The youth knelt before his Prince. “Send me on my way! Spare me the madness!”
No willingness registered itself on Barin’s face as he stated simply, “I will.”
Barin snapped his fingers. As he took off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, two men approached. The foremost man poured a chalice of water over Barin’s hands; the second man patted them dry with a green towel. The Prince faced the kneeling, silently pleading youth. His fingers trembling (with nervousness? anticipation?), he withdrew his sword. He stared at the blade. He thrust it into the youth’s breast, running it through his back.
After Barin had wrenched the blade out, the youth fell to the floor, his forehead striking the wood with a hollow thud. His hands caressed his Prince’s boots. “Thank you,” he whispered. And then he expired.
Aura laughed softly and moved out of hiding.
Barin looked through the opening. He smiled.
Aura indicated that Flash remain out of sight. She ran into Barin’s arms on the boardwalk outside the temple. They stared intently at one another. “That was extremely moving,” said Aura.
“You came!” Barin breathed.
“I do sometimes keep a promise.”
“We’ll have a feast!”
“Not for me, thanks,” she said, briefly touching the tip of his nose. “I must return to the castle before I’m missed.”
Barin was crestfallen. “Then why did you come?”
“I’ve brought you a present,” replied Aura teasingly. She looked toward the forest and called out, “Flash!”
Flash stepped onto the boardwalk. Cocking his thumb, he pointed with his forefinger toward the foliage above. “Hi!”
Barin’s mouth moved several times before he managed to say, “You were executed.”
“I saved him,” Aura said. “I want you to keep him for me until my father has had his way with Dale Arden.”
Stunned, Flash recoiled from them. “My God! Does anyone ever trust you twice?” he yelled at Aura. “No wonder I wasn’t able to reach your decent core. There is no decent core!”
“I’ll keep Gordon all right! In my larder with the rest of the hanging meat!” exclaimed Barin. Following his signal, several Tree Men rushed toward Flash and circled him with a row of naked blades.
“No! I forbid it!” Aura said, forcibly preventing Barin from advancing upon his captive. “If you kill Flash, we’ll never know another night of mutual ecstasy again!”
Barin ceased all resistance.
Aura drew him closer, so that neither Flash nor the Tree Men could hear their words. “What danger is there? Everyone thinks he’s dead. I promise I’ll take him to Cytheria next week.”
“Harboring a fugitive from Ming is treason!”
“Not if it isn’t discovered!”
“It will be,” said Barin grimly. “You’re too isolated, you don’t know the effect of his little defiance on the people. Already the story is spreading throughout the moons. People strive to remain neutral, neither approving nor disapproving, for they no longer know friend from foe—not that it’s ever been easy. They realize this, however: Gordon’s defiance wasn’t an act of desperate bravado like that of Prince Thun. No, it was an act resulting from a perpetual state of will, powered by an inner strength born of an innate courage of convictions. If other Americans are like him, they’re the most dangerous breed of men in the cosmos. Gordon’s brave death has inspired people to contemplate the value of their honor, Aura. What the end of it may be, no one can say. But wisemen say this, Princess, they say that once the concept of rebellion is born, its actuality is the sole certainty. You’ll never be able to hide Gordon. Not on Cytheria or anywhere! Never!”
“We’ll see about that. You just keep him here. Your men will never betray you.”
Barin rubbed his cheeks. “Every man has his price. I know I do.”
Aura ran her finger over his collar. “Hiding Flash isn’t so much if you really love me.”
“You’re asking me to play with fire.”
She grinned. “Of course I am. Would I make love to a man who wouldn’t?”
Across the blazing crimson sky of the city of Mongo flew a sky cycle, a round, finned disc with enough standing room for two people behind the control banks. Peasants on mountainsides where they could easily view the cycle passengers were confused about their appearances. The woman wore the clothing of a slave girl and the man wore a costume like nothing they had ever seen. The peasants would have been dumbfounded if they had heard the man’s song: “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
Dale got Zarkov’s attention by yanking his jacket at the shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Zarkov laughed. “Never better. I just realized we’re sure to win. We’re stronger than a hundred Mings.”
“Ha! What makes you think so?”
“They placed me under a fiendishly clever device back there; they tried to brainwash me. They didn’t realize I had attended More Science High at the height of the red scare during the fabulous fifties. The teaching staff knew the mightiest weapons of the Cold War were the minds of tomorrow’s scientists, and so they familiarized us with all methods of brainwashing. Klytus and Kala tried to wipe out my memory—dare I utter such an obscenity—they tried to dehumanize me and turn me into a Mongian agent. They thought they had succeeded, ha! ha!” Zarkov’s laughter was lusty and bold.
“Goodness, Doctor, how did you trick them?”
“Well, at first I didn’t. Klytus and Kala do know their way around a fiendishly clever device. For a while it looked like they were going to strip my memory like a coal mine. But can you guess why they failed, Dale?”
“If I could, I wouldn’t have asked you.”
“As I was succumbing to that strange device, I began to recite from the bountiful works of mankind—Shakespeare, the Talmud, the formulas of Einstein, Childhood’s End, anything I could remember. Even a Beatles song. I think it was ‘Revolution.’ It armored me. Klytus couldn’t take my mind away. He didn’t know it’s impossible to beat the human spirit!”
“That’s terrific. Now how are we going to rescue Earth and Flash, not necessarily in that order?”
“Though I wasn’t programmed, all the information we need was planted into my mind, just as all the routes out of the castle and the paths of the patrols had been planted. I’ll calculate our rescue mission the same way I calculated our escape route.”
“I’ve just picked up some information myself,” said Dale.
“What?”
“Optimism is a six-letter word spelled Z-a-r-k-o-v!”
The Earth scientist laughed and leaned the sky cycle to the left. “There must be a happiness shelter around here somewhere.”
Suddenly, a dark shadow fell over them. Dale looked up and screamed as a Hawk Man lifted her from the cycle. As another Hawk Man lifted Zarkov, leaving the cycle to crash spectacularly against a mountainside, Dale screamed at the scientist, “Well, just don’t shrug, damn it! Do something!”
Night had unexpectedly fallen once again, and as Mongian meteorologists lamented the unpredictable pranks of the universe to their superiors, Aura landed her damaged flier upon its private pad on the docks. While a tractor beam on Arboria had stabilized the flier, the Tree Men had cut it from the vines and guided it to the nearest takeoff site; it had sustained damage in the crash but remained able to fly. Aura was pleased to note that it still flew smoothly through the turbulent air currents. However, as she admitted to herself, her mind was preoccupied, and she simply might not have noticed the jolts.
Standing on the edge of the pad, Aura paused to appreciate the crisscrossing, multicolored spotlights probing the darkness. She felt warm and lonely; emptiness and ennui beset her as she yearned for Flash, for Barin, for the doctor, for any number of men she approved of. Then she lowered her eyes and saw Klytus before her. Behind him stood three black-clad soldiers.
“Good evening, Princess,” said Klytus neutrally. “Did you have a good flight from Arboria?”
> “Arboria?” Aura laughed weakly. “I’ve just been flying around checking out my instruments.”
As she moved past Klytus, he gestured toward her. “Seize her!” For once, his voice expressed arrogance.
Flash faced Barin through a wooden cage suspended by vines hung by a pulley system. With him inside were a bleeding Frigian and a Hawk Man whose rotting bandages were crusted with dried blood. Three Lizard Men in good health pawed ineffectually at the wood bars. The stench of the cage and prisoners made it difficult for Flash to breathe.
Barin glared at the Earthling with poorly concealed hatred. He fingered the switch of his crossbow, somehow resisting his murderous urge.
“Prince, I’m not your enemy,” Flash said calmly. “Ming is. You know it yourself. Ming’s the enemy of every living creature in this system. Come on, Barin, what do you say? Let’s team up and fight him! Why, with a good offensive strategy, we can put him on the run in no time at all!”
But Barin strode away as if his prisoner’s words were inconsequential raindrops. “Lower them into the swamp!” he said to the Tree Man operating the pulley system.
10
Beyond Ming’s Law
FOR most of the time Aura was sedated. Engulfed in blackness, she swam in and out of consciousness. She was unable to open her eyes. The blackness swirled her in pain. She awoke from nightmares only to endure the anguish she had fled. Occasionally, she determined she lay on a metal table, her ankles and wrists clamped down tightly; she never remembered for long. At first, she could not decide if the pain was enjoyable; however, its gradual but persistent growth eventually terrified her. Never before had immediacy been so overwhelming, reducing her sense of identity to a microcosm.
It stands to reason that under such circumstances, time was meaningless. Aura did not know how long she had endured the pain when she became aware of a smug Kala and a condescending Klytus standing over her. She lay on a metallic table coated with gold finish, her wrists and ankles imprisoned by gold, mechanical, disembodied hands. The room, for its space, contained only instruments of torture.
Klytus ran his sheathed hand down her naked back. Her jumpsuit had been torn into shreds during the procedure; the sole intact section, really, was that over her stomach, and it was so drenched in her perspiration that it stuck to the table. “Your lover Barin is harboring Gordon in Arboria, is he not?”
“Is your hand sterilized?”
Klytus moved as if to slap her. She squinted, attempting to hide her face behind her arm in anticipation of the blow, but his hand merely trembled before he regained control of himself.
“No,” said Aura meekly, belatedly answering him, knowing she was on the verge of breaking.
A red light on the table to her left glowed.
“This lying is a waste of time,” said Klytus.
Kala placed her hand on Aura’s cheek; her black leather glove was smooth and soft. “You left with a pilot and returned alone. Wasn’t he Gordon in disguise?”
“No!”
Kala smiled. “Then who was he?” She ignored the glowing red light.
“Just a young pilot. Believe me, he’s nobody important. When I rejected his clumsy advances, he declared he couldn’t live without me. Before I could stop him, he opened the hatch and hurled himself onto the rocks below.”
Kala stared at her prisoner. Then she straightened, placed her hands on her hips, closed her eyes, and laughed. Her ecstatic laughter echoed in Aura’s ears long after the whip stung the air. Its tips cut deeply into the bared back, breaking open scabs and creating at least one fresh streak. For the first time since the procedure began, Aura felt drops of her blood run down her side and stomach, forming a tiny pool on the table. Kala struck Aura until Klytus impatiently gestured for it to end.
“Whom do you imagine you are protecting?” asked Klytus. “The doctor who helped you revive Gordon? We know he’s another lover of yours . . .”
“You’ve gone mad!” exclaimed Aura.
Klytus spoke into a communicating device in his hand. “This is General Klytus. Seize Doctor Lem on suspicion of treason. Prepare him for torture.”
Kala slapped her bloody whip against her thigh. “Confess and we’ll stop the torture. We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t like doing this at all!” She drew out these last words with exquisite pleasure as she prepared to bring the whip down on Aura’s bloodied back once again. Klytus caught her arm.
“Never!” said Aura. “Do your worst! I can stand it! Someday I’ll laugh about this—and you’ll both be dead!”
“We’ll see about that,” replied Klytus. “Bring me the Bore Worms, Kala.”
Several seconds elapsed before Aura found her voice. “No! Not the Bore Worms!”
“I admit their method of entry is a trifle messy, not to mention undignified,” said Klytus. “But those who have endured Bore Worms have said the pain caused when they begin devouring the colon is among the most excruciating in the cosmos. From what I’ve been able to ascertain of your likes and dislikes down through the years, I should think you’d be looking forward to this.”
When Kala stood before her, holding a large pair of tweezers and a jar filled with the squirming white worms, Aura screamed, “I’m a Princess of the Blood, Klytus. My father will have your head for this! I swear! He’ll execute you and your entire perverted secret police force! I demand to see him!”
“With pleasure,” answered Klytus nonchalantly. He touched a button on the table console.
A section of the chamber wall before Aura dissolved into blackness. A hologram of Ming the Merciless appeared; he stood sipping a drink. He had been watching the entire procedure.
“The traitor is close to confessing, Your Majesty,” said Klytus. “Should we stop the torture?”
Ming dipped a fruit into the chalice. “No.”
Since the women were not due back to the village for another two days, Prince Barin celebrated the capture of Flash Gordon in the sole method remaining to him. That is to say, he got plastered. Dreamy eyed, he sat swaying on a branch, his elbow across his knee and his back propped against a trunk rubbed smooth by generations of drunken Tree Men. Fico, a gaunt minstrel with sharp canine teeth (the result of radioactive contamination on his mother’s side), reclined on a smaller branch, kicked off his boots, and played a panpipe. The spirits had ensnared his, and he was open to communication from the celestial spheres. Normally, his music took Barin on a similar, though much more melancholy, journey, but today the Prince could not prevent his mind from dwelling on the mundane. “This damnable loyalty of mine—what is it?” Barin stared at the minstrel as he contemplated his next words. It took him a few moments, but he finally said, “Why is it that I’m reluctant to put aside my personal hatred for that Earthling who keeps upstaging me? Why do I not heed his words and join him in the fight against our mutual oppressor?”
Lowering his panpipe, Fico raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t the Princess Aura and her apparent infatuation with this primitive have something to do with it?”
Barin laughed and waved both his hands. “Oh, she may be Ming’s daughter and the heir to his throne, but I don’t care with whom or how many times she does it. She’s only a woman and there’re plenty of them.”
“Too many space hounds in the void, eh, Prince?”
“Exactly.”
But Fico knew better. He played a few random notes. “No, there must be some other reason why I’m loyal to Ming,” said Barin, thoughtfully.
“Perhaps it’s a disease of your blood, my Prince. Remember that as a child, you saw your father executed for rebelling against the Emperor. Naturally, you prize loyalty. Who the hell wants to die that way? But the question is: Is your loyalty to Ming the stronger, or is it your hatred of Flash Gordon?”
Barin leaped up, knocking over his flagon. “I’ll kill Gordon now!”
“And lose Princess Aura forever?” asked Fico, setting the flagon right without looking away from Barin. “There’s a better way. Let me tell you how t
o dispose of Gordon so that Ming might be satisfied, and how to keep faith with the Princess too.”
Though the surface of the dank swamp was calm, a continuous undertow pulled the prisoners under. Only a small level portion of the cage was above the surface, forcing the prisoners to hold on to the wooden bars. At first Flash believed the situation would not depress his spirits. He spent his initial minutes in the cage accepting the tremendous alteration which had come over his life; the thought of escape could wait . . . briefly. Once he had believed himself master of his destiny; because he had, within limits, shaped his life to his own ends, he had believed all men possessed similar powers, and thus was unsympathetic to several important precepts of twentieth-century philosophy. However, blind circumstance (or perhaps mysterious, more ethereal forces) had shown him otherwise. His previous achievements had been rendered meaningless phantoms as he vainly attempted to reassert a minimal control over his life. At least he now expected the unexpected. He resolved he would fight for his life—against each new danger the Mongian system threw at him. And he would rescue his friends; important philosophical precepts were inconsequential in light of his stirred emotions. His desire for Dale filled him with a saintly passion and worship; his concern for Dale and Zarkov, his fear for their fates, filled him with worry and despair. He accepted his emotional highs and lows; he did not care to think of his resolutions in terms of “going with the flow,” due to the perpetual undertow weakening his grip on the cage, but the phrase did accurately mirror his conclusions. Now his mind was free to turn to thoughts of escape.
However . . .
He soon realized the undertow demanded all his attention. The seconds crawled by as he held on to the bars with all his strength. The hot swamp water, as much as his efforts, caused perspiration to flow from his face. He breathed through his mouth to minimize the odors—the green water, the debris and waste slowly gliding by, the rotting flesh of the Hawk Man also held captive. Gangrene had set in, and the poor fellow was losing strength quickly. Not that the Frigian was doing much better; his wound constantly oozed blood and pus. Flash found himself supporting the pair. After a time he did not think of escape; all his concentration was centered on holding his companions and keeping his free hand wrapped around a bar. The Hawk Man’s arms encircled his neck, and the Frigian was limp in his embrace. The hissing Lizard Men occasionally tried to usurp the area, but the trio managed to kick away and otherwise intimidate the cowardly creatures.
Flash Gordon Page 16
