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

help read the trail. Flash can track the fellows who’ve got Narla.”
    “Okay,” said Flash. “Jape and I will follow her trail.”
    Jape rubbed his chin with one hand, scratched his head with another. “We have to get back together again,” he said. “I’d like to suggest that whoever finds their quarry first backtracks and tries to catch up with the other party.”
    “I’ll wager I find that useless Booker sooner than you locate Narla,” said Mallox.
    “In that case,” said Jape, “turn around and follow us.”
    “You’ll probably need me by that time,” said the giant. He slapped his big hands together. “Come along then, Sixy, lead the way. I’m anxious to meet with those devilish slavers.”
    They separated into two groups and set off in opposite directions.
    Flash and Jape could hear the strongman boasting long after they had lost sight of him.

CHAPTER 24
    T he light of the day began to fail, seeping away through the high, straight trees. A hundred feet up small orange frogs, squatting on branches, began to croak forlornly. Tiny golden butterflies came fluttering through the warm jungle forest air.
    “Here’s where they stopped again,” said Flash, kneeling.
    Jape detached himself from the portable radio set to study the spot. “This would have been their midday break for a meal,” he said. “Which means we’re several hours behind them still.”
    Flash studied the signs and indentations on the ground, poked a finger at the few minute remains of food. “Don’t think it was that long ago,” he said. “We could be as close as a couple of hours traveling from them.”
    “Then,” said the four-armed man, “we should catch up with them when they camp down for the night.”
    “If they do.” Flash straightened up. “They may continue on all night, we have no way of telling.”
    Jape took a new grip on the radio as they continued on. “Our early capture is still being promised,” he told Flash.
    “Anything that might help us find a spaceport?”
    “Nothing so far,” said Jape. “They broadcast a good deal of news and propaganda on the only stations I can get. Then some quite interesting ten-tone music. There don’t seem to be, surprisingly, any advertisements. The radio networks are apparently government-owned.”
    A luminous moss began appearing on the tree trunks now. The light beneath all the branches was thin and soon the last of it died away as blue-black night filled the jungle. But the moss glowed more strongly.
    A frown touched Flash’s forehead. “Hear that?”
    Jape tugged off the earphones. “What?”
    “Some kind of odd humming.” Flash tilted a thumb skyward. “Up above us somewhere.”
    Jape studied the jungle overhead, eyes narrowed. “Could be almost anything,” he said. “There’s a great diversity of life in this jungle.”
    The humming grew louder. Mixed with it was another sound, a high-pitched squeaking sound which resembled laughter but wasn’t.
    “There they are!” said Flash.
    Flapping down through the dark branches were two dozen huge bats. They glowed a faint, ghostly blue.
    “Coming for us, too,” said Jape. He set the radio aside, quickly got out a stungun and a shockstick.
    “Hold off,” cautioned Flash, his blaster rifle held lightly in both hands. “Let’s make sure it’s us they plan to attack.”
    “Big fellows like that are more than likely vampires,” said Jape.
    Some of the pulsing glowing bats were gliding, tracing slow circles about fifty feet above the two men. As they moved behind tree trunks and into sight again, they seemed to flash on and off.
    The squeaking laughing noise was all around them now. The bats hung in the air for a few seconds, then two of them dived—dived straight down through the blackness for Jape and Flash.
    “It’s us they want.” Flash squeezed the trigger.
    The thin beam of the blaster rifle sizzled across the night. The two bats turned to dust, glistening dust, that slowly drifted down through