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

vanished.

CHAPTER 8
    F lash studied the forest growth and the terrain briefly, and then turned to Dale.
    “The origin of that ray is around here somewhere, but we haven’t really got the time to search it out now. Not with those two at large. Let’s get back to the jetcar.”
    “It won’t do us any good,” Dale said grimly. “It’s obvious you can’t fix the car. Do you think we can get a ride on the superway?”
    “I have no idea,” Flash answered thoughtfully. “I just don’t like what’s going on around here. I’m armed.” He patted the holster at his waist. “But I want you to have a weapon, too. I’ve got an extra blaster pistol in the car. I always carry one spare.” Flash peered grimly into the shadows behind the lavender-and-orange foliage. “I have a strange feeling that we haven’t seen the last of that disintegrator ray or the two men who operated it”
    “So have I,” said Dale, shivering.
    Together they walked through the scrub brush toward the wreckage by the superway. A scarlet alardactyl wheeled into view and then spun out of sight in the mustard sky.
    “The birds are returning. I think our guests have departed,” said Flash with a faint grin.
    “But they might come back.”
    “You can be sure they will,” Flash observed.
    “What do they want?”
    “Us.”
    “Why us?”
    “That’s for them to know and for us to find out” Flash said playfully.
    Dale smiled. “It can’t be any of Prince Barin’s people.”
    “Dressed in that weird garb?” Flash snorted. “Not on your life! They don’t look like your ordinary Mingo type, either.”
    “I’d say they came from some other environment entirely,” Dale replied.
    “From another planet in the Mongo System?”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Why attack us then?”
    “And why disappear before our eyes!” Dale wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself. “It’s spooky. I’m beginning to believe in witchcraft.”
    “There’s got to be some scientific explanation,” Flash insisted.
    They came to the wreck of the jetcar by the side of the superway. Flash climbed in, opened the driver’s door, and fumbled in the side pocket for his spare blaster pistol.
    “It’s gone,” he said, looking up in surprise.
    “What’s gone?”
    “The spare blaster.”
    “Are you sure? Maybe you left it in the console compartment instead.”
    Flash leaned over and opened the compartment on the dash. It, too, was empty.
    “Not there, either.”
    Dale looked around uneasily. “It’s getting spookier and spookier.”
    “I don’t like it one bit,” Flash said grimly. “Dale, you said the laserphone was out?”
    “Yes.”
    “There’s got to be some way we can signal Arboria and get in touch with Prince Barin. Maybe he’ll have some clue to this strange business.”
    “I think we’re going to have to walk the whole distance to Arboria.”
    Flash shrugged. “We can’t be too many mongometers from the city. We were due to arrive in fifteen minutes. At our ground speed of 1,700 mongometers per minute, I’d guess about 25,000 mongometers, give or take a few.”
    “Flash, I can never remember how long a mongometer is.”
    Flash laughed. “Well, a mongometer is just about half the size of an earthmeter, and is measured in the same manner. One ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the pole, measured along a meridian. Since Mongo’s diameter is exactly half of Earth’s, that cuts the circumference in half, too.”
    “Flash! You’re beginning to sound just like Dr. Zarkov! How long is a mongometer? In feet?”
    “Just over a foot and a half. Eighteen, nineteen inches.”
    “How many miles to Arboria?”
    “Well, maybe six or seven miles.” Flash frowned. “Beginning to sound like Zarkov, huh?”
    Dale laughed,
    “If we’re going to walk, I’d better make sure my blaster pistol is in working order. I had some trouble with the firing pin last time I used it.”
    Flash unbuckled his holster and reached inside. He