Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII

by Alex Raymond

  Emperor Ming paced to the window and gazed out onto the public square. Groups of royal police and palace courtiers mingled in small groups. The thrusting spires of the city of Mingo lay beyond, interlaced with the multi-tiered streets crawling with atom-powered mobiles and flight-belted pedestrians.

  Ming smashed his right fist into his left palm and mouthed an oath. “Those stupid dolts! I’m surrounded by idiots and clods! How can we fight that rabble of the forest kingdom with only third-rate intellects and slaves programmed to stupidity?”

  The door to the special projects chamber opened. Ming wheeled about quickly.

  “Gorp!” he exclaimed. “Get over here instantly. I’ve got another report from the special agents on border patrol.”

  War Minister Gorp bowed and smiled sardonically. He was as slick and fleshy as Ming was gaunt and boned. His eyes were violet, a curious mutant strain caused by the blending of earthling blue and mongolite black. His hair was fair and worn long, in contrast to Ming’s skullcap that made him appear completely bald. Gorp’s long golden hair was tied in a purple bow in the back, a good twelve inches hanging down his back in piratical fashion.

  He wore balloon sleeves, comparable to the military costume of Dynasty XIII, and balloon trousers tucked into crimson boots made of synthahide.

  “Yes, sire,” Gorp said as he came to stand by Ming. His violet eyes twinkled with some inner amusement.

  Ming was annoyed. “You always remind me of a cat that’s just finished off the cream jug. Will you go over to the battle board and look at it? You’re war minister, not me, and if Arboria’s troops wipe out our force at the border, I’ll have your head mounted in Mingo Square!”

  Gorp sauntered over to the battle table, a long trestle affair that ran half the length of the room. Over it was suspended a transparent sheet of old-fashioned plexiglass, interlined with a map of Mongo. Red circles and black circles had been affixed to the surface with quick-stick. “What is it that’s disturbing you, sire?” Gorp asked in his liquid, half-laughing voice.

  “I’ve got news from the borderl” snapped Ming. “President Barin’s troops are massing near Trento, a small river town. If the news is true, we’re liable to be overrun and the main road to Mingo threatened!”

  Gorp tapped his two front upper teeth with his forefinger as he considered.

  “Are these agents your usual breed of liars and cheats, Emperor?” he asked.

  Ming smashed his fist down on the battle board, making the pile of maps jump. “Don’t you criticize my spies, Gorp! Your army-intelligence agents are no better! Riffraff, river rats, scavengers!”

  “I’m certainly not criticizing,” Gorp said mildly. “I am hoping only for a straight answer.”

  “They may be exaggerating,” Ming admitted, “but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

  “An amusing comment,” Gorp said. “It contains a grain of truth, like all clichés.”

  “What shall we do?” cried Ming.

  Gorp stared closely at the transparent map. He traced with a finger the great river, then the roadway between Arboria and the spaceport, and then over to Mingo City.

  “The time-probe teams,” Gorp murmured, “have they been successful?”

  Ming’s features twitched. “Partially.”

  “Partially?” Gorp repeated, his violet eyes afire with laughter. “Did all three fail?”

  “Nothing failed yet!” snapped Ming defensively. “The primary probe team is standing by for the right moment to act. The secondary probe team is still on patrol, trying to carry out their objective.”

  “Which is?” Gorp prompted.

  “It’s Gordon,” said Ming savagely. “Gordon and Arden! Our royal police can’t seem to divert them.”

  Gorp nodded sardonically. “But that’s the secondary phase, isn’t it? What about the primary team?”

  Ming bit his upper lip. “They’re waiting. The minute Gordon is neutralized, they act.”

  “If-if-if,” Gorp growled in a semblance of hopelessness. “If the primary probe team succeeds, and if the secondary probe team succeeds, then and only then can the tertiary probe team act and bring in the secret army of blue men to take Arboria!” Gorp suddenly chuckled. “It’s a good plan, Emperor, turning back in time and wiping out Arboria and Prince Barin’s forces so they can never make it into our century, but it won’t work with the idiots you have in your royal police!”

  Ming spun on Gorp, his face livid. “It’s only a momentary setback, I tell you!”

  Gorp threw back his head and laughed. “Setback? It’s a catastrophe! Those fools. They couldn’t even divert Flash Gordon and Dale Arden, could they? No, I thought not.”

  Ming strode along the battle table until he was face to face with his war minister. The corpulent man did not give ground one inch.

  “It was a fiasco,” Ming admitted in a hushed voice. “At least, up to this point it has been unsuccessful.”

  “I could have guessed,” replied Gorp, sighing.

  “But my agents are working on Gordon and Arden. We’ll get them.”

  Gorp tapped his front teeth again as he gazed at the war map.

  “Well, all I have to say is that it has to work, sire.” He spoke with not a little sarcasm. “You’ve provoked a war you can’t hope to win. And you’ve tried to use me as a scapegoat.” Gorp’s violet eyes were gleaming. “It’s a risky business, Emperor. You can’t cover up years and years of corruption here by staging a flashy war and taking the people’s minds off their troubles.”

  “Now, see here—” Ming blurted out.

  “Poverty. Inflation, with the mingot worth one-thousandth what it was ten years ago. Immorality rampant. A breakdown in the social structure. Vice. Perversion. Indecency. Murder. Riots.” Gorp shook his head wearily, flicking at a spot of lint on his balloon sleeve. “I’m afraid you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, Ming.”

  Ming’s saffron face turned red. “Emperor! you civilian! I am Emperor Ming. You address me as such. I am not a commoner like yourself. Not a halfbreed.”

  Gorp’s smile vanished. His face hardened. “Sure, I’m half-earthling and half-mongolite. That’s the difference between us. I’m only half-crazy. You’re all crazy—if you think we can win this war with Barin.”

  “If we don’t, you’ll hang in Mingo Square!” cried Ming.

  “I won’t be alone,” growled Gorp. “Half the community will be there with me. And if Barin and his constitutional democracy take over this archaic and rotten dictatorship, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ming XIII leads all the rest.”

  “Enough of this haggling!” screamed Ming. “Get onto that war board and try to figure out some tactic to wipe out that force of Barin’s.”

  Gorp pondered. “Where is that readout from the Annals of Time?”

  Ming blinked. Then he moved over to a large bank of computers that lined a far wall of the chamber. “It was over here somewhere. You mean the one we used to dispatch those three time probes?”

  “Right. Maybe we picked the wrong era.”

  Ming shook his head in self-pity. “I left it in your hands, Gorp. Maybe I should have done it myself.”

  Gorp ignored him. “Have you got it?”

  Ming held out a roll of wide graph paper from a tight roll. Wiggly lines were imprinted on it in blue ink.

  “Here it is.”

  Gorp unrolled the graph paper and spread it out on the trestle table. “Two hundred years ago. Two hundred and fifty. Three hundred. Minus three aught one. That’s it, all right. Right here. It corresponds to the readout from the Annals of Time. It’s the most vulnerable moment in Flash Gordon’s celebrated life on Mongo. For our purposes, I mean. He’s away from his protectors, that man Zarkov and Prince Barin. And Barin is sitting on a volcano and doesn’t know it. Ming I has that secret army in the forest kingdom, just waiting for the right moment to ride in and take over. But with Gordon coming to Arboria from an extended trip to Earth, it will be completely out of our hands when they meet. We
’ve simply got to keep them apart until”—Gorp narrowed his eyes—“until team three gets Barin.”

  “If only there were some way to proceed in case they don’t stop Gordon,” muttered Ming.

  “No such luck,” snorted Gorp. “Once Prince Barin celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the city, and once Gordon is decorated for his work on Mongo, then Barin will consolidate the forest kingdom. The forest kingdom is bound to become a constitutional democracy, as is written in the Annals of Time.”

  Gorp ran his fingers along the lines, glancing at the digital dates along the margin of the sheet. He shook his head in annoyance.

  “The army of blue men,” he muttered. “We’ve been unable to locate them in the readouts. Are you sure there isn’t something wrong with the computers? A piece of lint In the electromagnetic circuitry, or something?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Ming. “It’s been checked out by experts.”

  “Experts,” said Gorp sorrowfully. “I don’t like it. That army is right here in the records. Sent out by Ming I to infiltrate the forest kingdom and strike at Arboria. But there’s no indication of what happened to it.” Gorp sighed in dejection.

  “There’s nothing wrong with—” Ming began.

  Gorp interrupted. “The Annals of Time has analyzed the data correctly. We’ve got to hit Barin there and we’ve got to divert Gordon from the hit or he’s liable to foul it up.” Gorp nodded. “We hit there, or never.”

  The violet eyes rested on Ming’s features a moment, almost with contempt.

  “It’s so serious, Your Excellency, that if you don’t trust the men on your time probes, you should do the job yourself.”

  Ming’s face turned pallid. “Me? Go through time in that Tempendulum?”

  Gorp’s smile was underlaid with amusement. “Don’t you trust the scientific geniuses who made it for you, sire?”

  “Well,” Ming XIII said, swallowing hard, “I’m sure the machine works. They did get there. But”—he swallowed again—“Gorp, you’re a nuisance! Will you get out of here? I’ve got work to do! I want you to look over those battle plans again.”

  Gorp bowed at the waist, touching his forefinger to his forehead.

  “Sire, I beg to withdraw.”

  Ming XIII saluted in return, his face stony.

  The door slammed hard.

  CHAPTER 6

  The spaceport serving the forest kingdom was illuminated only by night lights as the figures of two men appeared in the darkness and walked toward the parking lot that lay outside the landing pads and control towers surrounding the airfield.

  “Two hours after midnight,” Kial whispered with a grin. “That was an easy trip, wasn’t it?”

  Lari shook his head, bewildered. He fingered the time-travel pack in his belt. “I don’t get it, Kial. One minute it’s the middle of the day, the sun in the sky. The next minute it’s after midnight and we’re here at the spaceport.”

  “Forget it,” snapped Kial irritably. “Now where are those jetcars? I remember Flash Gordon’s was silver, wasn’t it?”

  “Right. It was a zarcar model. But how could it be here, Kial? It’s wrecked on the superway to Arboria. We did it with the antimatter ray.”

  “Shut up!” snapped Kial. He pulled Lari back into the shadows of the girder span. “Look out—it’s a guard. He’s dressed in the forest-kingdom garb of hunter’s green. At least, he looks like pictures I’ve seen in history vidtapes.”

  “History vidtapes,” Lari repeated, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about, Kial?”

  “It’s three hundred years ago, dummy! The forest kingdom was in a state of almost medieval socioeconomic chaos. City folk. Woods folk. Rich. Poor. Archaic. Don’t you know anything?”

  “I only know it’s cold and it’s night and I don’t know how it could be early morning after it’s high noon.”

  Kial clapped his hand in exasperation over Lari’s mouth. Lari attempted to speak, but no sound escaped.

  The guard, a strapping man in a buckskin tunic tied on with thongs and a wide leather belt, green doublet, and soft knee-length boots, stood in the shadow of a large girder span exactly like the one behind which Kial and Lari were hidden.

  “Who goes there?” he called out in a rough forest-kingdom dialect. “I can hear ye! Or is it only some wee forest animal?” There was a pause. “Aye!” The guard laughed. “Me ears must have been deceiving me. Not that it’s unusual these crisp cold nights.”

  He peered into the darkness, shading his eyes a moment, and then shook his head.

  “If ye’re out there, make haste with ye, and don’t think we won’t catch ye if it’s vandalism ye’re after causing. Hear me?”

  Kial struggled to keep Lari’s mouth closed.

  The guard finally turned and strode past the group of jetcars parked out under the stars and vanished into the main building of the spaceport.

  “He looked to be a tough customer,” said Kial, letting Lari’s mouth go. “I’m glad he didn’t catch us.”

  “Now what do we do?”

  “We find Flash Gordon’s car. It’s silver with gold trim.” Kial scrutinized the jetcars and finally he reached around and grabbed Lari’s arm. “Here it is,” he whispered. “Now we’ve got to get the blaster pistols out of it.”

  “What are they?” Lari muttered. “Blaster pistols?”

  “Come on, Lari! That’s the kind of weapon they used in those ancient times. I think they came from Earth originally. Very inferior to our own molecular disintegrators, our antimatter neutralizers, and even our own neuro pistols that are the modern equivalent of the ancient stun guns.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lari said miserably. “And I’m cold. Can’t we get this over with?”

  Kial opened the driver’s door of the jetcar and searched the side pocket carefully.

  “Here we are!” he cried triumphantly, and pulled out a blaster pistol, “Wait a minute—I thought he had his in a holster.”

  “He did,” said Lari. “He wore it on his waist.”

  “But this one isn’t in a holster.”

  “Maybe he put it in a holster later.”

  “Why would he keep a gun he was used to carrying in a holster in the side pocket of a car?” Kial was worried.

  “Then if he carried it in a holster, maybe he’s got it in the holster now.”

  Kial nodded. “That makes sense, Lari.”

  “Sure it makes sense,” Lari said loudly.

  “And that means we’ve got to go after him right now and find out if he has another blaster pistol in the holster, or if this is the only one he has.”

  “How’s that again, Kial?”

  “Forget it,” snapped Kial. “Wait!” He leaned across the seat of the zarcar and fumbled in the console compartment It was empty. He shook his head and slammed the door closed. “No holster.”

  “We’ve got one blaster pistol, haven’t we?” Lari quavered. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No!” snapped Kial. “If he’s armed, he’s dangerous. We’ve got to get that other blaster away from him.” Rial’s face hardened. “That is, if he has it.”

  “Kial,” wailed Lari. “I’m all mixed up!”

  “You were born mixed up,” snapped Kial. He glared at him. “If you were born, which I’m beginning to doubt”

  “What do you mean?” Lari whimpered.

  “I mean we’ve got to get out of here and locate Flash Gordon fast!”

  “How do we do that?”

  “With our brains,” Kial growled. He stood by the zarcar and frowned.

  “Why don’t we report in to Ming XIII,” Lari said brightly. “He’ll tell us what to do.”

  “Dummy! How do we report to him when we’ve got to get back to the Tempendulum to make contact?”

  “Oh, yeah . . . well, we’d have to air-travel back on our belts.”

  “We haven’t time,” Kial replied irritably. He started walking through the jetcars in the lot. Across the way, he c
ould see faint lights burning at a small construction site on the edge of the woods.

  “Where are we going?” Lari asked, running to keep up with Kial’s big strides.

  “To the inn, dummy,” replied Kial, pointing to the light glimmering against the backdrop of the trees. “If Flash Gordon’s zarcar is ready and waiting for him, the chances are he’s already landed from Earth. In that case, wouldn’t he be staying overnight at the Spaceport Inn?”

  “Yeah,” said Lari, his eyes lighting up.

  A few minutes later, they stood inside the entrance to the faintly lighted inn. A fire glowed cheerfully in the fireplace. A half-dozen tables with round wooden tops were crowded together in the room, with a short plank bar running along one wall. Thick rafters supported the wooden planks by a low cathedral ceiling.

  The inn was deserted,

  Kial shut the door. He and Lari stood there staring about, their eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the darkness.

  “It’s past midnight,” whispered Lari. “That’s why there’s no one here.”

  “Right. But it’s an inn. They’re open all night. Somebody’ll come.”

  “So we ask somebody, dummy!”

  Lari nodded.

  At that moment a door opened at the far end of the bar, and a figure loomed in the darkness. The firelight danced over the figure of a young girl who apparently had just risen from bed. She was fastening a wrapper around her body with a belt. Under the wrapper she wore an old-fashioned chiton. The wrapper resembled a monk’s cloak and hood. Her long hair hung down her back. She was pert and saucy.

  “Aye?” she questioned in the forest-kingdom dialect. “How can I be helping ye?”

  “We’re looking for friends of ours,” announced Kial, striding confidently forward.

  “By the shade of King Barin! Who be ye? And whence have ye come dressed in that strange outlandish fashion?”