Free Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus by Alex Raymond Page A

I roused him to take over for me,” said Sixy, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.
    Flash moved quickly to the spot where Narla had been. He cupped his hands, calling her name.
    No answer came back to him out of the misty woods which surrounded them.
    “Better if I had stayed up all night.” Mallox stretched his enormous arms above his head. “Where have they gotten to?”
    Huk had been looking over the spot where Booker had kept watch. “There appear to be other prints here. What do you think, Sixy?”
    Squatting, Sixy said, “Yes, it was two men. Wait—no, three. There’s the heel print of a soft leather boot mixed in with the others.”
    “Looks like two more men grabbed Narla,” said Flash, after examining the ground.
    “How could they have come so close?” asked Jape.
    “For one thing,” said Sixy, “Booker may have gone back to sleep.”
    “I would have heard anyone approaching,” said Mallox. “Even the smallest animal.”
    “But you didn’t,” said Huk. “None of us did.” He unfurled his wings. “I’d better go up and take a look around.”
    Flash returned to the place where they’d piled their supplies. He took up the stun rifle, scanning the trees around them. “They may still be out there.”
    Jape rubbed one of his hands over his chin. “If it’s the national militia I’ve been hearing about,” he said, “I don’t see why they didn’t take us all.”
    “Once when we played a little town on the jungle’s edge, I got to talking with a fellow who worked as a slave for one of the food vendors,” said Sixy. “He told me there’s more than one kind of slaver on Mesmo.”
    “Men who don’t travel to other planets, you mean?” said the hawkman.
    “Exactly,” said Sixy. “Bands of renegades who are more or less pirates, land-going pirates. This fellow knew of a man who’d escaped from one master only to be caught by a band of roving slavers. These fellows will even capture their own kind.”
    “That might explain,” said Jape, “why they only took the girl and Booker.”
    “I’ll wager they were afraid to tackle all of us,” said the strongman.
    Flash said, “Huk, you go on and take a look around from above. If you don’t spot anything, then we’ll follow their trail on the ground.” Carrying the rifle, he went again to examine the tracks around the place where Narla had stood.

CHAPTER 22
    “A nother Zarkov masterpiece,” said Zarkov, “if I do say so myself.” The light stripe which criss-crossed the ceiling of his large workshop, tinting him a pale yellow, threw prickly shadow images of his beard against the side of the spacecraft he’d been at work on. He stepped back, admiring the low cylindrical ship. “Not bad for a rush job.”
    He glanced at the one-way pseudoglass walls of the big workroom, noticing it was night outside. He crossed to a table where he’d left a cup of broth. He took a sip, then scowled. “That sure got cold fast.”
    “I brought the soup to you four hours ago,” said Dale as she came into the workshop.
    “That accounts for its being cold.” Dr. Zarkov extended one hand, palm up and fingers spread toward the ship. “Handsome, isn’t it?”
    “And certainly roomy enough to carry two.”
    Zarkov frowned into the mug of cold broth. “This is going to be a solo rescue operation, Dale.”
    “I don’t know why,” said Dale, “you keep thinking I’m not capable of handling myself—”
    “It’s not that,” cut in the bearded doctor. “The thing is, we know very little about the planet Mesmo. The PlanExplo Foundation has never sent a survey team out there. Most of the data on the planet comes from a couple of EII robot-ship flybys.”
    “I’ve gone into a heck of a lot of unexplored places with you and Flash,” the girl reminded him. “Including landing on several planets where no outsider had ever set foot before, from Mongo on.”
    “There’s always a chance,” said Zarkov, “that I won’t come back. Even somebody as