Flash Gordon (14 page)

Yet again, Zarkov shrugged helplessly.

“Don’t shrug! Do something! Say something! But I can’t stand it when you shrug like that!”

“Dale, I can’t help it. As a scientist, I’ve been trained to shrug whenever I face a problem I cannot solve or become involved in a situation where my greatest effort is of no avail before I begin. Sometimes there’s no point in being emotional or sentimental or even poetic. That’s one of the first things I learned in graduate school.”

Dale shook her fists beside her face and ground her teeth. “Ooh! You analytical men get me so mad. I could . . .” She suddenly terminated her verbal barrage. She and Zarkov looked into one another’s eyes; in this way, they communicated their mutual sorrow, their pain, their love and respect.

“The scientist will be conditioned by the Imperial Police,” said Ming. “Klytus, I assume you will wish to supervise?”

His hands concealed in the sleeves of his black robe, Klytus nodded.

As the soldiers took Zarkov away, Dale spat on the floor. Acting nearly as one, the members of the court babbled, expressing their shock and dismay to their neighbors.

“This is what I think of you and your kingdom,” said Dale, punctuating the sentence by spitting again. “You’re cruel, pitiless . . . you’re merciless!”

Throwing back his head, Ming laughed in a tenor that echoed throughout the palace hall several moments after he had ceased. “Merciless! Indeed, that’s exactly what I am! Ming the Merciless!” Suddenly growing thoughtful, he placed his forefinger on his lips. “Ming the Merciless. I like it. Where’s my Minister of Propaganda?” This last was spoken angrily, devoid of patience.

“I am here, Sire,” croaked a wheezing old man wearing immaculate yellow and black robes. Wild tufts of white hair grew like weeds from his liver-spotted skull. He nervously scraped together his toothless gums and twitched his chin as he bowed before the throne.

Ming regarded him with disdain. “You have failed Us. You have been charged with making Our name feared throughout the kingdom, and now this primitive Earthling has coined a nickname much more frightening than your uninspired concoctions.”

The Minister of Propaganda fell to his knees and hung his head. “You are correct, Sire. Have mercy upon this pitiful old worm, this useless conglomeration of rank grease and slime.”

Ming snorted. “I, Ming the Merciless, should have
mercy?”

The old man grinned, the inkling of a crafty light gleaming in his gray eyes. “The inconsistency will intensify the fear you inspire. For if a man knows to expect death, he can make peace with himself and thus be prepared for it; but if he should not know his fate, then he will cling to the hope of life regardless of the odds, and thus he shall fear all the more your royal wrath.”

“If I might speak a word in the minister’s behalf. Sire?” said Klytus.

“You?” Ming actually sounded surprised.

“Until now, the minister has performed his duties well. But even the lowest and most insignificant of Earthlings has a talent for advertising and propaganda unique in the entire universe. It must be something in the soil, or perhaps the very air they breathe.”

“You may go,” Ming said to the minister after considering Klytus’s counsel. “But remember this: We have yet to decide your fate. Our decision may arrive at any moment between this instant and the hour of your natural death. Each breath you take is Our gift of mercy to you. You may use the phrase ‘Ming the Merciless’ as frequently as is artistically desirable in your work until such time as we find a suitable Earthling to replace you.” As the Minister of Propaganda bowed and shuffled away, Ming turned to Dale. “And now, my dear, I believe I have already decided your fate, have I not?”

A
FTER
the initial barrage of moon fragments had died down, meteorologists noticed certain disturbing alterations in the patterns of the atmospheric conditions that determine the weather. Unusual cloud formations were presented as evidence that hurricanes and tropical storms were developing at places and at times which could not have been anticipated by extrapolating from previous weather patterns. The mean temperature of the atmosphere began rising and falling drastically over short periods, another departure from pattern.

The results were confusing; not even the weathermen of major network affiliates knew what to make of them. The snow in the Rocky Mountains unexpectedly melted, causing rivers to overflow; a few days later, towns which had withstood floods were covered with fresh layers of snowfall. Australia fell victim to a devastating heat wave. In Brazil, tropical storms lasted for days at a time, diminishing into drizzles; then the storms returned at full force. There was no scientific explanation of this continuous rainfall, as the cloud formations in the upper atmosphere perpetually indicated that the rain should soon cease altogether. None of these occurrences, however, provoked scientists as much as did the revelation that slowly, surely, the polar ice cap was melting.

Meteorologists in the United States attempted to convince the President that a state of emergency should be declared, but the President declined on the grounds that since no one had been able to do anything about the weather for thousands of years, he did not believe the American people were going to let him start now. He did promise to ask Congress to authorize some sort of compensation for compilers of almanacs who suffered economic hardship when the public discovered the inaccuracies of their tables and predictions.

Due to the curvatures of space, caused in part by the cosmic whirlpool, time passed at erratically different rates on Earth and Mongo. Consequently, when Ming the Merciless sentenced Flash to die, the weather patterns on Earth had been altering for a few weeks, and the seismologists were just beginning to notice a few disturbing signs of activity beneath the Earth’s crust.

N
IGHT
was a frequent but not a routine phenomenon on Mongo. In other words, the cosmic whirlpool often sucked in dark clouds of space gas which, as it penetrated the radioactive mists between the whirlpool and the calm eye, prevented the mists’ irradiation from reaching the Mongian system. These same mists, forever fed by the constant stream of matter, had also provided the birthplace of this system, untold eons ago. They protected the system, allowing only an infinitesimal fraction to pass through (though this was an enormous amount in human terms).

It was during one of these nights—which the scientists had been able to predict for thousands of years with some degree of accuracy—that Barin, Prince of the Tree Men, stood in the shadows on a terrace overlooking the courtyard where grotesque, hunchbacked dwarfs erected the chamber wherein Flash was to be executed.
Where does Ming get these people
? Barin thought as he watched the blackness move across the barren landscape like an evil manifestation.
I suppose someone like Ming has to take the kind of help he can get.
But he was only, too aware of Ming’s methods of securing labor; he merely disliked admitting, even to himself, that he knew. He also disliked admitting that the vast, open spaces of Mongo unnerved him; he did not feel safe beneath the naked sky. He much preferred the claustrophobic, sweltering forests of his homemoon. Though the space gas effectively cooled down the Mongian atmosphere, he felt perspiration on his forehead. An especially salty drop ran down his nose.

With a grim beauty, the blackness moved across a mountain capped with a forest of crystals, their rainbow reflection of the cosmic light sleeping with the finality of death itself. The scene inspired Barin to make many pessimistic philosophical observations to himself, mostly about the futility of personal accomplishments and initiatives, observations that he completely forgot about when he felt the familiar, warm fingers of Aura, daughter of Ming the Merciless, Rightful Ruler of the Universe, investigate the shape of his muscular thigh. He turned and embraced her, feeling her yielding soft breasts through the barriers of their clothing. He kissed her. He nibbled her ear. Long ago, he had complained (but only to himself) about how her mere presence caused him to lose all pretense of rationality, how her very scent caused him to forget his responsibilities to his people—and to himself. Now he gladly acquiesced to her spell. His pleasure in living entirely for the moment was mitigated only by the fear that the acquiescence was not mutual. “Your bedchamber at midnight,” he whispered into the delicate folds of her ear.

Aura winced, whether at his suggestion or at the sensation of his tongue in her ear, he could not be sure. She clarified the issue, however, by stating, “I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh? I know how executions excite you.”

She shrugged and frowned as if accepting the inescapable truth of his remark. Heartened, feeling the time was ripe to carry out his boldest strategies, he nuzzled her and moved his hands into all sorts of susceptible areas. As he planned, she groaned, relaxing her muscles—a prelude to yielding herself to the desires which rose to the surface of her being at the slightest provocation. Then she pushed him away. And none too gently. “I said
not tonight!”

Glad she could not see his expression in the darkness of the terrace, Barin bit his lower lip. He did not want her to know how her refusal made him suffer. “You’re impossible.”

“I can’t resist it; I’ve changed my mind. You’re such a . . . such a perfect soldier.” She moved into his arms. “You’re . . . you’re always standing at attention.”

She kissed him with a furious passion.

“Fly back to your kingdom. You may see me sooner than you think,” she said, her fingers searching out Barin’s susceptible areas.

“You’ll come to Arboria?”

“If you fly there tonight. Right now.”

“But the Emperor has commanded everyone to see the execution.”

Aura stepped away and turned her back. He watched the blackness cover the last vestiges of illumination in the horizon. “I don’t care what you do,” she said. “It makes no difference to me.”

“You’re so hard to trust,” he said, refastening his trousers.

Flash awoke in darkness. He felt the chains digging into his wrists, his toes straining to hold his weight on the slimy dungeon floor. From the volume of sounds and their echoes, he deduced he hung in the dungeon’s center. He heard creatures scurrying, the groaning of other prisoners, the wielding of instruments of torture by silent guards who, doubtlessly, went about their work with an inhuman detachment. Flash did not have to see to know he had been stripped to leather briefs.

He heard the scraping of metal shoes against the floor, the rustling of robes. The scraping and rustling ceased. A disinterested voice said, “You refused your final meal. The chef is very upset.” It was Klytus. “I hope it’s not the quality of the food.”

Though he knew his voice would be muffled by the spiked hood Ming’s boys had put over his head, Flash replied as loud as he could. “Your food sucks!”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Klytus without concern. “The chef will have to be executed for this. It’s a shame. You were wise, actually. The gas will act quicker on your empty stomach. Have you any final request?”

“Let me see Dale!”

“Of course. How predictable. How droll.” Klytus clapped his hands, creating a hollow clanking noise. “Bring in the Emperor’s concubine!”

Flash struggled mightily—almost childishly—against his bonds. Previously, he had concentrated on placing the flow of his strength in one wrist so as to facilitate pulling a chain from the ceiling in an orgy of spiritual oneness. Now there was no manner of reason to his efforts. He could not free himself, he could not yank the hood from his head; yet he struggled. “Damn you! I said I want to see her!”

He heard electricity sizzling through the atmosphere; the hood flew off his head and landed in a dark corner, breaking the ends of two spikes. Klytus had lowered his hand and placed the device which had removed the hood into his robes before Flash’s eyes could adjust to the dull dungeon light.

Dale stood before him. Her eyes were misty, she was on the verge of tears. She wore a red gown which under different circumstances would have enticed and fascinated Flash, but which he now perceived as hideously degrading. The gown revealed generous amounts of Dale’s pale flesh beneath the gauze cloak hanging from the headdress. Flash managed to grin. “You look great.”

Dale turned to Klytus.

“You have until the sand runs up.” Klytus walked to a shelf and inverted a large hourglass. The sand ran
upward
from the partially filled bottom to the empty top. With his metal hands concealed in his sleeves, Klytus stood with his mask directed toward the Earthlings, but something in his manner indicated he was totally uninterested in anything they might say or do.

“No kidding, you look great,” said Flash, exulting in the cool sensation of Dale’s palm against his cheek.

“It’s the eye make-up. I hope I remember the trick when I wake up.”

“I’ll be darned. That’s exactly what I was going to tell you.”

Dale’s eyes fluttered. “What?”

“This isn’t happening.
We’re not here.
It’s just a bad dream.”

“We’ll wake up in Dark Harbor any minute and have a laugh about this.”

“Only next time I won’t just ask the host your name, I’ll walk over and talk to you.”

“You promise?” asked Dale, placing her palms on his chest.

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to . . .” Flash winced. “I’ll really talk to you.

“What if we’re wrong, Flash?”

“We can’t be.”

“What if this isn’t a dream?”

Flash hesitated. “It’s easy. You’ll find Zarkov, save the Earth, and he’ll take you back in the capsule.”

“But what about you?”

“Don’t think of me. It’s pretty plain that one life or even a love as great as ours doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy, mixed-up universe. We gotta fight for what’s right if we’re ever going to make sense out of this confusing, deterministic existence, and if necessary, we gotta die for it. That’s just the way it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it. So don’t think of me, baby, think of the Earth. She needs you now.”