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

competent as Zarkov fouls up now and then.”
    “Seems to me,” said Dale, “the chances of your fouling up will be less with me along to back you up.”
    Zarkov banged the mug down onto the table. “Out of the question!” he boomed. He opened the door to the cabin of the revamped spacecraft and boosted himself in with a chesty grunt.
    Dale came up beside the ship and stood looking inside. “You’ve finished your modifications?”
    “Yeah, it’s ready to go,” he said. “With a few more little adjustments.” He clicked the tip of an electric screwdriver against his front teeth. “I’ve come up with an interesting variation on the conventional spacewarp equipment. Much more compact, and it should be a great deal more efficient. If I wasn’t in such a hurry to get off, I’d hop back down to Washington, and take out a patent on it.”
    “To get to Mesmo,” said Dale, “we have to jump across both space and time then?”
    “Unless you want to spend a couple of lifetimes or more enroute,” bellowed Zarkov. He hunched, frowning at the control panel. He tinkered for a moment, then said, “I notice you said we!”
    “You know how I feel about Flash,” said Dale. “I have to go along.”
    The doctor concentrated on his tinkering for another minute. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve appealed to Zarkov’s sentimental side.”
    Dale laughed. “And most people say you don’t have one. I’ll get my spacesuit ready and pack some basic things in a rucksack.”
    “Hum,” said Zarkov. “I just happened to pack an extra rucksack and stow it in here. To test the floor space. You can use that.”
    “I see,” said the girl, smiling.
    “What you can do, though,” said Zarkov, “is go turn the house down to its lowest operational level. I don’t want those nitwit servos mixing drinks and playing mood music all over the place while I’m gone.”
    Dale climbed up inside the ship, caught hold of Zarkov’s arm. She kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said.
    As she jumped from the cabin, the doctor said, “You had better be prepared for the possibility that we may not find him at all, you know, Dale.”
    “Oh,” she said, “I know we’ll find Flash.”

CHAPTER 23
    S ixy dug his toes into the mossy ground. “They all got together here,” he said. “The three who got Booker and the two who took Narla. Then they headed that way.” He poked a finger at the jungle looming up a quarter of a mile away.
    “That would explain,” said the hawkman, “why I didn’t see anything from up above. Those big trees make a roof over the whole jungle.”
    “Well, we were figuring on going into the jungle anyway,” said Sixy, examining twigs and bits of leaf with his agile toes.
    “They have a few hours on us,” said Flash, “don’t they?”
    “Judging by their tracks, yes. They probably made their move not long after Booker and Narla took over the watch.”
    “That Booker,” rumbled Mallox. “We should have tossed him to the little blue devils long ago.”
    Flash shifted his grip on the rifle he was carrying. “Let’s get going, then.”
    The tallest trees in the jungle rose up, thick and straight, for two hundred feet. Their fat leaves and branches formed a green ceiling over a good part of the ground below. The sunlight fell in slanting columns, like the light coming through stained-glass cathedral windows. Vines were twisted and snarled around branches and trunks, corkscrewed across the ground. Huge ferns—green, yellow, and deep purple—festooned the spaces between trees. Gigantic orchids, with bright scarlet petals, grew all around.
    Down at ground level, the jungle was hot, the air thick and musky. Sparkling patches of fungi grew on the dark sides of the trees, pale-yellow fungus, dead-white fungus and a bloody-red fungus. There were many birds, small flickering ones and large birds that flapped high above. Insects buzzed, hummed, flittered.
    “Damn,” said Mallox, slapping two lavender-winged