Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus by Alex Raymond Read Free Book Online

scrap from his toes to his free palm. “Dusty windows, too, and there’s one with a crack in it. Forgive me for rambling, Flash. I always like to do a little complaining when I settle into a new place. Anyway, we’ll most likely be traveling most of the night.”
    The loading of the entire Interplanetary Circus took another hour. The storm persisted, rain beating down, lightning ripping across the sky. Rumbles of thunder rolled across the city.
    Then the long heavily laden train began to move, carried forward by the suspended cable. By the time they reached the outskirts of town, strong winds were lashing at the hanging train cars.
    Booker was a few seats ahead of Flash. “This is rotten weather,” he said. “I’d rather be locked up in a cell than dangling in this thing. It isn’t fair.”
    “Your obliviousness to experience is a continual source of wonder to me,” remarked Zumm from the other side of the swaying train.
    “What’s that supposed to mean, clown?”
    “One would assume that by now you would have learned not to expect fair treatment from our worthy captors.”
    “Well, I know what’s fair,” persisted Booker. “These guys don’t even care what happens to us.”
    A round-headed guard entered their car. He sauntered along the aisle, a silver shockstick swinging in his hand.
    All conversation ceased.
    “Don’t you know we shouldn’t be traveling in this rotten weather?” Booker told the guard. “We could all get killed.”
    The blue man continued walking.
    “You’ll be killed, too,” Booker called at his back. “You can die just as easy as us.”
    The guard halted when he reached the end of their car. There was an empty seat there. He took it, resting with his shockstick across his lap.
    The train sped on through the storm. At times the cable and the framework which held it a hundred feet or more above the ground were pelted by heavy rain. The train was rocked by ferocious winds as it passed over rocky canyons and whizzed by the tops of high, twisted trees. Sometimes they came so close to the trees that the heavy branches lashed at the windows.
    After the circus train had been traveling for several hours and there were only a few scattered lights flickering in the wet darkness, a bent blue man came shuffling into Flash’s car. He moved slowly along the aisle, stopping beside Flash.
    The guard sat up, got a better grip on his stick, watching.
    Nord smiled at Flash, his half smile. He pointed upward, then at the blond young man. Nodding his head, he smiled again with one side of his face.
    “Can you understand me at all?” Flash asked him.
    Nord frowned. He repeated the pointing and the smiling, adding several loops traced in the air with his finger.
    You’re referrring to my act, decided Flash. He’d been with the circus long enough to know this crippled blue man was an assistant of some sort to Barko. He’d been aware of Nord’s watching him from down below while he performed.
    Suddenly the blue man inhaled sharply.
    The guard jumped to his feet.
    A harsh beeping sound poured out of two ceiling speakers.
    “Some kind of emergency,” said Huk.
    “Trouble up ahead,” said Jape.
    “Might be something wrong with the cable,” suggested Sixy. “They’ve been known to unravel and snap in weather like this.”
    “I told all of you,” said Booker. “I told you they’d get us killed.”
    Their car was swaying wildly, traveling ahead in screeching lunges.
    Nord reached his good hand under his cloak.
    “It is the cable!” warned Jape. “They’re not going to be able to stop the train in time.”
    Nord placed a ring of keys in Flash’s hand, then tapped at the manacle which held him.
    The guard was running along the aisle, making a low moaning sound.
    Through the roar of the storm new sounds came from outside: the shouting and screaming of the performers in the cars ahead.
    The circus train left the cable and went plummeting down into darkness.

CHAPTER 15
    D r. Zarkov sneered