Flash Gordon 2 - The Plague of Sound Read Free

pilot it.”
    “That’s exactly what I had in mind,” said Zarkov. “If I don’t track down our sound man by the end of the week from here, then you’ll do a little roadwork.”
    Three days later, the president called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and the top military leaders of Estampa Territory, Flash and Dr. Zarkov were also invited.
    President Bentancourt was a short muscular man of fifty. When he saw Zarkov enter the oval meeting chamber, he made his way through the assembling group. “How are you progressing, Doctor?”
    Zarkov’s voice was subdued. “Not as well as I expected,” he had to admit.
    The president seemed to grow even shorter. “No one else has had any measure of success either,” he said, sighing. “I hoped . . .”
    “Don’t give up on Zarkov,” said the doctor. “Success is right around the corner, I guarantee it.”
    Conditions had grown even worse. The waves of strange sound attacked with increasing fury, like invisible harpies rending and ripping. Public buildings toppled, trains were flung aside, planes and aircruisers dropped from the sky. There were growing shortages of fuel, food, and raw materials. Most transportation was disrupted.
    The meeting got under way and all the problems were reiterated. A good deal of talking was done, considerable shouting; the Minister of Agriculture cried. Zarkov sat in his floating chair, hands hidden in his bushy beard. He said very little, and this was in a low mumbling voice. Finally the meeting ended.
    As they were leaving the capital building, someone called Dr. Zarkov’s name. He turned back, saw Minister Minnig, the president’s chief assistant, beckoning to him from a side door of the meeting room. “Let me see what he wants, Flash,” Zarkov said, turning back.
    Minnig was a lean man of fifty. “I can’t talk now, Zarkov,” he said, glancing from side to side cautiously, “especially with him around.”
    Shuffling papers and memos into an attaché pouch at a nearby table was a thin green man. He was General Yate, a supporter of the president at the moment but also a man who might want to rule Estampa Territory someday himself. If not as president, some said, then as dictator.
    “Ah, missed one,” said Dr. Nazzaro, a rumpled man of sixty-one. He was Minister of Health. Bending, he reached for a fallen memo.
    “Get your hands off that, you unkempt fool,” said Yate.
    Nazzaro smiled and straightened up. “It’s too bad we no longer have the cavalry, General,” he said. “You’d look good on a horse.”
    Minister Minnig pulled Zarkov away from the doorway. “Can you come and talk to me?” he asked anxiously. “Not tonight, unfortunately, since I have an embassy dinner I can’t miss, especially at a crucial and trying time such as this. But, tomorrow evening?”
    “I’d really like to spend all my time in the lab. What is it?”
    “I can understand that,” said Minnig quickly. “Ah, but your young friend, Flash Gordon. He’s as bright as you, Zarkov.”
    “Well, almost.”
    “Send him to my home tomorrow night,” said Mining. “At eight, shall we say? It may be nothing, but I think I know something about this sound plague. It’s . . . I don’t wish to discuss it with President Bentancourt yet. But a man such as yourself or Gordon—will he come?”
    “I’ll guarantee it, Minnig,” said Zarkov. “Can you tell anything more about—?”
    “Tomorrow night then.” Minnig hurried away.
    “Huh,” said Zarkov and scratched his beard.

CHAPTER 4
    H e hadn’t expected the aircar.
    Flash was extracting his shoes from the shining machine in his bedroom when the pixphone floating beside his bed started its beeping. “Yes?” he said, turning his head toward the small circular screen.
    “Your car is here,” said the voice of the house computer.
    The tinted screen showed a silvery aircar, hovering a foot above the street out in the misty night. “Which car would this be?”
    “The aircar to take you to the