Flash Gordon 3 - The Space Circus Read Online Free Page A

walking a high wire stretched between golden poles. A blonde-haired girl was galloping around a circular enclosure on a huge shaggy mount which vaguely resembled a horse. A half-dozen elephants, lumbering and swaying, paraded around the field. There was a four-armed juggler; a hawkman flew high overhead, a fine silver chain anchoring him to the ground. Giant scaly lizards, almost as large as the marching elephants, were being forced to leap through hoops of fire. And there were clowns, at least ten of them—somersaulting, cartwheeling, pummeling each other.
    “There are always clowns,” observed Flash to no one in particular, “no matter where you go.”
    The barred door of his cage grated open. A shockstick was thrust in at Flash.
    Guess this is my stop, he thought. He avoided the blue man who was attempting to prod him and leaped out of the cage and onto the glistening turf.
    Two other blue men approached him. They wore black-silk cloaks and carried silver shocksticks.
    Flash stood, hands on hips, looking around him, thinking. Seems like they book their acts by raiding other planets. Wonder what they’ve got in mind for me.
    A silver shockstick pointed at him and then to the left. One of the blue men nodded in that direction.
    “You mean that ladder?” asked Flash.
    A gilded metal ladder rose two hundred feet straight into the air a few yards away from them.
    The tip of the silver stick touched Flash’s arm. He leaped back from the shock.
    He went to the ladder, glanced at his escorts, and pointed upward.
    Both round blue heads nodded.
    “Onward and upward,” said Flash, grinning as he commenced his climb.
    As he neared the top of the ladder he noticed that there were no nets of any kind below. At the very top of the ladder was a small platform about four feet square.
    I guess this is my destination, he concluded. Flash stepped out on it.
    An instant after his feet touched the metal square, it began to sizzle with a powerful electric charge.
    “Hey!” exclaimed Flash, hopping.
    Then the platform twanged and he was flipped out and away. He began to fall down through the bright afternoon.
    Barko had returned to his circus a few moments before. He stood in the shadows of one of the entry tunnels, watching the many performers in the glaring light of the arena.
    A thin lopsided blue man shuffled up to him. His left arm was bent in an unnatural way; the left side of his face was immobile. “I like the looks of the new recruit,” his thoughts said to Barko.
    “I had to pay enough for him,” returned the circus owner.
    The bent blue man gestured with his right arm. “He should make an excellent aerialist. They’re sending him, at my suggestion, up the ladder now.”
    Barko grimaced, watching Flash make his ascent. “Your appraisal of his potential better be right, Nord.”
    “I know what it takes to make an aerialist,” replied the bent man. “Even though I don’t have it any more myself, Barko.”
    Nodding, the rotund Barko thought, “I don’t know why you ever wanted to risk your neck up there. Much easier to let these outlanders take the risk.”
    “Ah, but the thrill of it,” thought Nord, “the feel of soaring through the empty air. There is nothing like it.”
    “Nothing like the inevitable fall either, I wager.”
    Nord concentrated on Flash, but made no reply.
    Barko thought, “He seems to be well coordinated. He’s in very good shape, trim.” Absently, the circus man rubbed at his own large stomach.
    Nord was breathing through his mouth, hands clenched. “There he goes.”
    “Let’s hope he’s as good as you think, Nord. I’d hate to lose my investment so soon.”
    A rope with a large metal ball at its end was swinging through the air toward the plummeting Flash.
    “Catch it, catch hold now,” thought Nord.
    Flash did. He grasped the ball at the end of the rope and was jerked to a stop.
    “Very good,” commented Barko. “Look at those muscles ripple in his back. The audience likes