Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII (5 page)

“Bumped, is it?” she asked, looking at him carefully. Then her eyes took in Lari.

Lari blinked, trying to keep up with the fast-moving conversation. Actors? Bumped?

“My name’s Kial,” said Kial, waving Lari aside. “I’m originally from Mercury in the Earth Solar System.”

“Aye. That accounts for the strangeness of yer accent, and the vacancy of yer features,” said the girl in her woodsy accent. “All right. Me? I’m Magg, that’s short for Margaret, from the forest kingdom it is, and proud of it!”

“This is Lari,” said Kial, waving at his companion.

“Aye,” Magg said. “Now what’ll ye be needing, strangers to our forest kingdom? A mug of mead? A room? A bed?”

“Talk; Drink. Information.” Kial smiled warily.

Magg continued to study him. Then she backed off and nodded quickly. “Sit ye down.”

And she bustled off behind the bar where Kial heard her banging mugs and bottles together. Lari sat down next to him at the round wooden table.

Kial leaned over with his mouth close to Lari’s ear. “You keep out of this, Lari. Leave it to me.”

“Sure, Kial,” Lari replied. “I’ll leave it to you.” He blinked. “What is it I’m leaving to you?”

“The wooing of the damsel,” said Kial, his eyes dancing. “I’m going to worm out of her where Flash Gordon is. Take it from me—she knows.”

“How do you know she knows?” Lari asked quickly.

“I don’t know she knows, dummy,” snapped Kial. “But I intend to find out!”

“But if she doesn’t know, then she can’t tell you, can she?”

“I tell you, she knows, Lari!”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know if she knows any more than you know if she knows,” Kial snapped. “She’s the only one who knows if she knows, but before I’m through, I’m going to know and you’ll know, too, if she knows.”

“How do you know?” asked Lari.

“I know because—” Kial stopped, fuming. “Leave the wench to me, Lari. No interference. You understand? You’ll flummox the whole deal.”

Lari nodded sadly.

Magg came up with the mugs of mead. She set them down with a bang. “Tell me,” she said, eying Lari. “What play is it ye’re touring the forest kingdom with?”

Lari’s eyes got big. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

“It’s called
The Time Machine,”
said Kial.

Magg frowned. “It’s not been heard of around these parts. Are ye sure it’s all that great?”

“It’s very big on Mercury,” Kial retorted. “That’s why the Mercury Players are touring the galaxies with it.”

Magg turned to Lari. “Lari,” she said, the “r” sounding like a purr on her tongue, “would ye like another mug of mead?”

Lari opened his mouth again.

“Another round,” said Kial, leaning forward.

Magg gathered up the empties and went behind the bar.

Kial turned to Lari. “Stop trying to butt in, dummy! I’ve got this girl almost sewed up. As soon as I get her to myself in a dark corner, you sneak into Flash Gordon’s room and steal the blaster pistol.”

“But, Kial, first we’ve got to find out where his room is,” said Lari.

“I mean, after we find out where Gordon’s room is,” Kial said in exasperation.

Magg set down two steaming mugs of mead. She looked into Lari’s face again.

“Them’s strange clothes ye’re wearing, ye ken? That’s what made me wonder where ye’d come from.”

Lari looked down at his garb and stammered, “It’s of the very best material.”

“Wearing the costume of the play saves the cleaning bills,” said Kial with an ingratiating smile.

“I see,” said Magg, still looking into Lari’s eyes. “Ye’ve a very nice-looking face and I suppose that’s why ye chose the stage, eh, Lari?”

Lari beamed. He started to speak.

“Truth of the matter is,” Kial said, cutting in, “we’re looking for two of our company that came this way.”

Magg smiled at Lari.

“A man and a woman,” said Kial, leaning forward and almost touching Magg’s flaxen hair with his nose.

Lari smiled at Magg.

“Flash Gordon and Dale Arden,” said Kial, poking his face in between Magg and Lari.

“Aye,” said Magg, almost whispering. She reached out her hand and took hold of Lari’s.

“Are they here in the inn?” Kial asked with annoyance.

“Aye,” said Magg dreamily. The firelight flickered on her face. Kial looked at Lari and almost flew into a rage. “Snap out of it!”

“Aye,” said Lari with a smile.

“What room?” Kial demanded loudly, reaching out and putting a firm clamp on Magg’s shoulder.

“Room?” she repeated mistily. “Oh. Flash Gordon has the last room on the end. Dale Arden is in the one next to that. I think they have a thing about each other.” Magg giggled.

Kial nodded. “Lari,” he said.

Lari and Magg were close together now, their chairs next to each other against the wall. Magg’s arm was around Lari’s neck and Lari’s arms were around Magg’s waist.

“ ’Tis a beautiful man ye be,” Magg sighed, closing her eyes.

Kial leaped to his feet. The chair went over backward behind him.

“Nincompoop!” he snapped. “I’ll find the man myself!”

“And ’tis a beautiful girl ye be,” Lari said. “Now isn’t that a coincidence?”

He was speaking with a beautiful forest-kingdom accent.

And then neither said much of anything.

I
n the darkened hallway of the Spaceport Inn, Kial gripped the large iron key ring in his hand and smiled grimly.

“It’s a good thing I ordered Lari to distract that barmaid’s attention. Once she was occupied with him, it was easy to take the key ring from her belt.”

He moved slowly down the darkened hall.

“Last door on the end,” he said musingly. “Let’s see. Here we are.” He squinted. “It’s certainly dark here. And the smell! Whew! I don’t see why these forest-kingdom types cling so scrupulously to their ancient woodsy traditions. Why, the smell alone would make me tear down all these ancient inns and put up some new modern clean-air buildings.”

He inserted the third key in the lock after trying the first two. Number three fit.

“But I forget that it’s three hundred years ago. People had a different idea of life-styles then. Too bad.”

The door creaked open. Kial winced. “Sh!” he cautioned himself. Then he realized he was talking to himself. He pushed the key ring aside and moved into the room. The door closed creakingly behind him.

Kial closed it as slowly as he could to mute the noise.

There was a small window at one side of the room. A bit of Mongo’s fifth moon cast dull orange light onto the forest outside, but not enough to see by. However, Kial did make out the shape of a bunk in the center of the room. And he heard steady breathing.

Gordon? he wondered. It’s got to be him.

Kial moved stealthily across the room and looked down at the bunk. Yes. A long body lay sleeping under a fur coverlet. Kial frowned. He was after the holster with the blaster pistol in it.

Then his roving eye spotted it hanging on one of the bedposts; the holster was buckled to the belt and the blaster pistol was in the holster.

Kial crept toward it.

The bunk creaked.

Startled, Kial turned, halting in midstep.

Flash Gordon must have turned over in his sleep, he thought. No problem.

And he reached out for the holster. It felt heavy. Kial slipped holster and pistol off the bedpost, holding them in his hand. If I take the holster, Kial decided, he’ll know something’s wrong. He’ll simply get another weapon. Kial frowned. He was stumped. He shook his head in dismay.

Wait, he thought again. I saw Gordon with the holster just after the jetcar crash. He didn’t use the blaster pistol, but he had it in his hand. I’ll leave the holster here and take the blaster pistol. Gordon will think he’s got the pistol on him. Since I already saw him with the holster strapped on, I know he felt he had the gun. When he tries to use it on me, he won’t have it.

Kial felt perspiration form on his brow.

But what if he suspects? What if he checks it out? Kial closed his eyes. I’m trying to remember how this works. Let’s see if I can recall what the scientists told us about time streams and a priori and a posteriori effects. “We go back in time. We change something in the past. Everything that has happened in the future of that time cannot be altered. But a new branch of time is created, flowing parallel with the first. Therefore, at the moment I take this blaster pistol from the holster, I create a double time flow. One of the flows ends at the time the pistol is put to use. Then the second time flow becomes the true one. The one that went before is wiped out of the Annals of Time.

Kial was so nervous that he trembled.

I take the blaster pistol, but I leave the holster. When Gordon tries to use the blaster pistol, it will not be there, because I will have it when I reenter the true time flow.

He shook his head.

Scientists! I wish they’d never invented that stupid time machine.

Kial slipped the blaster pistol into his air-travel belt. He put the holster over the bedpost, then suddenly he was grabbed from behind. One arm was twisted up behind his back and the other held in a grip of iron.

“Sneak thief, eh?” a voice growled in his ear.

Flash Gordon!

“How did you get out of that bunk?” Kial asked hoarsely.

“How did you get into my room?” Flash asked.

Kial slammed his knee into Flash Gordon’s thigh. Flash backed away momentarily and Kial ran for the doorway.

At least, he thought he ran for the doorway. In actuality, he ran toward a small window set in the back wall of the inn.

“Stop!” yelled Flash.

Terrified, Kial thrust his hands out in front of him to open the door, but encountered only air. The window of the room was open.

Kial felt himself suddenly tripped at mid-thigh by the windowsill and propelled forward. Head-first, he dove out through the open window and into the dark night.

Behind him, in the room he had left so quickly and so unexpectedly, Kial heard a sudden commotion. Voices from nearby rooms joined with that of Flash Gordon.

He had no time to think about that.

Like all heavily falling objects, Kial landed abruptly.

A moment later he blinked and tried to open his eyes. He was not really hurt, only stunned. He had landed in some kind of substance, a substance contained in a large receptacle of unseen dimension in back of the inn.

“Ugh!” he cried as he floundered in the oozy viscid matter. He wiped the stuff out of his eyes and realized that he was up to his neck in it. The slop pit of the Spaceport Inn lay directly underneath the room in which Flash Gordon had taken lodging for the night.

Lari and Magg heard the first cry together in the serving room of the inn.

“What’s that?” Lari asked, sitting up.

“Who cares?” Magg asked sighing. “Oh, Lari!”

A moment later there were more shouts. Lari sat up again.

“Magg. It’s my friend Kial.”

“He can take care of himself.” Magg’s arms crept around his neck.

A scream sounded. To Lari, it seemed to be Kial’s voice. He rose abruptly.

Magg was at his side, frowning. “I thought ye said he was a friend of Flash Gordon’s.”

“He said he was a friend of Gordon’s,” Lari reminded her.

“Just who be ye?” Magg asked, her face angry.

“I’m Lari and you’re Magg.”

“Silence to ye,” snapped Magg. “If there’s trouble at the inn because of ye—”

A door slammed upstairs. “He’s escaped!” a woman’s voice cried out.

“I’ll get him!” roared the voice of Flash Gordon.

Magg reached out and pulled an enormous copper pot from the wall of the inn near the kitchen. “Ye’re not a friend of Mr. Gordon’s. Ye’re a plain ordinary thief.”

“Magg!” cried Lari. He put his hands over his head to protect it.

She swung the pot and it clanged loudly as it smashed into his skull. He ran for the first door he saw—the entrance to the kitchen.

Magg got in two more shots before he made it to the door and pushed it open. It was night outside, but the moon of Mongo lit the sky faintly with a low-keyed glow.

In that orange glow, Lari could see a strange misshapen phantom in front of him, a being that seemed to rise from a murky, sticky mass of matter which adhered to it in gobs and chunks.

“Who is it?” Lari cried, halting.

Clang!
Magg’s aim was very good. She improved with practice. Lari stumbled and began running again.

“Lari?” Kial’s voice was close to his ear.

Lari did not understand. The phantom was Kial, that he knew. But Kial was talking through a mouthful of mush.

“What?”

“Run!” gurgled Kial.

Lari bolted for the forest. And the girl with the pot ran right behind him.

A voice cried from a window of the inn. “Don’t let them get away!”

“I won’t” Magg promised.

But unfortunately, she did.

Exactly five minutes later in the woods behind the inn, Kial and Lari huddled behind an enormous sword fern.

“Did we shake them?” Kial wondered.

“I think so,” Lari replied.

“Good. I don’t mind saying I thought we were done for.”

“Did you get the blaster pistol?”

“Yes. No thanks to you,” growled Kial ill-naturedly. He turned the luca ring on his pinky and suffused the area around his hands with artificial light. They would both see the blaster pistol clearly.

The weapon had the letters “F.G.C.U.S.A.” inscribed across the side of the barrel.

“Flash Gordon,” Kial translated, pointing to the initials. “Colonel. That’s right. The Annals of Time readout specified that he was a colonel by rank in the World Council.” Kial mused. “United States of America. That’s a political division on Earth. It was Flash Gordon’s point of origin.”

“Then that’s the weapon he had when we found him on the superway.” Lari frowned. “I mean when we will find him on the superway.”

“Right. I remember he fumbled at the jetcar door pocket before he climbed out after the wreck. You recall?”

“I suppose so, but I thought he wore it in a holster around his waist.”

“I left the holster there so he’d think he was armed.”