Read Flash Gordon 4 - The Time Trap of Ming XIII for Free Online Page B

heavy. Kial slipped holster and pistol off the bedpost, holding them in his hand. If I take the holster, Kial decided, he’ll know something’s wrong. He’ll simply get another weapon. Kial frowned. He was stumped. He shook his head in dismay.
    Wait, he thought again. I saw Gordon with the holster just after the jetcar crash. He didn’t use the blaster pistol, but he had it in his hand. I’ll leave the holster here and take the blaster pistol. Gordon will think he’s got the pistol on him. Since I already saw him with the holster strapped on, I know he felt he had the gun. When he tries to use it on me, he won’t have it.
    Kial felt perspiration form on his brow.
    But what if he suspects? What if he checks it out? Kial closed his eyes. I’m trying to remember how this works. Let’s see if I can recall what the scientists told us about time streams and a priori and a posteriori effects. “We go back in time. We change something in the past. Everything that has happened in the future of that time cannot be altered. But a new branch of time is created, flowing parallel with the first. Therefore, at the moment I take this blaster pistol from the holster, I create a double time flow. One of the flows ends at the time the pistol is put to use. Then the second time flow becomes the true one. The one that went before is wiped out of the Annals of Time.
    Kial was so nervous that he trembled.
    I take the blaster pistol, but I leave the holster. When Gordon tries to use the blaster pistol, it will not be there, because I will have it when I reenter the true time flow.
    He shook his head.
    Scientists! I wish they’d never invented that stupid time machine.
    Kial slipped the blaster pistol into his air-travel belt. He put the holster over the bedpost, then suddenly he was grabbed from behind. One arm was twisted up behind his back and the other held in a grip of iron.
    “Sneak thief, eh?” a voice growled in his ear.
    Flash Gordon!
    “How did you get out of that bunk?” Kial asked hoarsely.
    “How did you get into my room?” Flash asked.
    Kial slammed his knee into Flash Gordon’s thigh. Flash backed away momentarily and Kial ran for the doorway.
    At least, he thought he ran for the doorway. In actuality, he ran toward a small window set in the back wall of the inn.
    “Stop!” yelled Flash.
    Terrified, Kial thrust his hands out in front of him to open the door, but encountered only air. The window of the room was open.
    Kial felt himself suddenly tripped at mid-thigh by the windowsill and propelled forward. Head-first, he dove out through the open window and into the dark night.
    Behind him, in the room he had left so quickly and so unexpectedly, Kial heard a sudden commotion. Voices from nearby rooms joined with that of Flash Gordon.
    He had no time to think about that.
    Like all heavily falling objects, Kial landed abruptly.
    A moment later he blinked and tried to open his eyes. He was not really hurt, only stunned. He had landed in some kind of substance, a substance contained in a large receptacle of unseen dimension in back of the inn.
    “Ugh!” he cried as he floundered in the oozy viscid matter. He wiped the stuff out of his eyes and realized that he was up to his neck in it. The slop pit of the Spaceport Inn lay directly underneath the room in which Flash Gordon had taken lodging for the night.
    Lari and Magg heard the first cry together in the serving room of the inn.
    “What’s that?” Lari asked, sitting up.
    “Who cares?” Magg asked sighing. “Oh, Lari!”
    A moment later there were more shouts. Lari sat up again.
    “Magg. It’s my friend Kial.”
    “He can take care of himself.” Magg’s arms crept around his neck.
    A scream sounded. To Lari, it seemed to be Kial’s voice. He rose abruptly.
    Magg was at his side, frowning. “I thought ye said he was a friend of Flash Gordon’s.”
    “He said he was a friend of Gordon’s,” Lari reminded her.
    “Just who be ye?” Magg asked, her face