The Space Circus by Alex Raymond

Author:Alex Raymond [Raymond, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0380000644
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The silence awakened Flash. It was a misty morning, the chill hour of dawn. Flash sat up from the bed he’d made of leaves.

The campfire had died; a trickle of sooty smoke spiraled up from it.

Flash looked to the place, some hundred feet from the camp, where Narla should have been standing watch. The girl was not there.

Jumping up, he turned to where Booker ought to have been. The black man was nowhere in sight.

“What is it?” asked Huk, coming awake.

“Narla,” said Flash, “and Booker. They’re not here.”

“I thought he looked too drowsy when 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.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.