Flash Gordon 2 - The Plague of Sound

by Alex Raymond

  The wall quivered and whirred. A portion of it, about the size of a door, moved aside, revealing a large room beyond. Zarkov walked on in. “Color coded dots. What a nitwit way of running things.”

  “Good morning, sir. How are you this bright sunny morning?”

  “It’s raining out,” boomed Zarkov.

  “Oh, really?” said the talking computer who’d greeted him. “Now why didn’t somebody tell me that.”

  Zarkov ignored the large machine stretching along one wall, and crossed to the other end of the room where there was a bank of smaller computers side by side. “Which one of you is the light industry expert?”

  “I am,” responded two of the computers at once.

  “I’m interested in mechanical men!” bellowed Dr. Zarkov. “Androids, simulacras.”

  “That’s my department,” said a computer with a pale-green front. “Ask me anything, anything at all. I’ve got all the info you’ll ever need.”

  Zarkov eyed the mechanism, tugging at his bushy beard. “I want a list of all the companies in this territory who are engaged in the manufacture of robots and androids or their components,” he told the computer. “Include any companies who’ve gone out of business in the past five years.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “Can you separate the list into robots and andies?”

  “Why, sure, a cinch.”

  Dr. Zarkov scratched at his chin through his whiskers while he waited.

  The pale-green computer gave a buzzing noise, then two thin sheets of plastic paper unfurled out of a slot in its front. “Here you go.”

  Zarkov quickly scanned the lists. “Good,” he said. “Now give me a list of all the major clients of these companies for the past five—better make it ten years.”

  “Curiosity bug’s really bitten you, hasn’t it?” said the computer.

  Zarkov snorted by way of reply.

  The second list was inching out of the slot when a harsh voice behind Zarkov asked, “What the devil are you doing here, mister?”

  Turning, Zarkov said, “Good morning, General Yate.”

  The thin green man came across the room. “I asked you a question, mister,” he said. “You may be a pet of the president’s, but that doesn’t give you the right to come nosing around in our files.”

  “I’ve got all the proper permits and clearances.” Zarkov reached toward a side pocket in his worksuit.

  “Go slow, mister.” The general’s hand moved toward the holster which held his blaster pistol.

  Before he reached the gun Zarkov’s powerful hand had snapped out and caught the general’s wrist. “Don’t ever try to pull a gun on me, Yate,” said Zarkov, his voice unusually low.

  With his other hand Zarkov produced his papers and ID chits. “Everything is in order, Yate.” He held the packet up close to the general’s nose. “I strongly suggest you go on about your business.”

  “Your friend the president,” said the general as he pulled free, “is going to hear about this little manhandling incident.”

  “You better get the hell out of here before it turns into a man-punching incident, Yate.”

  General Yate left.

  “That was nifty,” said the pale-green computer.

  “I’ll take that list.” Zarkov grabbed the pages he’d been reaching for when the general had intruded.

  Zarkov, his various worksuit pockets crammed with lists, was striding down another blank corridor.

  On his left a piece of wall slid aside. “Dr. Zarkov, do you have a moment?”

  It was the rumpled Dr. Nazzaro of the health ministry. “I suppose so,” Zarkov said, going over to the open doorway.

  “I simply wanted to ask how you were,” said Nazzaro. “When I came in to do some checking in the contagion files my computer mentioned you were here.”

  “Word sure gets around.”

  “Computers tend to be gossips,” said Dr. Nazzaro. “Tell me, though, how you’re feeling. I understand you were in a serious accident.”

  “Not as serious as they hoped,” said Zarkov. “It was only a little explosion.”

  The rumpled man chuckled. “I’d already heard you were indestructible. This confirms it,” he said. “Do you have any idea who tried to kill you?’

  “The same people who murdered the minister,” said Dr. Zarkov. “The same people who are behind the plague of sound.”

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “I hope you’re watching out for spiders,” said Jillian, dropping back to walk beside Flash on the narrow jungle trail.

  “I’m counting on you to protect me,” he said, grinning.

  The girl asked, “You think you can persuade the government of Estampa Territory to take action against Pan?’

  “Yes,” answered Flash.

  Glowing yellow birds went swirling up through the spade-shaped leaves high above.

  “I mean, even if he isn’t the cause of the troubles they’ve been having.”

  “If what you’ve told me is true, I’m sure something will be done.”

  The red-haired girl frowned. “Don’t you believe us? Do you think we’ve all been lying to you?”

  “Before I suggest a raid on the Perfect City,” Flash told her, “I want to get a look at it myself. That has nothing to do with you or with Sawtel and Tad. It’s simply the way I operate.”

  “I see.” She started to stride away.

  He caught her arm. “There are a few more things I want to ask you, Jillian.”

  “Why? I’ll probably only lie,” she said. “That’s what you seem to think.”

  Several years of adventuring through the universe had taught Flash never to argue with a girl when she was angry. “Sawtel knows the layout of the Perfect City pretty well, doesn’t he?”

  Eventually, after nearly a minute of silence, Jillian answered, “He ought to. He helped design most of it.”

  “Then he can tell me how to get inside the city.” said Flash, “and how to explore it, with the least chance of being detected.”

  “He could.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think you’d stand a chance of making it. Even if one of the slaves didn’t spot you, one of Pan’s security mechanisms would. You’d have an easier time strolling into a bank vault unnoticed.”

  “The only way I can find out whether Pan’s behind the sound plague is by getting inside the Perfect City.”

  “No, that’s not the only way. Tad can find out, by sending his mind exploring,” Jillian told him. “That would be much safer.”

  “How close does he have to be to his target?”

  “He gets the best results when he’s within a mile of the person he wants to read,” she replied. “He has, though, a much greater range than that.”

  “Maybe he can help on a preliminary probe,” said Flash.

  “Jill, Flash.” Tad was running back along the trail from up ahead.

  “What is it?” asked the girl.

  “There’s a scouting party coming this way,” said the lanky young man. “At least six slaves. They’re still about a mile or so away, gives us plenty of time to hide.”

  “Six of them, four of us,” said Flash. “Not bad odds for an ambush.”

  “They’ll all be armed,” said Jillian. “It’s best just to keep out of their way.”

  “I want to capture them, all six of them if possible,” said Flash.

  The girl asked, “Why?”

  “They may give me the key to the city,” Flash said.

  The slaves came in all sizes. Two of them were well over six feet tall. They were walking along a curving trail single file, moving silently over the tough yellow grass. Six men dressed in simple tunics, each one wearing one of the nearleather helmets. The upper portions of their faces didn’t quite blend with the lower. Their eyes were wary and watchful, but their lips wore bland, mindless smiles. Two of them, a man at each end of the scouting procession, carried blaster r
ifles; the others carried handguns. They did not speak, did not acknowledge each other’s existence beyond not stepping on each others heels.

  A single leaf fell, a bright yellow-green leaf shaped like a giant heart. It came spiraling down through the hazy afternoon, brushing gently against the last man in line.

  Then came Flash Gordon.

  He plummeted out of the tree branches over the trail. His feet hit the rifle bearer full in the back, causing him to gasp and stumble forward.

  Flash chopped the rifle from the slave’s grasp as he landed.

  Growling, the blank smile still on his face, the man swung a fist at Flash.

  But the grinning blond man was no longer there.

  As the blow whizzed harmlessly by, Flash reached out and dealt him another chop. This one to the slave’s neck.

  The man stiffened, then went slack.

  Flash ripped off his helmet as he fell.

  While Flash had been occupied with the last rifle man, Tad had taken care of the first.

  The lanky young man had used a different kind of surprise. He yanked the lead slave up off the ground with a lasso of vine which pinned the man’s arms to his side.

  Tad relieved the man of his rifle and of his helmet before letting him drop back down to the jungle trail.

  Jillian, meantime, had concentrated on two of the slaves who carried only handguns. Stationed by the side of the trail, masked by thick brush, she had waited until the instant Flash struck. Then she fired twice. Each crackling shot snapped a weapon out of a slave’s hand.

  Sawtel was not as good a shot. It took him five tries, from his place of concealment, to blast away the guns of the remaining two men.

  “Stick around,” Flash said to the nearest slave.

  After rubbing at his singed hand, the chubby green man was about to dive into the brush.

  Flash caught him by the shoulder, spinning him around.

  He ripped off the helmet which made the man a slave of Pan. Then Flash blinked and dropped the helmet.

  The chubby green man began to change. He grew taller. The color of his skin turned from bright light green to a soft cocoa brown; tight-curling dark hair began sprouting on his bald head.

  “Hey, daddy,” the man said, “I’m glad that’s over.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Zarkov slouched slowly around the long worktable in his lab. He chewed absently on a kelp sandwich as he scrutinized the array of lists, charts, and maps he had spread out on the table. Grunting, he leaned over and crossed out another name with his electric pencil. “We’re narrowing it down,” he muttered.

  A red globe commenced blinking. “Policeman to see you,” said the lab computer, showing him a picture of Inspector Carr.

  “Let him in.” Zarkov reached out to cross another name off one of his lists.

  “I hear you made threats against the life of one of our military dignitaries,” said the inspector as he came in.

  “Come to drag me off to jail, have you?”

  Inspector Carr smiled. “Officially I can’t approve of your conduct,” he said. “If you carried out your threat, at least partially, I would personally be quite pleased. What exactly are you up to, Doctor?”

  Setting his sandwich down on a small patch of clear space on the table, Zarkov said, “I’m finding out who tried to blow me sky-high.”

  The inspector moved along beside the worktable, studying the various lists and charts. “We found absolutely nothing to indicate an android was used to destroy that house, you know.”

  “Exactly,” boomed Zarkov. “Which proves my point.”

  “I’m not certain it does.”

  “You’ve investigated a good number of explosions, Inspector. I’ll bet this is one of the first ones where you didn’t find even a smidgen of the bomb used, nor anything at all of one of the victims.”

  “True, Dr. Zarkov,” admitted Carr. “As for the other victim, well, you did get a pretty nasty jolting in the explosion.”

  “He was no hallucination,” said Zarkov. “If you won’t accept the idea of an andy with a bomb inside him, then what the hell blew up the house? Do you think I was smoking in bed?”

  “I’ll grant this is an unusual case,” said the inspector. “Yet I’m wondering if you’re not going off on less than fruitful tangents.”

  “Everything Zarkov does is fruitful,” he assured him in a booming voice.

  The inspector’s exhalation of breath was almost a sigh. “What progress are you making?”

  “Right now.” said Dr. Zarkov, “I’m narrowing down the list of possible people behind this. I’ve got it down to a few pretty interesting possibilities.” He picked up a list. “For instance, what do you know about a place called Paradise Park?”

  “It was an amusement park, quite a sophisticated setup as I recall,” replied Inspector Carr. “They were located in the middle of several wooded acres out on the edge of the city. The whole place closed down over two years ago.”

  “You failed to mention the most important point,” Zarkov told him. “Paradise Park was staffed completely by androids, and a goodly number of them were replicas of famous people, historical figures and celebrities.”

  “Yes, that’s true. Still I don’t see—”

  “Paradise Park shut down two and a half years ago.” said Dr. Zarkov. “As recently as two weeks ago they were ordering android components—zubertubes, shunt coils, gudgeon pins, autosyn transmitters, synth-flesh and so on.”

  “Perhaps they intend to reopen the park.”

  “Perhaps they built a simulacra Flash Gordon.”

  Inspector Carr poked his tongue into his cheek, his left eye narrowing. “It sounds far-fetched.”

  “But it doesn’t sound far-fetched that a man like Flash Gordon would commit a murder?” boomed the doctor.

  “I’ve told you I was greatly surprised by the murder of Minister Minnig,” said the inspector. “By the way, do you think Miss Arden knows where Gordon is hiding out?”

  “I have no idea. Why?”

  “She managed to slip out of that villa of yours without my watch realizing it.”

  A scowl touched Zarkov’s broad face. “Where’d she go?”

  “We were able, some time after she left, to learn what she’d done,” said Carr. “She apparently rented an aircruiser this morning and took off for the Mazda Territory.”

  “Damn,” said Zarkov. “That was a nitwit thing to do.”

  “You have some idea of why she did that?”

  “If I don’t crack things on this end pretty soon, I’m going to have to do that myself. Blast.”

  “I wish you could see your way clear to cooperate a trifle more with us, Doctor.”

  “When I catch the murderer, I’ll turn him over to you,” promised Zarkov. “Now I have to get back to work on my lists.”

  A few minutes after the inspector left the blue pixphone light began flashing.

  Zarkov, with an impatient snort, dropped a handful of papers and went to the phone. “Yes, what is it?”

  The screen came to life. “Doc, I have only a few minutes,” Dale said. “I’m on to something. Can you meet me right away?”

  The doctor watched her image for a long second. “Where are you?”

  “At a place called Paradise Park. Do you know where that is?”

  “Yes.” he replied slowly. “I’ll be there in half a hour.”

  “Oh, good. I’ll meet you just inside the main gate. Her image faded away.

  Dr. Zarkov kept looking at the empty screen, tugging at his beard.

  CHAPTER 20

  The large ivory-colored room was filled with silence. No sound from outside penetrated the series of high oval windows. The footfalls of the tall man who paced the room were completely silenced by the ivory carpeting. He was wide-shouldered, nearly forty, with a stiff upright posture. His dark hair was thick and curling; a beard and moustache circled his mouth.

  At the end of the room a colossal pipe organ had been built into the wall. Th
e organ, too, was ivory white. Frowning slightly, the bearded man crossed silently to the organ. He sat on the bench, but with his back to the keyboards.

  “It’s nearly time for my first message to those fools in Estampa Territory,” he said aloud.

  He turned toward the instrument and activated various switches. Losing his rigid uprightness, he slouched, hunched, as he began to play. Wild, jarring music began to come from the huge organ. The tinted oval windows rattled.

  Suddenly the bearded man stopped playing and spun angrily around. “I’ve told you not to intrude when I’m playing.”

  “Oh, were you playing?” asked the heavyset green man who was standing in the middle of the room. “I thought you were only polishing the keys.”

  Turning off the pipe organ, Pan stood and glared down at the man. “I don’t know why I suffer the pain of having you around, Manyon.”

  “Because I am so very efficient, Master Pan.”

  “Additionally, I don’t appreciate the way you say master,” Pan told him.

  “Not enough awe and reverence, Master Pan?”

  Pan said, “I can strap a helmet on you, too, Manyon.”

  “But you won’t,” said the green man. “Then you’d have no one to take care of all the little details. Have you been working on your ultimatum speech to Estampa?”’

  Pan made a vague gesture. “I was trying to compose my thoughts when you burst in.”

  “How you can think with that calliope tooting is beyond me.”

  Pan came stalking toward his underling. “I want no more slurs about my music out of you, Manyon.”

  “Forgive me, Master Pan.” Manyon scratched his earlobe. “By the way, I’ve written out a little rough draft which might help you.”

  A pout had formed on Pan’s thin lips. Saying nothing, he held out a hand.

  Manyon gave him two sheets of ivory paper.

  Pan took them and walked over beneath an amber-tinted oval window. He read over each page twice, slowly. Then, sighing, let the hand with the pages in it fall to his side.

  “Not up to your usual high standard?” inquired the green Manyon.

  Pan glanced at him, one eye nearly shut. “Somewhere in here I discern the germ of an approach. I’ll work on this crude skeleton you’ve patched together, and something viable may emerge.”