Free Flash Gordon by Arthur Byron Cover Page A

madman was driven by forces which habitually allow puny mortals to overcome the limitations of their flesh. Zarkov and Flash grappled like animals, struggling for superiority, as Dale watched with horror, waiting for Flash to deal the villain a telling blow. However, when the blow came, it propelled Zarkov directly into a big red button that appeared to have been liberated from Con Edison.
    “Sit down!” shouted Zarkov. “Keep a foot on the red pedal or the G-forces will kill us all!”
    Wow, he’s really dedicated, thought Flash.
    The capsule began shaking like a Cadillac moving down a steep hill with its emergency brake in gear. The engines rumbled and the glass of the greenhouse shook as if the earth was moving. Flash became subliminally aware of chemicals mixing and reacting violently beneath his feet. He sensed fire and destruction only marginally harnessed. Fearing for his life, he suffered a paralyzing terror, for now the unknown was no longer an abstraction. At least he had known the capabilities of the plane; at least there he had been able to act. But suddenly the Fates had thrust him completely under Zarkov’s control.
    Zarkov, who had already strapped himself in, shouted, “The red pedal! The red pedal!”
    Flash experienced a curious weightlessness, though his feet remained firmly planted on the floor. Then a weight descended upon him. He saw Dale struggling to strap herself in the center chair.
    The capsule was taking off!
    Zarkov uttered something cryptic: “Sorry, Munson, you missed your opportunity.”
    However, Flash had no time to ponder the remark’s meaning. The weight of a thousand griefs was pressing down upon him, flattening him. Every heartbeat and every tortured breath racked him with pain. He pulled himself toward the empty chair, fell into it, struggled to turn himself around. He was barely able to strap himself in. Without thinking, motivated by instinct more than his consciousness, he extended his foot and stamped on the red pedal, exerting an unexpected strength derived from a source deep within his spirit, a strength that had served him well during many exhausting football games. Just to glance at Dale (who had blacked out) cost him a tremendous effort.
    Flash did not realize it, if Zarkov had told him he would not have believed it, but pressing the red pedal activated the mechanism which produced the force field affording them some relief from the murderous pull of gravity.
    Zarkov mumbled, “Friendship—built this to send out in friendship—hands across the void—tentacles across the void—couldn’t bring myself to arm it—the end now—unless we three can—’less we can . . .” And he became silent.
    Flash felt a twinge of concern for the scientist; he attempted to convince himself that it was a purely intellectual concern for the sanctity of a human life, but there was something engaging about that idealistic madman. Flash’s interest in Dale, however, evoked no doubts whatsoever. As he watched her still form, he was awash with love and anxiety. Then he turned his eyes upward, toward the white ceiling, and tried to see the stars through the material. Filled with the majesty of space, realizing he was fulfilling a lifelong dream he had never seriously hoped would become a reality, he, too, blacked out.
    And the capsule carrying them journeyed into the inconceivable.

4

A Journey through the
Barriers of the Ether
    F ORTUNATELY , the trio strapped in Zarkov’s space capsule was unconscious throughout the majority of their journey, for if they had read the data of their instruments and peered through the portholes, they would have learned how puny were the most grandiose concepts of the universe in comparison with the reality; and it is doubtful that even the analytical mind of Zarkov could have grasped the sheer vastness and the startling array of colors through which his capsule passed.
    In the fuel compartments beneath the sleepy travelers, chemicals mixed and exploded,