Flash Gordon 5 - The Witch Queen of Mongo (11 page)

And no sooner had he said it than he did.

Ming watched the drapes and Flash Gordon slam down onto the stone floor of the queen’s chambers. Ming felt his heart pound with exhilaration. He raced down the stairs, waving the sword in triumph.

There lay Flash Gordon unconscious on the stones, the cut drapes covering half his body.

Ming flew down the steps and paused over him, lifting his sword high.

“Now, you silly clown, here’s an end to you.”

Azura grabbed his arm again, pulling harder this time. “You fool! Put down that sword. You’ll spoil all our plans for an empire in this insane envy of yours.”

Ming shook his head. Maybe she was right. Maybe . . . Flash Gordon looked so stupid, lying there on the floor that way. Ming straightened. Gordon was a clod. He started to laugh.

“When he’s served our ends,” Azura said in his ear, “then you’ll have your turn with him—I promise that. But beware mighty Ming, I may not keep him drugged with pacifist mist then.”

Ming threw his sword onto the floor, where it clattered loudly against the stones under the carpet.

“Never mind, lovely queen,” Ming retorted in kind. “Drugs or no drugs, I’ll finish him off. I owe it to myself, now. When he goes, it will prove that Ming is greater than he.”

“Yes, Master Ming,” Azura said softly.

He turned on her. Without warning, he reached out and took her wrists in his hands. Her wrists were cold. He drew her toward him, her body trembling as she strained against his grip.

“Don’t give me orders,” Ming said in a quiet but deadly voice. “Just don’t give me orders.”

She tore herself out of his grasp, rubbing her wrists angrily.

“Get out. Qilp and I will take care of Gordon.” She turned and called out, “Qilp!”

The dwarf capered up.

“Ah, yes, Cousin,” Ming snarled sourly. “I keep forgetting you are a power in this palace. Minister of intelligence, is it?” Ming laughed softly.

Qilp did not hear him at all. He was close to Queen Azura, and she was speaking softly in his ear.

Ming watched them as he slowly walked away. Qilp had been a good entrée for him into the palace. What power he had with the queen was only to the good. Once Ming did become emperor, then he wouldn’t need Qilp anymore. Qilp. Or the ministers of science. Or Azura.

Or Azura . . .

Meanwhile, it was good to have someone like Qilp close to the queen. After all, in a showdown, blood was always thicker than water.

Still, he liked Azura—when she obeyed him.

D
r. Zarkov was not accustomed to the feeling of cold fear that he now experienced at the sight of the huge humanoid birds that had settled in a tight circle about the two of them.

“What’ll we do, Doc?” Dale asked in a whisper, moving closer to him.

Zarkov glowered at the strange beasts. It was then that he straightened and squinted against the glare of the newly risen sun. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Were these the killer birds he had taken them for? Or were they something quite different, something quite—?

“Dale,” he murmured. “Don’t you see? They’re Hawkmen.”

“Hawkmen?” she repeated, puzzled. Then her face broke into a smile. “But the Hawkmen were always friends of Prince Barin’s, weren’t they?”

“Indeed, yes!” cried Zarkov, his voice booming out. “All we have to do is tell them who we are.”

“Wait,” Dale said cautiously. “Are you sure you can convince them of our identity? No one knows we’re even on the planet of Mongo yet.”

“Except Queen Azura,” Zarkov muttered darkly. “Well,” he said, “there’s nothing for it but to make ourselves known to these—uh—fine men.” His voice trailed off.

“How?” Dale asked.

Zarkov fidgeted. Actually, the only way to do it was for Zarkov to walk up to the obvious leader of the Hawkmen and introduce himself. And yet as he stood there, staring about him at the menacing ring of winged men, he could not generate the same enthusiasm in himself that he projected in his voice.

Finally he pushed out his chest, extended his right hand in an open and friendly salute, and started across the sandy stretch between the poised birdmen and himself. “Friends!” he said loudly and hopefully.

As he approached, he could see that these men/birds were indeed Hawkmen, and not birds. Hawkmen on patrol wore skintight trunks with shoes of soft leather, and long shoulder-length gloves made of tightly woven chain mail ending in iron claws on the fingers. These talons served as weapons with which the Hawkmen fought.

On their heads, Zarkov saw the familiar shining helmets, with the extended wing insignia and the rank across the front. He saw that the man in charge was of captain’s rank, the double-chevron insignia painted in the middle of the steel helmet.

The most curious physical feature of the Hawkmen was the large pair of wings extending from each scapula upward and downward. These wings were identical to a large bird’s wings: the same muscle attachments, the same bone growth, and the same feathered integument.

Somewhere in Mongo’s past, the mammal and the reptile had continued together in the same organism to pass into the mammal-bird phase—and the Hawkmen were the result.

However, the Hawkmen of Mongo did not possess the typical bird’s superior vision. Because of that, Hawkmen patrols wore extremely thick antihelio tinted lenses that were corrected to bring the average individual’s visual acuity to the equivalent of 20-05 or 20-04.

This made the Hawkmen, for their vision and for their maneuverability, the obvious national group to patrol the planet of Mongo for the Free Council.

“I’m Zarkov!” He halted ten feet from the captain of the Hawkmen.

The Hawkman smiled. He held his hands with the steel talons in front of him, waiting for any odd move from Zarkov.

“Indeed,” the captain of the Hawkmen said.

“Dr. Zarkov,” Zarkov repeated, frowning. “I’ve spent years on Mongo. I’m from Earth. Doesn’t Prince Barin ever talk about Zarkov?”

The captain turned to the Hawkman nearest him, a sergeant. “Well?”

The sergeant stared at Zarkov. “I don’t know, Captain Vogl,” he told his commander.

Vogl stared at Zarkov. “Of course I’ve heard of Zarkov. He’s a legend among our people. There are tomes about him in the Free Council of Mongo’s libraries.”

Zarkov turned to Dale. “You hear that, Dale? I’m in the libraries!” he boomed.

Vogl advanced. “But how am I to know you’re really Zarkov, and not some imposter?”

“Don’t I look like Zarkov?” Zarkov called out. “Don’t I sound like Zarkov? There’s only one Zarkov, dammit!”

Captain Vogl turned to his sergeant. “I would guess that he is who he says he is,” he muttered.

The sergeant held up a hand. “I’ll vidflash the Free Council for verification.”

“And about time, too,” Zarkov said moodily.

The sergeant drew a small black case out of his flying pack and twisted a lens on its front. “Stand right there, you who call yourself Dr. Zarkov. I’ll send your image to FCM Identification Center.”

Captain Vogl smiled sardonically. “Cheese, Dr. Zarkov. Cheese.”

Zarkov smiled, lifted his head, and mugged slightly. “There. How’s that?”

The sergeant flicked off the vidflash and raised it to his ear.

“What are you doing out in these forsaken spaces?” Zarkov asked Vogl conversationally.

“This is our patrol sector,” Vogl explained, waving an arm about him. “All this area of the Great Mongo Desert.”

“When did you pick up our track?” Zarkov wondered.

“Last night,” Vogl said with a smile.

“But you didn’t make yourself known—”

“We didn’t want to,” Vogl cut in. “We preferred to see what you were up to. When you began again to approach the disputed border of Arboria, we decided we must intercept you to find out your mission.”

“Our mission is one of peace,” Zarkov said.

“That remains to be seen,” Vogl said, smiling.

“Flash Gordon was with us,” Zarkov said. “He’s been seized by Queen Azura’s men.”

For once, Vogl’s calm face froze. “Flash Gordon?”

“You believe me?”

“Perhaps I do,” Vogl said, looking at Zarkov intently through his enormous goggles. “We are checking out violations of the border attempted by Azura’s troops.”

“Ah-ha!” Zarkov cried out. “You hear that, Dale?”

Dale had approached and now stood at Zarkov’s side. “Yes, Doc, you don’t need to bellow.”

“So there was a reason to seize Flash,” Zarkov muttered. “And now that she’s got him—”

The sergeant moved forward. “Confirmed,” he said to Captain Vogl. “It’s Dr. Zarkov.”

“And about time you admitted it, too,” Zarkov said testily. “Come on, come on. We’ve got to get to Arboria immediately. We must see Prince Barin.”

Vogl held up a hand patiently. “Not so fast, Dr. Zarkov. We can’t fly you out of here on our backs, you know.”

“Too tough for you?” Zarkov wanted to know.

“It simply wouldn’t be seemly,” Vogl said evenly. Zarkov let his hands rise and fall against his sides. “Then how?”

Vogl turned to the sergeant. “Radio back to Arboria for the heliocab, Sergeant, if you please.”

“Right away, Captain.”

Within minutes, a comfortable, four-seated, rocket-powered vehicle came into sight and zoomed to a quiet landing on the desert sand. It had a bubbletop of dark-blue glass which covered the entire passenger area.

“Beautiful job,” Zarkov said, staring at the workmanship enviously. “Why the blue glass?”

“It serves a double purpose,” Vogl explained as he gestured the driver to remain in the heliocab. “It keeps the sun’s rays from burning the passengers, for one.”

“I see,” Zarkov said.

“That, however, is actually a secondary purpose. The primary purpose of the glass is to collect the rays of Mongo’s sun.”

Zarkov pouted. “You mean that’s how the rockets are powered? By the sun’s heat?”

“Yes,” said Vogl. “A little something the scientists of the Free Council of Mongo have dreamed up.”

“But there isn’t enough energy from the sun to power the average rocket thrust,” Zarkov muttered.

“True,” Vogl agreed.

“Then what are you talking about?” Zarkov asked.

“Yes,” Dale chimed in. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand anything.”

Zarkov turned to her. “Solar rays can be used to heat houses, you know, Dale. But there simply isn’t any way to store enough solar energy to start up a rocket.”

“Oh, I see,” said Dale, not seeing.

Vogl gestured toward the heliocab. “The sun’s heat is stored in the blue glass, and diverted into storage condensers. A simple-enough process.”

“Yes, yes,” Zarkov said impatiently. “But—”

“Once in the condensers, the energy is immediately put through a transformer to skim a little energy off the top.”

“Go on,” Zarkov said grudgingly.

“The extra heat is recoupled to new heat coming in from the blue-glass stores. That total portion is halved, with the first half going into the condensers, and the second half into the rocket mechanisms. As this type of regeneration is multiplied time and time again, the heat builds up a tremendous amount of excess, which, in turn, causes the rocket engines to start up. Excess heat from the operation of these engines goes back into the condensers and into storage to be reused in conjunction with the incoming sun’s rays. It’s a multiple regenerative multi-stage helio-powered rocket, according to our engineers,” Vogl finished slowly.

Zarkov shook his head. “You sound like a scientist rather than a captain, Vogl.”

“I started out to be a scientist,” Vogl said carefully.

“Didn’t work out?”

“I liked flying better,” said Vogl. “It’s an old family tradition.” He moved his wings with a smile.

Zarkov nodded.

He and Dale stepped into the heliocab as the driver held up the bubbletop, and when they had settled into the remarkably cool double seats in the rear, the operator closed the bubbletop and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Through the blue glass, Zarkov and Dale saw Captain Vogl waving to them and pointing northward, where the driver then aimed the heliocab and began his easy and even ascent into the Mongo sky.

“The thing drives without the least vibration,” Zarkov said in awe. “They’ve certainly made great strides on Mongo since I was here.”

Dale suppressed a smile. “Is that so strange, Doc?”

Zarkov frowned, turning to Dale. “You’re joking with me,” he boomed. “Stop that, Dale.”

She laughed at his fierce expression.

He relaxed and leaned back.

Below them, they saw the vast expanses of the Great Mongo Desert pass by as the heliocab rose and threaded its way through the thin air above.

A voice sounded inside the heliocab. “We’re approaching the Great Northwest Sector,” said Captain Vogl.

Zarkov glanced aside. Vogl was flying alongside the heliocab and was speaking into a small breastbone microphone around his neck. He pointed downward. Zarkov leaned over and looked at the desert below. From the sky, he saw the remarkable upthrusting of volcanic formations that dotted the landscape.

“It’s also called the Lava Flats,” Vogl remarked. “There’s still volcanic activity at times here, although nothing has blown for some three years now.”

Zarkov nodded. “It sounds like the skipper of an Earth jet from Metropolis West to Metropolis East announcing the sights,” he told Dale with a grin.

Dale nodded. “It’s beautiful in a crude kind of way,” she said, pointing down at the volcanic formations.

“Now we’re coming to the edge of the Great Mongo Jungle,” said Vogl, pointing up ahead.

Zarkov saw the slight line of vegetation coming up on the horizon that up to that point had been all sand and lava. As they neared, the vegetation got greener and greener until they approached its edge, where the sunlight cast a thin black shadow of definition against the edge of the sand.

Then they were over a dense and tangled mass of vegetation, without a glimpse of earth or water beneath.

“The Great Mongo Jungle continues for some miles, and then we get into Arboria,” said Vogl.

The jungle eventually petered out into a system of swampy, irregular canals and ponds that became one large lake, and then thinned into a stream.