Flash Gordon (17 page)

He only glimpsed the larger fliers—silver or golden cigar-shaped objects, with fins and sharply articulated wings and huge tinelike protuberances fixed onto the bows. With their platforms bordered by thin low railings (at different places, depending on their design), the large fliers resembled Barsoomian vessels. Flash and Aura walked toward a bullet-shaped version devoid of platforms, containing a cabin with enough space only for a pilot and, if available, a copilot. Painted a dull red with glossy yellow half circles and bars highlighting its structure, the flier resembled a toy more than a functioning ship. Its bow protuberance was a little stub; a stylish silver fin stood on top of the cabin; its wings were hardly well-articulated. Standing about or leaning on the flier were three noncoms, wearing black trousers with red stripes and black shirts with red and yellow buttons and patches; they snapped to attention long before Aura’s whispers to Flash were within their hearing range.

“When they open the door for us,” she said, “get directly into the pilot’s seat.”

“Eh?” Flash replied. He was afraid the sudden, noisy wind blowing pockets of brown and black dust like crippled dervishes had caused him to misunderstand her.

But she did not have the opportunity to repeat herself. The soldiers saluted her; they squinted from the dust (the burst of wind was already dying) and they refrained with difficulty from overtly staring at Aura’s diversion. Flash realized his escape was as good as made.

“You promised me a lesson, pilot,” said Aura woodenly as an eager soldier opened the flier door. “Are you ready to, uh, give it to me today?”

Flash touched his eyebrow. “Never fear, my most illustrious lady. When you’re safe in my hands, you’ll soon enough overcome your fear of flying.”

Inside the flier, Flash was unable to conceal his consternation. The controls deviated from any design he had ever seen; they were positively incomprehensible, with panels that consisted merely of colored squares and others that were a morass of buttons, levers, and wires. Even the curved ceiling was layered with controls and apparatus, including two perplexing devices of three connected parallel bars vaguely shaped like a helmet, one above each seat.

“Don’t worry; it’s a lot easier than it looks,” said Aura, directing Flash to his chair. Sitting down herself, she passed a hand over a panel. The colored squares—red, green, blue, and yellow—glowed, and the ferocious engines buzzed like a slew of irate bumblebees. She pulled a microphone toward her face, pressed a button on its side. “Stand clear for blastoff!” Her voice echoed in the loud speakers above the dock. She passed her hand over the panel again.

Before Flash had the opportunity to fasten his safety belt, the flier was propelling itself toward the crimson skies above. Flash could not help but notice that Aura was pointedly leaving her diversion intact.

Dale lay on a luxurious, circular bed of silk pillows and silk sheets. Though a portion of her mind was still alert (she had estimated that the bed could comfortably hold twenty writhing bodies, so long as only five were reaching the most frenzied heights of ecstasy), she had never before experienced such an all-consuming numbness. She feared her impending fate with all her instinct, but all her intellect and emotional thought was focused on the loss of the great romantic love she had always yearned for. She had known it so briefly! Her numbness making her unable to distract herself with the smooth cool touch of the silk, Dale did not wonder about the chambers beyond this one (which was just large enough to contain the bed), she did not strain to hear the chatter of the harem women next door. She had been unable to arouse a flicker of interest when the women exchanged her red gown for this white one, an exact duplicate in all other respects. Apparently, Ming had changed his mind about what color would most please him. She cried for Flash, she prayed a part of his soul resided in her, she wished she had known him better, both socially and Biblically, she feared the cold merciless creature whose hands would soon caress her, who would demand that her (physical) passion match his, who would soon soil her private parts with his filthy seed, who doubtlessly would force her to engage in acts which if performed with Flash would be glorious statements of love directed toward the oversoul, but while performed with Ming would be hideous mockeries of Nature’s great gifts to humanity.

The door between the harem and the bed hissed open. Dale shivered, resisting the urge to cover her eyes; was it Ming? The question plunged her to the utmost depths of despair. She reluctantly turned, breathed an involuntary sigh of relief. It was Hedonia, an imposing brunette wearing a flimsy series of veils exposing an array of freckles on her shoulders and back. On a tray, balanced on her left hand as if she were a truckstop waitress, was a bronze chalice; the liquid inside bubbled audibly. Hedonia knelt beside her. “Drink this, Earthling.”

Dale peered into the chalice. She wrinkled her nose at the odor of the aquamarine liquid. “What is it?”

“It has no name. Many brave men died bringing it from Galaxy 6R-3Y. When the stocks become depleted, many more brave men will die. Here; drink it. It will make your time with Ming more agreeable.”

Dale lifted her hand to knock away the chalice, but then she reconsidered. “Will it make me forget?”

“No, but you won’t mind remembering.”

Dale took the chalice and drank from it. The final swallow nearly caused her to gag. She returned the empty chalice to Hedonia and waited for the liquid to take its effect. Before a minute had passed, she felt a curious warmth in her stomach; all her fears and tensions had been erased, and she was in tune with the rhythms of life and the mysteries of the universe. She perceived that nothing was evil and nothing was good, that everything was, instead, neutral. She accepted Flash’s death and her impending fate with an elated fatalism. In addition, her head spun, sweat beaded on her brow, and she had a vicious attack of heartburn. Her eyes widened. “Wow. That stuff isn’t bad at all.”

“That’s why men don’t mind dying for it. Listen: soon a slave girl will bring you a potion which will unleash your carnal desires. You will be absolutely pliable to Ming’s instructions. He will take you to . . .”

“Don’t tell me; let me guess. He’ll take me to undreamed-of sexual heights. Right?”

Hedonia was somewhat taken aback. “Why, yes. How did you know?”

Dale shrugged. “Lady, I’ve heard it all before, and I haven’t believed any of it. Does Ming always need this potion to get his women excited?”

Hedonia lowered her eyes. “I cannot comment on that.”

“You’d better tell the slave girl to bring me a double dose. I may not care what’s happening to me, thanks to this nameless drink here, but it’s going to take one hell of an aphrodisiac to get me aroused.”

Kala regarded the tiny eye-slits of Klytus’s mask. Perhaps more than Ming, she deduced his mood or thoughts from his eyes; she perceived the near-nonexistent with clarity. She drew information fraught with countless ramifications from the rapidity of his blinking and the movements of the pupils, not to mention all the other avenues of acquiring knowledge that were open to her in those six square inches. Thus far, his eyes had revealed no inkling that he was aware of her duplicities. Nevertheless, Kala scrutinized them with a dangerous transparency. Could it be he actually did not suspect she had given Zarkov a Level Six Indoctrination, reducing him to a mindless zombie?
No matter,
she thought, tingling with excitement,
he’ll know soon enough.

As Klytus unfastened the last of the straps holding Zarkov to the table, he asked, “What is your name?”

“Hans Zarkov, Agent Number 2133 of the Imperial Anti-Insurgent Espionage Group.” The Earth scientist saluted with a raised fist, although he remained too weak to stand. “Hail Ming!” He lowered his arm, cupped his hands in his lap, looked at Klytus, and grinned like a child.

“What is your mission?”

“To seek individuals or groups who work to overthrow the Established Order of the Universe.”

“What is your favorite color?”

“Khaki.”

Klytus nodded. His hands, too, were cupped, and his shoulders were slightly slumped. “Good, good,” he said with a faint note of satisfaction that astonished Kala (for it was so uncharacteristic during circumstances such as these). “We must now proceed with the physical tests.”

Kala’s mouth twitched twice.

A technician handed Klytus a ball of ice soaked in a red syrup, standing on an inverted soy cone. Klytus inspected it as if he were about to consume it personally. “This is to test your reflexes,” he said. Then, with a professional, almost nonchalant air, keeping his elbow straight all the while, he gave the ball of ice to Zarkov.

Zarkov took it gingerly; he slowly, oh so slowly opened his mouth . . . and promptly shattered the ice on his forehead.

Aura’s rocket soared through veils of numerous hues in the sky. Though the flier felt sturdy to Flash, it was still like a gigantic toy, fragile in a few important places. As soon as it had left the docking area, Aura programmed navigational instructions into it; then she turned to Flash, crossed her legs, folded her hands over her knee, and began a spate of idle banter designed to lull Flash into a false sense of security. Incidentally, between remembrances and compliments, she taught him how to operate the controls. The complex system turned out to be simple; the automatic pilot did most of the work, and Flash did most of the little deviations from the course.

The veil lengths gradually became smaller; soon they were passing through a veritable kaleidoscope. The mesmerizing colors engulfed Flash in a hazy euphoria; time slowed, his fears for Dale and Zarkov receded into the background. And Aura sat through the cascade of beauty as if there was nothing unusual about it, as if one saw this sort of thing every day. For the first time, Flash envied the savage princess. Maybe she did.

Suddenly, they were awash in a green sky with a density that, however illusionary, equaled that of an ocean. The atmosphere nearly buoyed the flier. In the center of the mists floated a tiny world with thick white clouds—and with glaring streaks of charred land—carved into the light green surface.

“That’s Aquaria. Once it was the lovely Water Kingdom of the Lizard Men. They rebelled . . . and my father blasted them!” She grinned, speaking her last words with relish. She then realized that Flash disapproved. “It seems cruel, I know, but how else should one rule the universe?”

Flash bit back his reply as he bore to the left more sharply than the automatic pilot had intended. Aura watched his impassive face; occasionally a muscle in his neck twitched. She rubbed the upper crests of her breasts. She stirred deliciously in her seat.

The red flier burst into the cool blue sky as if breaking through the surface of water. Dropping his stoic manner for an instant, forgetting the intoxicating scent of his benefactress, Flash gaped at the moon of Frigia, a semicircular hunk of ice floating in a cold pocket of the atmosphere, with icicles fifty miles long, with bases twenty miles in diameter, hanging from the edge of the southern hemisphere. There were crevices and valleys like huge slashes made with a giant butcher knife, but they only served to increase the moon’s hold on Flash’s imagination. The Terran quarterback felt his heart drawn to this cruel vista of death; he yearned for the peace of its cold embrace even as he yearned to challenge it for the sheer glory of survival.

“Every moon of Mongo is a kingdom,” said Aura, continuing the conversational tack. She seemed oblivious to the glorious vision in the sky. “My father keeps them fighting each other constantly. It’s a really brilliant strategy.”

She talks like a surfer girl from southern California,
thought Flash, resuming his impassiveness but surreptitiously orbiting the moon by overriding the automatic pilot.
I guess when you’ve got her other attractions, you don’t have to talk like an adult.
“Why don’t the moons unite their forces and overthrow Ming?” he asked, hoping to keep his mind off those attractions.

Aura giggled. (Flash’s stomach turned.) “You saw what happened to the Lizard Men,” she said. “Hey! Keep us on a straight course!” She quickly reset the flier on automatic pilot. Satisfied, she pressed a button; the three metal bars descended on two rods; Aura maneuvered them until they slipped over her head. Squirming, she closed her eyes and concentrated.