Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII by Alex Raymond Read Free Book Online

angry.
    “I’m Lari and you’re Magg.”
    “Silence to ye,” snapped Magg. “If there’s trouble at the inn because of ye—”
    A door slammed upstairs. “He’s escaped!” a woman’s voice cried out.
    “I’ll get him!” roared the voice of Flash Gordon.
    Magg reached out and pulled an enormous copper pot from the wall of the inn near the kitchen. “Ye’re not a friend of Mr. Gordon’s. Ye’re a plain ordinary thief.”
    “Magg!” cried Lari. He put his hands over his head to protect it.
    She swung the pot and it clanged loudly as it smashed into his skull. He ran for the first door he saw—the entrance to the kitchen.
    Magg got in two more shots before he made it to the door and pushed it open. It was night outside, but the moon of Mongo lit the sky faintly with a low-keyed glow.
    In that orange glow, Lari could see a strange misshapen phantom in front of him, a being that seemed to rise from a murky, sticky mass of matter which adhered to it in gobs and chunks.
    “Who is it?” Lari cried, halting.
    Clang! Magg’s aim was very good. She improved with practice. Lari stumbled and began running again.
    “Lari?” Kial’s voice was close to his ear.
    Lari did not understand. The phantom was Kial, that he knew. But Kial was talking through a mouthful of mush.
    “What?”
    “Run!” gurgled Kial.
    Lari bolted for the forest. And the girl with the pot ran right behind him.
    A voice cried from a window of the inn. “Don’t let them get away!”
    “I won’t” Magg promised.
    But unfortunately, she did.
    Exactly five minutes later in the woods behind the inn, Kial and Lari huddled behind an enormous sword fern.
    “Did we shake them?” Kial wondered.
    “I think so,” Lari replied.
    “Good. I don’t mind saying I thought we were done for.”
    “Did you get the blaster pistol?”
    “Yes. No thanks to you,” growled Kial ill-naturedly. He turned the luca ring on his pinky and suffused the area around his hands with artificial light. They would both see the blaster pistol clearly.
    The weapon had the letters “F.G.C.U.S.A.” inscribed across the side of the barrel.
    “Flash Gordon,” Kial translated, pointing to the initials. “Colonel. That’s right. The Annals of Time readout specified that he was a colonel by rank in the World Council.” Kial mused. “United States of America. That’s a political division on Earth. It was Flash Gordon’s point of origin.”
    “Then that’s the weapon he had when we found him on the superway.” Lari frowned. “I mean when we will find him on the superway.”
    “Right. I remember he fumbled at the jetcar door pocket before he climbed out after the wreck. You recall?”
    “I suppose so, but I thought he wore it in a holster around his waist.”
    “I left the holster there so he’d think he was armed.”
    Lari nodded. Then he sniffed the air. “Hey, Kial. What’s that awful smell? You?”
    “I don’t care to discuss it,” responded Kial.
    “You know, that inn girl, Magg, guessed that we were thieves.”
    “Better thieves than royal police from Ming XIII,” said Kial with a sigh.
    “Did Gordon see you?”
    “Of course he saw me, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll fix him as soon as we get back to the superway.”
    Lari got up and started walking.
    “Dummy,” snapped Kial. “Come back here.”
    Lari turned, puzzled.
    “We don’t walk! We go by time-travel.”
    “Oh,” said Lari.
    “Set your time-travel pack to . . . let’s see.” Kial closed his eyes. “Plus seven aitch one five em three aught ess. And your space-travel pack to Mongo grid coordinates Latt plus one two seven degrees, two hours, five minutes, three seven seconds, and eight milliseconds; long plus eight aught degrees, five hours, five seven minutes, two seconds and one aught five milliseconds. Right?”
    “You tell me, Kial,” said Lari.
    “I am telling you, dummy!” yelled Kial.
    They set the digital readouts on their belts together.
    And then both