Free Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus by Alex Raymond

gradually dropped down on them. The party continued on. When they stopped to make camp for the night, they were still two miles from the vast jungle.

CHAPTER 21
    “T he trees grow thick here,” said Huk, who was kneeling in front of the small campfire he’d started. “They should conceal the flames from anyone flying over.”
    “Don’t see why we need a fire at all,” said Booker as he chewed on a cake of the dry food they had salvaged from the wreck. “We got nothing to cook.”
    “A fire’s good for more than cooking,” said Flash. “It’ll keep curious animals at a safe distance.”
    “What kind of animals?” asked Booker. “I haven’t seen much around here except butterflies.”
    “Well, since the fellow who almost caught us had animal traps set,” replied Flash, “I figure there must be animals.”
    “Probably a few nocturnal types at least,” said Huk.
    “I noticed signs while we were traveling,” said Sixy. “Tracks on the ground, marks on the trunks and branches. Some kind of big cats, I’d say.”
    “How big?” asked the strong man.
    Sixy ripped open a food packet with his toes. “Oh, as big as the lions we worked with in the circus.”
    Mallox laughed. “There’s nothing to worry about then,” he said. “Cats that size, I can just snap their necks.”
    “We don’t all have that ability,” Sixy reminded him. “If one of those big cats comes along tonight while you’re asleep and—”
    “I don’t need any sleep.”
    “We’re all going to need rest,” said Huk.
    “What we’ll have to do,” said Flash, “is divide the night into shifts. We should keep at least two on watch all night.”
    “I need my sleep,” said Booker. “I’m still not recovered from the train wreck.”
    “You and Narla can have the last shift before morning,” said Huk. “That way you can sleep from now until then.”
    “How early you going to wake me up?”
    “I can take all the night shifts,” said Mallox. “Then everyone can sleep. There’s nothing I can’t handle.”
    Huk shook his head. “No, we have to divide the work, Mallox. And everyone has to do part of it. There’s no telling how long we may be together and it’s best to get a system worked out now.”
    The giant made a rumbling sound in his chest, letting his huge hands slap against his thighs. “Very well, I’ll go along with the system.”
    Flash, after the shifts were set up, went and sat beside Jape. “Making any progress?” he asked.
    “Yes,” answered the physicist. “The language they use here on Mesmo is definitely a variation on that spoken on Yasmin. I’m beginning to understand a few words here, a phrase there.”
    “Any reference to our train wreck?”
    “I believe they’ve been sending out a warning all day,” said Jape, patting the radio with one of his hands. “Something to the effect that several wild animals have escaped from the crashed circus train.”
    “The wild animals being us?”
    “Yes, though as far as I can gather they aren’t advocating that we be shot on sight,” said Jape. “Some group—I think the right name would be militia—is apparently searching for us.”
    “Are they searching the forest we’ve just passed through?”
    “I can’t tell,” said Jape. “But by tomorrow I think I’ll be able to figure out most of what’s being said on here.” He smiled. “That is, if we don’t get captured before then.”
    The silence awakened Flash. It was a misty morning, the chill hour of dawn. Flash sat up from the bed he’d made of leaves.
    The campfire had died; a trickle of sooty smoke spiraled up from it.
    Flash looked to the place, some hundred feet from the camp, where Narla should have been standing watch. The girl was not there.
    Jumping up, he turned to where Booker ought to have been. The black man was nowhere in sight.
    “What is it?” asked Huk, coming awake.
    “Narla,” said Flash, “and Booker. They’re not here.”
    “I thought he looked too drowsy when