Flash Gordon 6 - The War of the Cybernauts

by Alex Raymond

  “If they’re radium emissions, we sure will be,” he said. “If so, they’re trying to kill us. Unless this is just another ploy.”

  “Ploy again, is it!” cried the wall. “We will ploy you, war spies!”

  The machine vibrated and sent out blue sheets of energy and Flash and Zarkov tried to duck out of range of the impulses.

  Then, suddenly, the machine was quiet.

  Zarkov lifted his head. “Is it over?”

  Flash looked up. “I think so, Doc.”

  Without a sound, the electronic probe vanished into a recess in the wall, and the wall became flat again.

  Both were staring at the wall when they heard movement behind them. Flash wheeled.

  The opposite wall had vanished. The cube-shaped room had now been extended into a much larger chamber, one in which inset ceiling lamps glowed down on a well-furnished area that resembled a board of director’s room in an Earth installation.

  “Doc!” gasped Flash. “Do you see what I see?”

  Zarkov nodded. “People.”

  Indeed there were people in the portion of the room beyond the vanished wall. There were four of them. Three were, by Earth standards, rather strange-looking.

  They had egg-shaped heads without a single hair on their skulls, with eyes that slanted upward at the corners, but lacked the fold of the Oriental eyelid. They were dressed in orange uniforms. At least, the garments seemed to be uniforms of a sort. The material covered the neck, covered the arms to the wrists, was belted at the waist, and covered the legs, the ankles, stopping where soft leather boots began.

  Each man held an odd-shaped weapon resembling a small hand-gun, but ribbed in the barrel, and square in the grip.

  The fourth human being was a woman.

  And what a woman!

  She had red hair piled on top of her head, over an oval and very beautiful face, with slanted eyes that were light gray, a smooth youthful complexion, and a slender neck. Her orange dress fitted her body tightly, with a ruff up behind her head, a tightly belted blouse with a deep V neck, and stretch pants down to her boots.

  Flash nodded cheerfully. “People. You’re right, Doc. There are people on this planet. Just as you said.”

  The woman raised her hand, her finger pointed accusingly at Flash Gordon.

  “People?” she repeated, copying Zarkov’s accent. “We are not people. We are warriors—and you are spies.”

  Zarkov pushed past Flash.

  “We aren’t spies. We know nothing of war. We come in peace.”

  “Silence!” shouted the woman. “You shall have a fair trial as Green spies.”

  She was watching Flash as she spoke.

  A murmur of approval swept through the orange-clad bald-headed group surrounding her.

  “And then,” she smirked, “you’ll have a fair execution.”

  CHAPTER 8

  General Ild was lonely. But then, command of any country in time of war is a most lonely business. The fact that General Ild was only twenty-six years old, and that she was certainly the most beautiful woman in Ildhaven, the sector of the planet Errans inhabited by the People of the Orange, did not in any way tend to minimize her loneliness.

  If anything, it increased it.

  Two hours before the arrival of Flash Gordon and Dr. Zarkov in the palace, she lay on the comfortable chaise longue and stared at the wide vidscreen focused on the terrain outside the underground palace, watching the tanks and halftracks pummel each other in another fruitless battle. She was bored with it all, and yet, of course, there was nothing she could do about it.

  It was her inheritance.

  General Ildo, her mother, had been one of the most famous generals in the history of Ildhaven. It had been hoped, when her mother died and passed on the orange mantle of war to her, that she would surpass in deeds her mother, but so far, she had not.

  “General, Madame, if you please,” a voice spoke up at a distance from her.

  She turned her head languidly. It was Alp, her Number One Programmer. He had his head bowed so that all she saw was his naked skull.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, straighten up. What is it, anyway?”

  Alp straightened. In the orange uniform he looked ridiculous, but to the eyes of the traditional Ildhaven resident, he was quite natty.

  “We have sighted an Unidentified Moving Object in our heavens, General Ild.”

  She lifted her head. She could see her reflection in the glass past which the tanks in the vidscreen thudded and burped and thumped.

  “I see,” she said. “Does it resemble the other UMO’s confiscated by the cybbies?”

  Alp shook his head. “It is larger, General Ild. Perhaps you’d better come and view it in the vidscreen.”

  General Ild yawned briefly, putting the back of her slender hand to her open mouth, and watching her head prog through lidded eyes.

  He was no worse than any of the other proggies, she thought wryly. She wondered why she expected more. There was something lacking in the men of Ildhaven. In the ancient books she had read exciting stories of duels, and jousting tourneys, and fights—man-to-man combats—that stirred her blood.

  That was before the development of the cybernauts. Now the men were hairless and endowed with large brains and small muscles, the more to plan out circuitry in the computers, rather than fight. They had all become programmers, or progs for short.

  It was no wonder the women had revolted over a hundred years ago and taken over the reins of the war machines. The proggies had become computer-and-gadget-happy, manufacturing machines and self-propelled vehicles and boats and airplanes and guns and mechanical men to do their work.

  It was said that in ancient times the men had been the warriors, and the women the householders. But with the invention of the cybbies, the mechanical servants, that had all changed. The men, whose earlier physiques had been rugged for fighting, hunting, and building, had deteriorated when they became masters and programmers of powered servants. The women, then, freed of all household chores, had slowly moved into the vacuum left by the men as they pursued mathematics and engineering and technology, and had become the warriors.

  The cybernauts, or cybs.

  And then the cybbies had begun to usurp the functions of the human beings—the ruling of the people, the waging of war, the signing of treaties, the exploration of the planet of Errans and the probe into space around it.

  Proggies, thought General Ild in despair. Was this all they were worth? Eyes that looked into vidscreens and feet that pattered along the floors and mouths that opened and told her there was something in the sky she should look at?

  Obviously, yes.

  She remembered her father, Prog Number One, a look-alike for Alp. He had sashayed about through the palace in his orange robe and tinkered at the benches with the electronics and circuits and programmed computers with all manner of strange functions.

  She thought of the fairy tales in the books she had read as a child and she mourned for the days that were dead and gone.

  “All right, Alp, I’ll come and look.”

  Languidly, she rose from the comfortable chaise longue made out of the new protean plasticene invented by the wizard Lok twenty years ago before he had undergone a sex transplant to become Commanding General Lok. She sighed. Perhaps she had a talent for gadgetry. If this war business palled her, she might have a sex change and become one of the programmers.

  She seemed to be waiting around for something to happen to her. It was unsettling. What was she waiting for?

  She followed Alp into the Observatory Room in the ground floor of the palace. It was here that she came across a half dozen of the orange-uniformed progs standing about and staring at the scanners.

  Alp pointed. “It’s up there, General Ild.”

  She nodded. “I can see it.”

  “The cybbies are attacking the craft. And it’s very strange. There are women aboard.”

  “Aha,” said General Ild. “The Greens?”

 
; “No. We have never seen anything like them. They wear their hair different.”

  Alp leaned forward and moved dials on the vidscreen. The camera eyes of the floating technoids up there probed into the inside of the strange craft. General Ild could see two women inside in what were obviously space suits. One of the women had a marvelous black beard.

  “Why, she’s exquisite!” said Alp. “Look at that beautiful face hair!”

  General Ild squinted. She didn’t think much of that one. Then she caught sight of the other woman on the outside of the craft. She had very blond hair and blue eyes. She looked strong as an ox. Quite handsome. A warrior type. A superior woman. And yet . . .

  “Are you sure they’re women?” General Ild asked.

  Alp turned to her with a withering look. “But General Ild—of course they’re women. They have hair, haven’t they?”

  General Ild could not deny that. Still, she seemed somewhat puzzled.

  “Hey!” cried one of the progs. “That fool on the outside of the ship just burned up one of the technoids.”

  Technoids were second-generation cybernauts. They had been invented and built by the cybernauts as powered servants to the cybbies—in effect, servants to the cybernauts in the discharge of their duties. Technoids came in all manner of shapes: power tools, sighting probes, sensor mechanisms, and so on.

  In a moment there was a great deal of excited babble.

  “There’s another!” shouted Alp. “The woman crisped him!”

  The progs peered forward at the vidscreen in excitement. “They must be Greens, those women.”

  General Ild yawned. “Look, proggies, when you’ve finished with your scan, will you call me? I’ve got a war to run.”

  “Oh,” said Alp. “I forgot to ask. How’s it going?”

  “Well,” said General Ild. “Cybby Number One reported not an hour ago from the War Council. It seems we’ve broken the backs of the Green Tank Army in the Aspic Mountains.”

  “Good,” said Alp tonelessly.

  “That’s what I told him,” General Ild said laconically.

  “General Ild, General Ild!” She came awake suddenly, snatched from the middle of a dream about a man on a tank, riding victoriously over the battlefield toward her, holding out his arms, and leaping down to grab her up in a sweeping motion.

  “What is it?”

  “The strange women. They’ve crash-landed in the battlefield.”

  General Ild raised an eyebrow. “That’s odd. Why didn’t they go back to Zenohaven?”

  Alp shrugged.

  General Ild sighed and followed Alp to the scanners again. This time she watched the two strange women run across the battlefield, climb onto one of the Green tanks, and disappear inside it.

  “What odd behavior,” said Prog Jut. “Don’t they know they’re in Cybby Territory?”

  “Apparently not,” said General Ild. She leaned closer. Now she could see the two women emerge from the hatch of the tank, jump off, and run toward the end of the underground palace.

  “They’re headed for our bunkers,” said Alp.

  General Ild nodded. These two did not act like Greens to her. They did not act like anything she had ever seen before. If that blond was a woman, she was one of the most muscular and powerful women she had ever seen.

  “Isn’t that blond woman beautiful!” cried one of the progs.

  “Shut up!” snapped General Ild.

  Alp stared at her. “What is it, General, Madame?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Leave me alone, you pompous fool! I want to see those two maniacs. Don’t let the cybbies destroy them before I get a chance to interrogate them.”

  “Aye, aye, Madame,” said Alp and gave quick orders to three of the progs.

  “No, no,” said General Ild in disgust. “You’ve got it all wrong. You men just don’t understand strategy. Alp, let them come in through the bunker. Lead them into the corridors, but don’t let the cybbies get at them. Once you have them in the Reprogramming Cubicle, then we’ll grab them and interrogate them.”

  Alp nodded. “Aye, aye, General, Madame.”

  “Treat them like any spy,” said General Ild in sudden inspiration.

  “Green spies,” said Alp, his eyes lighting up.

  “Now that’s getting there, Alp. I congratulate you,” said General Ild sardonically.

  Alp and the three other progs bustled off chattering among themselves like birds in the predawn light.

  Observing the two newcomers, General Ild recalled that she had read that the men at one time had possessed hair as beautiful as any woman’s, not only on the tops of their skulls, but also on their chins and jaws. Perhaps these two strangers who had wandered into Sector H of Battleground 3 were throwbacks to those earlier days—Greens who had betrayed atavistic secondary sex characteristics and who had been exiled from society because of their difference.

  If so, perhaps they were spies.

  Yes. She would have to treat them as enemies. Then, if they proved to be be agents of the Greens, they would be turned over to the cybbies. The cybbies ran the war. Except for the overall strategy.

  She watched as the two intruders were finally taken to the Reprogramming Cubicle by Alp and his three prog assistants. The scanners were on them every moment. The blond one awoke first, then the one with the black hair and beard.

  “Turn on the parlatech,” she snapped.

  Alp flicked a switch.

  They were watching the aliens on scanners located in the next room, but unseen by the occupants of the cubicle. The parlatech was an invention of one of the most brilliant technicians in Ildhaven history—a man as smart as the Wizard Lok—although he had not opted for a sex change to take charge of a war machine. He had simply invented a technological cybernetic talking organism, controlled completely by computer-fed information.

  “Turn the parlatech to Harassment, subsection Agents, subsubsection Brainscan,” snapped General Ild.

  Alp nodded.

  “Now let’s watch and see what happens.” General Ild stood there coolly observing the proceedings as the progs buzzed around her.

  Cold and aloof, she stared at the vidscreen and could almost feel the fear of the two occupants in the Reprogramming Cubicle.

  Her eyes never left the face of the blond giant. She could empathize with the alien’s puzzlement and concern. Still there was no sign of panic, no sign of deterioration, no sign of psychological disintegration.

  She could see by his face that he was a strong, self-sufficient man. Yes. He simply had to be a man. In spite of what these twittering progs around her thought, this blond giant was a man. And the strange secondary sexual characteristic exhibited by his head of hair was undoubtedly due to some odd throwback or mutation. He was a fighter, she knew that.

  Who but a fighter would have run across that battlefield out there, and jumped into the turret hatch of a firing tank? Who but a fighter would have dared attack the bunker and enter it in spite of the cannonading in progress?

  And who but a fighter would lock and bolt a door against the repulsive and all-powerful cybbies in their domain?

  Her heart was beating madly against her chest as she watched the scanner. Yes. He was fighting the parlatech, word for word! And so was his companion, the man with the weird chin hair.

  Anyone who had the courage to do verbal battle with the parlatech, which had been programmed for every kind of psychological brainwashing imaginable, was someone to be watched.

  Alp was jumping up and down in dismay. “They’re outwitting the parlatech! They’re making it a mockery!” he cried.

  General Ild laughed shortly. “Well? What are you going to do?”

  Alp frowned. He turned to his companion progs. They chattered together for a few minutes.

  Then he turned to General Ild. “We’re going to have to release the two of them from the cubicle. I think we must conclude that the parlatech has not been able to convert them.”

  “Good. And what about the brainscan?�
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  “The brainscan plates are in the cybbies’ hands. I’m sure they will prove nothing.”

  “Then let’s take them and interrogate them ourselves,” said General Ild, “on the cerebroscan.”

  Alp stared. “But no one has been known to survive the cerebroscan.”

  “No one who is guilty,” said General Ild. “But who knows what it will do to the innocent?”

  General Ild turned and looked at the scanner where the two—she knew now—men were wiping off the unexpected water.

  “I don’t know what to think,” said General Ild. She was telling the truth. But she did know what she felt. She felt about the blond giant the way she had never felt about any man. She felt what the ancients in the books called “love.” It would be an amusing experiment to see how this very old-fashioned emotion affected her.

  She gave the signal for the breaking of the cubicle and the wall parted.

  Slowly the blond giant looked around and his eyes met hers.

  She could feel that look all through her body and she almost fainted.

  This “love” might not be so bad after all, she thought.

  But, meanwhile, there was work to be done, a war to fight, the enemy to be overcome.

  And she spoke.

  CHAPTER 9

  “A fair trial,” Flash Gordon remarked. “If we get a fair trial, we will be acquitted as enemy agents.”

  “Perhaps,” said the girl, staring into Flash’s eyes.

  “Who will conduct this trial?” Flash asked, uncomfortable under General Ild’s penetrating scrutiny.

  “The cerebroscan machine,” said the girl with a faint smile.

  “Another machine!” Zarkov burst out.

  General Ild turned to the scientist. “Yes.”

  “But we’ve already been subjected to the cerebroscan,” said Zarkov lightly. “Weren’t we, Flash?”

  “Right, Doc,” said Flash.

  “Pah!” snorted General Ild. “That was nothing more than a simple brainscan. A device dreamed up by the cybbies. It could no more tell the real truth deep inside you than I could.”