by Alex Raymond
There was only one light burning in the low sway-back house. That was at the rear. Peering into the fog, the doctor determined he could get to the back room by walking along a narrow wooden catwalk which hung out over the black foggy ocean.
Quietly, he started along the catwalk. As he neared the yellow window, he slowed, ducking down. He took a quick look into the room.
There was a sick man in there sure enough. He looked the way the elusive aircar pilot was supposed to look. He was lying on his back on a floating cot.
Zarkov rose up, kicked out the windowpanes with one big booted foot, and stepped over the sill into the room. “I want to talk to you, Rizber,” he bellowed.
The man sat up in bed. “Dr. Zarkov, isn’t it?”
“Damn right it is.”
“Good,” said the man. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He pressed his fingertips against his opposite wrist.
An odd whirring sound came from inside the sick man. Then he exploded with terrific force.
CHAPTER 13
“We wont be able to stay here long,” said the red-haired girl. “But for tonight it’s safe.”
“Safe from what?” asked Flash. He and the girl were at the entrance of a cave. Twilight was coming on, darkening everything in this rocky stretch of jungle forest. They had traveled roughly five miles from the place where the girl had saved his life.
“The slaves for one thing,” she answered. Turning to him, she said, “Before you meet the others, I ought to know your name.”
“I’m Flash Gordon,” he answered. “Perhaps you ought to tell me who you are, too.”
“I’ve heard your name before,” said the girl. “I would have thought a man of your reputation could handle himself better in the jungle. Letting a lumbering old spider entrap you! My name is Jillian.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” she said. “Jillian.”
“He’d like to know more about what we’re up to,” said a lanky young man who now appeared from the shadowy interior of the cave. He had silver hair and was dressed in a rough tunic and leggings. “He’s wondering if he can completely trust you.”
“And is he really Flash Gordon?” Jillian asked the long thin young man.
“He is,” he said. “He’s puzzled, as to how I know what he’s thinking.”
“Tad reads your mind,” explained Jillian.
“A valuable knack,” said Flash.
“There are a few of us on Pandor,” Tad said. “And most are slaves. In answer to the questions you’re about to ask, Flash, we’ll let Sawtel explain things to you. Come in. We were going to eat our evening meal a half hour ago, but I sensed Jillian was returning with company so we waited.”
Ducking, Flash followed the two of them into the cave. A low rocky tunnel sloped downward for about fifty feet, then widened into a large cavern. A portable stove glowed in the center of the rock room, a single floating globe produced dim orange light.
A tall old man with a white beard sat next to the stove. He stood as Flash approached. “Tad assures me you are to be trusted,” he said, holding out his gnarled hand. “I am Sawtel.”
“He tells me you’re all to be trusted, too,” said Flash. “Maybe you can tell me what’s going on out here in the jungles of Mazda.”
Squatting down on the stone floor, the old man said, “We’re building an army.”
“Do you have more than three soldiers?” said Flash, sitting near him.
“We have over a hundred so far,” answered Jillian, still standing near the end of the tunnel. “We recruit new people nearly every day.”
Sawtel sighed. “It is a long, difficult process.”
Tad bent over to poke at the birds which were being cooked on the portable stove. “Flash would like to know the purpose of our army.”
“That is simple,” said Sawtel. “We are going to destroy Perfect City. There must be no more slaves.”
“I came out here,” said Flash, “searching for the cause of a series of disasters that have been plaguing the capital of Estampa Territory. Disasters caused by someone who is able to use sound and music to cause severe destruction.”
“That would be Pan,” said old Sawtel.
Jillian moved closer to the three men. “Pan is growing more ambitious then,” she said. “It’s what we’ve been afraid of, Sawtel.”
Nodding, the old man said, “It is as I suspected when I fled Perfect City. He will not stop until everyone on this planet is a slave.”
“Flash wonders what you were doing in Perfect City,” said Tad, reading Flash’s mind once more.
“I helped him build it,” answered the old man.
CHAPTER 14
Strong hands took hold of his shoulders and pulled him out of the black water. Dr. Zarkov sputtered as he was dragged across a strip of rocky beach. Blowing out salty water, shaking his dripping head, he said, “I didn’t expect an explosion.”
Inspector Carr thrust a hand under Zarkov’s soggy elbow, helped him to his feet. “You’ve got a nasty cut over your right eye, but I don’t see any other outward signs of damage. How do you feel?”
The doctor swung his arms back and forth to shed some water. He grimaced, then grasped his beard in both hands and wrung it out. “I may have a couple of cracked ribs.”
Nodding at a police ship which was hovering nearby, Carr said, “One of my men can run you over to the nearest Emergency Center.”
“I know how to fix a broken rib,” boomed Zarkov. “I don’t need a pack of limp-wristed medirobots poking at me.” He looked up at the place where the house had been. A few tiny flames still crackled on what was left of the floor. The walls and the roof were gone.
“Apparently, the explosion blew you clean out of the place and into the sea,” said Inspector Carr. “Lucky thing, or you might well have burned up before you regained consciousness.”
“Anything left of Rizber?”
“Who?”
“The fellow in the house,” said Zarkov.
“My men found nothing to indicate anyone else was in there,” said the inspector, frowning. “Nothing at all, which is odd.”
“I’ll take a look around up there.”
“Are you certain you’re up to it?”
“I’m up to it.” Zarkov went crunching along the narrow beach until he came to a wooden ladder leading up to the street. He winced twice as he climbed.
Following him, Inspector Carr asked, “Might I inquire, by the way, what you were doing down here?”
“Checking out a lead.” Zarkov began working his way out on what was left of the wooden catwalk.
“A lead, eh? Anything to do with the source of our plague of sound?”
“No, with the killer of Minister Minnig.”
“I know some scientific fellows are independent spirits,” said Carr as he went cautiously after Zarkov. “But if you have some information which might help us you should turn it over to us.”
“Right now I don’t have anything,” said Zarkov. “A few minutes ago, I had the man who piloted Flash Gordon’s aircar on the night of the murder.”
“Gordon arrived on foot, according to our reports.”
“Not that Flash Gordon,” bellowed Zarkov, “the real Flash Gordon.”
“Oh? There’s more than one?”
“By now that should be obvious even to your tin dogs.” Zarkov dropped to his hands and knees and began edging along the catwalk toward the floor of the exploded house. He took a flashlight out of his pocket, flicked it on.
The inspector stood and watched as Dr. Zarkov went slowly and carefully over the floor. “My people will make a thorough check of this whole place, you know.”
Zarkov made a snorting noise and went on exploring.
“You have any notion of what sort of bomb it was? We haven’t found any fragments of it yet,” said Inspector Carr. “I’d say it was somewhere in the right hand side of the bedroom there, under the bed perhaps.”
“Inside Rizber,” said Zarkov
over his shoulder.
“Beg pardon?”
“The bomb was inside the man I came to see.” With his broad nose just a few inches from the blackened boards of the floor, Dr. Zarkov moved his fingertips across the wood.
“Implanted in the fellow somehow?”
The doctor rose up to a kneeling position, hands resting on his hips. “What bothers me is there’s absolutely no sign that a human being was blown up in this room.”
“Perhaps my people will find some trace with their equipment.”
“They won’t find anything Zarkov didn’t find.”
“Surely, Doctor, working in the dark with only a hand light, and after you yourself have just been blown into the ocean . . .”
“I was the only flesh and blood creature in this room tonight,” said Zarkov.
“What was the other fellow then?”
“A machine.”
“You mean a robot or an android?”
Zarkov nodded vigorously, water splashing from his beard and hair. “An andy, yes.”
“Well, if that’s so, Dr. Zarkov, were sure to find some traces.”
Zarkov stood completely up and came back to the inspector’s side. “Nope,” he said. “This particular android was designed to destruct completely and leave no trace.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means somebody is willing to go to a hell of a lot of trouble to get rid of me,” answered Zarkov.
CHAPTER 15
Day began with sunlight bursting through the jungle.
Flash was already awake and sitting outside the entrance of the cave.
“What do you figure to do now?”
He turned, grinned at Jillian. “You don’t have to ask; just have Tad read my thoughts.”
The tall girl came out into the morning. “He likes you,” she said. “So he’s respecting your privacy.”
“I want to get a look at the Perfect City,” Flash told the girl. “I have to find out if this Pan guy is the man behind what’s happening in Estampa.”
“I’m really afraid he is.” Jillian sat beside him on the grass. “All Sawtel told you last night is true. Pan is . . . well, I guess crazy is the word.”
“You think, though, he’s not simply out to destroy Estampa?”
“No, if Pan’s doing this he’s doing it to gain more power,” replied the girl. “Soon now he’ll probably issue an ultimatum. Turn over Estampa Territory to me or I’ll destroy it all. Something like that. Then, after he conquers Estampa, he’ll move on to another territory.”
“According to Sawtel, Pan once lived in Estampa. Maybe he is only out for revenge.”
Jillian shook her head, her long red hair sweeping from side to side. “No, Pan is out for a lot more than that.”
“How many people live in his Perfect City?”
“We calculate there must be at least two thousand slaves, possibly ten to fifteen others who don’t wear the helmets. They’d be his inner circle, people he trusts to some extent.”
“And the whole setup is underground?”
“Yes. As Sawtel explained, when he and Pan first came up with the idea, the Perfect City was going to be some kind of a retreat. It was to be an oasis with none of the distractions and noises of your average urban area, a place where people could come and live a quiet life. Artists, musicians—creative people especially.”
“How did they finance it?”
“Pan had family money, a whole lot of it,” Jillian said. “Sawtel had done extremely well as an industrial technician. He put in a good chunk of his own money. And he never realized what Pan was really aiming at, not until it was already happening.”
“Who invented the helmets?”
The girl looked at the ground. “The basic idea was Sawtel’s. But he intended the helmet to be used only to help the mentally ill,” she explained. “Pan had other ideas, plus enough skill to be able to adapt the mechanism.”
Flash stood up. “Where did these two thousand citizens come from?”
“About five hundred are the original people who came out when the city was first opened,” Jillian said. “The rest Pan has recruited. He recruits by raiding settlements in the surrounding territories. That’s really why we’ve started to organize, to free friends and family from Pan.”
“Can’t the governments of the territories involved do anything?”
“A territory like Mazda isn’t like Estampa,” she answered. “There’s very little organized government at all, and what there is is pretty weak and ineffective. In other territories the people are ruled by dictators or venal juntas. Those kinds of governments don’t depend on votes and they’re not interested in helping a few hundred people from the outlands.”
Flash asked, “Someone you know is a slave?”
“My brother, yes.”
“I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation, Flash,” said the long, lanky Tad as he came out of the cave. “We’re not ready to make our move against Pan, but I can guide you to Perfect City.”
“Okay,” said Flash, “I accept your offer.”
Jillian got up from the grass. “I was going to offer to guide you.”
“If you both have the time,” Flash said, grinning, “I’d appreciate having both of you help out.”
“Let’s make it unanimous,” said Sawtel, appearing in the cave entrance.
CHAPTER 16
The tower was swaying. Then, suddenly, it snapped about ten floors from the top and began to fall to pieces. None of the people working in the giant office building had time to get out. They fell with the crumbling tower, hundreds of black splotches in the early morning sky.
Dale shuddered and turned off the television wall.
She made another aimless circuit of the room, sat for a moment in a floating chair, then got up.
“So far they’ve left the capital alone,” she said to herself. “But everywhere else, all across Estampa, it’s terrible.”
She wandered down a hall.
“A little brunch?” asked the kitchen as she went by. “You didn’t have any breakfast, you know.”
“No, thanks.”
The villa seemed enormously empty, even though it was full of servomechanisms and talking gadgets. But it felt empty with Flash gone and Zarkov off at his lab being so darned pigheaded.
Dale reached out toward a closet door.
The wardrobe opened. “What does miss wish to wear?”
“A flying suit,” said Dale.
The green rental agent ran a comb once again through his wavy red hair. “Going all alone, are you?” he asked Dale.
“Yes.”
“And how long do you want the airship for, miss?” He dropped the plastic comb into a pocket of his plaid jumpsuit.
“At least a week.”
“Maybe you’d be interested in our 20-20 Plan,” said the green man. “Are you familiar with our 20-20 Plan?”
“No.”
“Well, miss, this is basically how it works.” He gestured at the dozen or more airships which surrounded them on the rental field. “You sign up for one of our shipshape ships and agree to use it for at least 20 full days. We then let you have it for only $20.00 a day, plus a few small additional charges required by law.”
“I don’t think I’ll need it for that long. A week will be fine.”
“A week’s going to cost you $32.00 a day plus.”
“I only want it for a week.”
“Okay, miss. We always give the customer what he or she asks for.” He fished out his comb once more. “Only trying to save you a little money. Where will you be flying to?”
“Mazda Territory.”
His red eyebrows went up. “Mazda, is it?” From another pocket he extracted a small vinyl book. “I was afraid of this,” he said when he found the page he’d been looking for. “There’s an extra charge of $6.00 per day if you’re going to Mazda. There’s a little red star next to Mazda here, see, which means we designate it a Hazardous Area.”
&
nbsp; Dale pointed at a medium-sized beige aircruiser. “That’s the one I want,” she said. “Can we start filling out the papers?”
“That’s a very powerful ship,” said the rental agent “For young ladies we usually recommend . . .”
“Here are my flying licenses and permits.” She handed him an accordion pack of them. “I’m qualified to handle it.”
“My goodness,” said the rental agent, “I guess you are. And what’s this one here? A Presidential Courtesy card signed by President Bentancourt himself. My goodness! Come on into the office and I’ll speed everything through for you, Miss Arden.” As he led her back to the plastic dome of an office he combed his hair again.
Dale sat tensely in the pilot seat. “We’re just about to arrive at the place where Dr. Zarkov lost contact with Flash,” she said to herself, glancing at the screens of the ground scanner. Thick jungle showed, with no sign of any crashed aircruiser.
She began to feel vaguely strange, to have trouble breathing. “What is it? It’s like . . . some kind of . . . it’s like some sound I’m aware of but can’t quite hear.”
Dale found she no longer had control of the ship. It was being pulled down out of the sky by some powerful force.
“I could jump free,” Dale said. “But I have a feeling I’ll find out more if I stick with the ship.”
She leaned back in the chair and waited.
CHAPTER 17
Dr. Zarkov made an impatient fretful sound as the escalator ramp slowly carried him up to the third-floor level of the Government Data Center. “Snail’s pace,” he muttered. Snorting, he commenced striding up the ramp on his own power.
The third level was a labyrinth of pale-yellow corridors. There appeared to be no doors anywhere. Zarkov stomped rapidly along a succession of twisting, curving walls. Here and there on the seemingly blank walls were small round dots of color. Before a small blue dot, the doctor stopped finally, hands on hips. “Now is that blue bell blue or not?” He decided it was, reached out a knobby finger, and poked the dot. At the same time he recited a string of numbers.
