by Alex Raymond
Orto turned to Lanl. “He’s spotted us.”
They raced down the alley and turned at the corner. The safety of the woods lay not fifty feet away.
But a big guard blocked their way; he was dressed in forest green and wore a peaked cap. He had his enormous hands on his wide hips.
“Be ye in a terrible hurry, fellows?” the big man asked with a broad smile.
Orto stumbled over the big man’s feet in his haste to flee. Lanl tried to get away from the big man’s hands, but ended up in their grasp.
Another large guard then joined the first.
“What have ye here, anyway? A pair of runaways?”
“Aye,” answered the first.
“The prophecy was right,” Orto said, sighing.
Lanl shook his head. “Well, maybe it’s all for the best. I wouldn’t want to face Ming XIII without proof Prince Barin was dead.”
The big guard prodded them both in the back. “Move it fast. Ye’re going to see the prince, but first let’s search ye to see if ye’re carrying weapons.”
Orto looked at Lanl with an expression of hopelessness. A moment later, they had no weapons at all. The big guard had the miniray pistols in his pocket.
CHAPTER 29
Dale peered through the bubbleglass viewport of the fourcap saucer and pointed in triumph.
“There it is, Doc. You see that gleam of metal in the trees?”
Zarkov leaned forward, peering intently. “Righto, Dale. Good girl. Okay, let’s make a descent and get this saucer on the ground. This is an old crate and I don’t want to have trouble with it the way I had with my airscout.”
Zarkov grinned and fiddled with the controls on the small console.
The saucer dropped toward the treetops.
“Sari, would you look out the aft port and see if those clowns have picked up our trail again?”
Sari moved in her seat and squinted out through the rear viewport. Zarkov had gone through some exhaustive tactical maneuvers to evade their pursuers. Apparently, he had shaken them off. In doing so, he had almost taken off the saucer’s radar antenna on one of the high conifers.
“No sign of them, Dr. Zarkov.”
“Good, good,” Zarkov muttered, pleased, peering through the bubbleglass at the forest as it rapidly rose toward them.
“There’s a clearing around the Tempendulum,” Dale said.
“I see it, Dale. Thanks.”
Zarkov thrust the guidance disc forward and the saucer moved downward, slanting from fore to aft in a direct line to the estimated point of arrival. In seconds, the saucer had settled carefully on the retrothrust pile.
Zarkov flipped off the switches, slipped the dogs on the hatch, and jumped to the ground. He reached up and helped Dale and Sari down.
“Sari, you keep one eye peeled in that eastern sky, will you? I don’t want those blue men to come up here and surprise me. I want to give my full attention to this alleged time machine.”
“Right, Dr. Zarkov,” Sari said. She climbed the metal ladder to the top of the minisaucer and perched on its apex. Her eyes shaded by one hand, she sat and waited.
“Come on, Dale,” Zarkov said eagerly. “Show me the inside of this dome.”
Dale nodded and they hurried across the clearing to the open port. Dale pointed and Zarkov went in first, helping Dale in after him.
With mounting excitement and astonishment, Zarkov gazed about him. His eyes lit first on the pendulum hanging from the ceiling of the dome, the heart-shaped weight now once again attached to the bottom. Then he took in the floating globe of opaque black that hummed softly near the pendulum.
In moments, he was at the console, gazing in fascination at the gauges, dials, and readout ports.
“How about that?” he muttered to himself.
Dale came closer, looking over his shoulder. “Flash and I tried to figure out what they all meant.”
“Well, I don’t know myself,” Zarkov said abstractedly, stroking his beard. “But if we’re correct, and it is a time-travel operation, it’s obvious that the controls have to do with time, the speed of light, and velocity. Right?”
“Right, Doc,” Dale said uncertainly.
“So,” Zarkov said, “here’s the time control. That’s fairly obvious.”
“T.C.,” mused Dale. “We guessed that right.”
“And velocity regulator, that seems obvious, too, doesn’t it?”
“To you, Doc.” Dale sighed. “We didn’t get that.”
“Velocity means speed multiplied by the weight of the object, of course, to quote a bit of elementary physics.” Zarkov grinned. “You would have to regulate the speed with the weight of the object transmitted. Too much speed would crush a large object; too little speed would cause a smaller object to explode.”
“Oh,” Dale said, impressed.
“And E.T.Z. is also obvious.”
“It is?” Dale asked, bewildered.
“Sure. Estimated time zone. Say you’ve got to predict the particular area of time in which you’re going to travel. Well, you’ve got to have good controls to get you near the right century. The rest of the controls are actually refinements to that one. Once you’re in your zone, then you clutch into your time-control mechanism, which seems to be the second gear, say, year five of the hundred-year zone from the E.T.Z. Then you go to your velocity regulator once you’ve gotten to the proper year. It’s a simple clutch mechanism, dealing with time rather than with space.”
“I see,” Dale said slowly.
“Marvelous,” Zarkov muttered, checking through the readout ports and studying the gauges with their golden needles.
“Doc,” Dale said tentatively.
“What is it, Dale?” Zarkov asked distractedly.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“What’s that opaque black globe?”
Zarkov rose reluctantly from the console and moved to the center of the dome. He looked up at the globe which floated near his head.
“Dale,” he boomed out, “that’s the heart of the whole operation.”
“Oh?” Dale was impressed. “I thought the pendulum was.”
“The pendulum is the secondary part,” Zarkov explained condescendingly. “But this is the conversion unit.”
“What does it convert?”
“I’d guess those scientists had figured a way to trap time. I mean you’ve got to gain control over time to travel through it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“Look at it this way, Dale. Einstein trapped energy when he equated energy to mass times the speed of light. Right?”
“If you say so,” Dale replied.
“That freed the energy in the atom. All right. Since that time, scientists have been trying to free time from the strictures of our three-dimensional space. You take Einstein’s equation, e = mc², and you can see that the next thing to be freed from that equation is time itself.”
“I don’t see that because I don’t see time mentioned at all in the formula.”
“It’s locked in the c² factor—the constant speed of light.”
“What has that to do with time?”
“The symbol c means the speed of light. That’s 186,000 miles per second. If you break up the speed of light into its elements, you get c = d/t. That is, the speed of light equals the distance traveled divided by the time involved. Right?”
“I suppose so,” Dale said.
“Somehow these scientists have managed to speed up light so that its velocity isn’t constant—so that it exceeds c. That is, if you speed light up to say 392,000 miles per second, light would arrive at a specific destination in half the time. Meaning that you’ve actually divided time in two. Right?”
“Yes,” Dale said, now thoroughly perplexed, “I think so.”
“And so, if you can speed up light, you can also slow down time. And if you can slow down light, you can speed up time. And so you can control time by speeding up light, or through m
anipulation of energy and mass, the other part of the Einstein equation. That is, you break down what is a constant into its component parts, and control each part. Then you can control time and use it to your own purposes. And if you can control the speed of time, you must be able to control its direction as well. Q.E.D.”
“But how?”
“That’s for them to say, Dale. But they’ve done it, and in that floating globe lies the answer. Scientists broke the secret of the atom with nuclear fission. These chaps have come up with something to speed up light and thus free time from its strictures. The secret is in there.” Zarkov’s eyes gleamed. “And it’s obviously working.”
“Dr. Zarkov,” Sari’s called from outside. “Come here. There’s a strange craft circling above us.”
Zarkov ran out into the clearing. He squinted up into the sky.
“Relax,” he cried gleefully. “It’s one of Prince Barin’s air cruisers. We’re among friends.”
Five minutes later, Flash, Prince Barin, Intelligence Minister Hamf and Orto and Lanl stood inside the dome of the Tempendulum as Zarkov paced up and down, lecturing to Flash and Prince Barin and occasionally turning to interrogate the two prisoners.
“You mean to say you know nothing about the workings of this time machine?” Zarkov boomed angrily. “What kind of agents are you, anyway? Don’t you know anything?”
“We’re not totally ignorant,” Lanl said, his eyes narrowing and his temper flaring. “It’s not our specialty, this kind of scientific gibberish. We were sent here to do a job.”
Orto stared morosely at the floor. “And we failed.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Lanl said to Zarkov. “We don’t know how it works, but we do know it does. It’s a completely radical departure from our early time machines. You’re the scientist. Why don’t you figure it out?”
Zarkov wheeled away and paced back and forth, fuming and muttering to himself.
Flash faced Lanl. “But you do admit you were sent here to assassinate Prince Barin?”
Lanl turned to look at Prince Barin, who gazed at him unflinchingly. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Obviously so that the forest kingdom could not be consolidated. In our time—Ming XIII’s time—we have continuous trouble with President Barin’s country.”
“President Barin,” Prince Barin muttered with a faint smile.
“Your descendant, obviously,” Flash said good-naturedly. “Note that the present monarchy will be changed to a constitutional democracy with the substitution of the word president for prince.”
Prince Barin waved a hand easily.
“By returning in time,” Lanl continued stiffly, “Ming XIII attempted to kill Prince Barin, thus weakening the social structure of the forest kingdom, and allow Ming the Merciless to bring it to heel. Except for Flash Gordon—”
“Kial and Lari were sent to stop me from getting to Arboria,” Flash told Prince Barin. “You see how obvious it all is?”
Zarkov wheeled and came toward Lanl. “What about the blue men? How do they fit in?”
Lanl’s eyes narrowed. “In our computer research, we discovered a hidden army in the forests of Arboria. They were called blue men in the Annals of Time. We didn’t know why, really. They may be the hidden contingent that Ming the Merciless counted on to take Arboria.”
Zarkov stroked his beard. “I see. But what happened to them?”
“We never could discover that in the historical readouts,” Lanl admitted. “That’s why Ming XIII sent a third time probe to work with them.”
“You mean we’ve got to isolate another pair of your murderous hoodlums from the future?” Zarkov boomed indignantly.
Lanl smiled faintly. “I’m afraid that’s right, Kazov.”
“Damn it, it’s Zarkov!” Zarkov snapped. “What’s wrong with you nitwits? Can’t anybody pronounce my name right?”
Flash moved in between Zarkov and Lanl. “Cool it, you two,” he ordered. “Get in those astro-seats. You’re going back to Ming XIII and report your failure.”
Lanl’s face tightened. “Perhaps we could deal.”
Flash laughed harshly. “No deal, Lanl. How could we trust you?”
“Wait,” Prince Barin said. “Zarkov, could you use these men? I mean could they be questioned for scientific information?”
Orto nodded eagerly. “We’d be glad to tell you what we know, Dr. Vokoff.”
“The damned fools don’t even know how this machine works,” Zarkov said disgustedly. “What good would they do me? No dice, Prince Barin.”
Barin frowned. “I like to be fair.”
“Fair?” Zarkov cried. “These two killers were sent here to murder you in cold blood and you want to set them up in your palace as emissaries from the future? Bah!”
Flash looked steadily at Prince Barin. “Perhaps Doc is right, Prince Barin.”
“We’d be glad to cooperate,” Lanl said tensely. There was perspiration on his forehead.
Flash made up his mind. “Get in the seats, gentlemen. We haven’t all day.”
Reluctantly Lanl and Orto climbed into the seats and Flash fastened the straps. Zarkov hurried over to the console and manipulated the digital readouts.
“Perhaps just one more chance,” Lanl said in a low voice. “Could we bargain for a life here in your prison compound?”
Prince Barin shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not, sorry.”
“Zarkov,” Flash said quickly.
Zarkov turned, noted Lanl and Orto in their astro-seats, and pulled the big switch.
A buzzing and humming followed, the floating globe seemed to flash and vibrate internally, the pendulum glowed and trembled, and a purple haze enveloped the two seats.
When it cleared moments later, the two would-be assassins were gone.
“I’ll be damned,” Zarkov marveled.
“Good-bye Orto, good-bye Lanl,” Prince Barin said sadly.
“You’ve too much sympathy for knaves,” Zarkov snapped.
“Perhaps,” Prince Barin said softly.
The entire dome around them trembled suddenly, then shook almost as if a tremendous earthquake had jostled it. The metallic integument rattled as if it were being shaken by some harsh force of nature. There was a high-pitched screeching that assailed the ears of everyone inside the dome.
“The neutralizer ray!” Flash yelled, clapping his hands to his ears.
Now came the strange odor that Flash and Dale had smelled before on the superway in the jetcar just before it had cracked up.
“Somebody’s activating that antimatter gun,” exclaimed Flash. “We’ll be atomized!”
“The blue men!” Dale cried. “They followed us. They found that ray gun and they’ve turned it on the dome.”
Zarkov turned from the console and stared up at the dome above him. “Look, it’s simply disintegrating! It’s turning into nothing.”
“Doc!” Flash yelled, grabbing Dale and running across the floor to the astro-seats. “Ten minutes! Flick the switch to minus ten minutes. You hear me? Minus ten em. One oh em.”
Then there was oblivion.
CHAPTER 30
And there they were, Flash and Dale, ten minutes earlier in the Tempendulum with the rest of the crowd in the time dome, too, listening to Flash interrogate Lanl.
It was odd, seeing himself over there ten minutes before.
“Quick,” Flash said to Dale. “Let’s get out of here.”
Dale followed him, skirting the group—the other Dale of ten minutes ago among them—who listened to Flash and Lanl.
No one noticed them as they ran out into the clearing.
“This is the same way I was able to knock out Kial and Lari,” Flash said laughing.
“Yes,” Dale said. “I understand now.”
“Where is that antimatter gun? You said you had seen it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. When I was running from Kial and Lari, I happened right by it. It was covered with branches.”
“Lead me to it.”
“You think the blue men are there?”
“I think they’ll be there soon, and when they get there, we’re going to stop them from destroying the time dome and us.”
They ran through the trees.
“There,” Dale said, pointing.
Flash turned and followed her extended arm. They passed through two narrow trees, an outcrop of klang rock, and there was the large laser gun, covered with tree branches.
“Good,” Flash said. He pulled Dale aside. “We’ve got to hide and—”
They heard voices.
“The fools didn’t know I monitored their call. I’ve got every word they said and I know all about that laser gun. Brod we’ll simply aim it at the Tempendulum and destroy them all.”
It was Captain Slan’s voice.
Flash gestured to Dale. The two of them moved in behind a thick polypody fern twenty feet high and hid there.
Slan and Brod trampled through the underbrush.
“Here it is, Brod. Help me get these branches off. It’s a brilliant way to get rid of them all.”
Brod chuckled. “It’s a good thing we intercepted the messages from that flight Prince Barin and Gordon made to the Tempendulum. That’s the only time we could get them all together at once.”
Flash put his mouth to Dale’s ear. “They know everyone is in the Tempendulum.”
“They obviously tracked Zarkov in the saucer.”
Flash nodded.
“It’s all set,” Slan said.
Peering out, Flash saw the blue man peeping through the magniscopic sights.
“Swing it around the other way,” he instructed Brod.
Brod complied. The two of them swung the big laser rod around until it pointed at the Tempendulum, which could barely be seen through the forest growth.
“They’re aiming it now,” Flash whispered.
“What do we do?” Dale asked fearfully.
Flash got out his blaster pistol and moved through the undergrowth. “Stay here.”
Dale shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”
Flash shrugged.
“Okay,” Slan said, his blue face wreathed in a big grin, his wicked yellow teeth showing against the indigo background. “I’ve got the Tempendulum zeroed in. Get back here, Brod, and we’ll get rid of the whole bunch of them. And Ming can take over Arboria.”