zarkov sank back. He knew better than to try to argue. Forest-kingdom folk were a breed unto themselves. They were hard, being reared in adversity. They were stubborn by nature. And they were tough from necessity.

I can argue with any man on a scientific level, Zarkov thought. But when I argue with men on a lower level of intellect, I always lose.