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           [Illustration]

       The Winged Men of Orcon

       _A Complete Novelette_


          By David R. Sparks


 Far out at the edge of the Universe
    two scientists play a game of
      wits--Earth to the winner.




CHAPTER I

_The Wrecked Space-Ship_


When I came to, it was dark; so dark that the night seemed all but fluid
with black pigment. Breathing was difficult, but in spite of that,
however, I felt exhilarated mentally. Also I felt strong, stronger than
I ever had in my life before. I tried to raise my hands, and found that
I was handcuffed.

I lay sprawled out on a sharply canted floor of metal, and from outside
the house, or whatever it was I was in, I could hear the screeching and
howling of the wind. I touched my face with my fettered hands, and the
act gave me a feeling of comfort, for the scar on my cheek was still
there and I knew that I was myself.

[Illustration: A flash of blue light played about our ship.]

Twisting around, I sat up, and with great difficulty drew a lighter from
my trousers pocket. The flame glimmered up. I knew then that I was lying
in the control room of a great flying machine!

All about me I saw crumpled human forms clad in glistening gray flying
jumpers. It was very, very hot. I thought I caught the sound of waves
crashing on a shore. Through a broken port blustered a hot wind laden
with an odd odor suggestive of garlic and kelp. It was just as dark
outside as in. I stirred about a bit, and found that I was in good shape
except for the handcuffs.

A low moan came from behind a bulkhead door at one end of the control
room. I listened, and again the sound was repeated. With the lighter
still flickering in my hands, I got to my feet. The bulkhead door was
jammed, but I found a heavy telargeium spanner-wrench on the floor, and
with a strength which frightened me--a strength which could have come
only by some upset condition of gravitation--I soon crashed the door
open. I had no sooner done it, however, than I forgot about the moan
which had fetched me.

                   *       *       *       *       *

What I saw first, hanging on a hook on one wall, was a bunch of keys,
one of which readily opened the lock of my handcuffs. Then there was a
long-barrelled, gleaming atomic gun, undamaged, and a couple of the new
cold-ray flashlights. Free, I caught up one of the flashlights, and
placed back on their hook the keys which had opened the cuffs. Then I
stooped over each corpse, and confirmed my first impression that two of
the dead men were strangers to me, but that I half recognized one.

The vaguely familiar man was clad, under his gray jumper, in the uniform
of a rear admiral of the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol Division. He wore a
medal of high honor, the Calypsus medal. I knew that he was Wellington
Forbes, the man who had defeated the planet Calypsus three years before.

Wellington Forbes! And I with him!

I think I may be excused my temporary forgetfulness of the moan which
had brought me to Forbes' death chamber. Uppermost in my mind was the
manner in which I had been brought here. For it was he, approaching me
through the medium of letters and messengers, who had begged, implored
me to help him against Orcon, the eccentric planet of my own discovery,
the planet which belonged to a solar system at the other end of the
Universe from ours. Because of my knowledge of Orcon, with its bubbling
seas, its brooding nightmares, and lastly, its queer conduct toward
Earth, he had wanted to take me away from my telescopes to fight. And I
had refused.

Now I understood how I came to be here.

I knew that this dead man had kidnapped me after drugging me with one of
the new amnesiacs. Yorildiside, I reckoned it. And just because I knew
that Admiral Forbes had seized me by force, I knew almost to a certainty
that I was shipwrecked on that very Orcon which I had discovered two
years before.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I was enraged at this high-handed treatment. For if danger was indeed
threatening Earth from Orcon, my place of all places was at my
telescopes. I could do with them, for the civilizations about me, what
no one else could. Too, I was actuated by selfish motives. I loved my
telescopes and my isodermic super-spectroscopes. And there was still
much work I had to do! Already I had discovered three new elements, and
that had showed me I was but at the beginning of a knowledge of
cosmological chemistry. Forbes! He had brought me by force out here on
this beastly little planet whose orbit was like that of a snake with the
Saint Vitus' dance! He had taken me to this wretched planet which lay at
such a remote end of the Universe that not even explorers had been
tempted to visit it!

"Oh, damn the whole business!" I groaned aloud. I was thoroughly angry
and bitter.

In a little while I experienced a sudden change of mood. I'd no sooner
spoken than a moan came from directly behind me, and I remembered why
I'd got going in the beginning, and was ashamed. I entered a small
compartment which opened from Forbes' cabin, and discovered immediately
three more people.

The strides I had taken made me realize that I had to be careful, for I
was indeed endowed with a terrific strength--an extraordinary strength
and lightness. One of these three new people was obviously dead, for his
neck was broken. The other two still breathed. The first of the two was
a short man, a Japanese by the look of him. His arm was broken. The
other person was, to my surprise, a woman. She, like the dead Forbes,
wore the insignia of the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol. Her insignia was
that of a navigating officer.

So it was she who had caused the crash!

It was also she who had moaned. My feelings as I lifted her to a bunk
were mixed. Being a reactionary, I still felt that woman's place was not
in the Army or Navy. Yet I confess that the woman--or girl, rather--was
ornamental. She was of the Iberian type. She was beautiful, and looked
helpless. Some atavistic trait of the protective instinct in man made me
take a little more pains in caring for her than I might have taken with
a man.

                   *       *       *       *       *

"Doctor Weeks," were the first surprised words she murmured when I had
bandaged a cut in her head and she came to.

Weeks being my name--Frederick Weeks--I grunted and wondered just how
much _she'd_ had to do with my being here. I noted that the eyes were
gray with violet lights.

"You were handcuffed and drugged," she announced wonderingly.

"I was," I answered, "but I'm not any more. Thanks to my own efforts."

She dropped that subject.

"Take me to Admiral Forbes, Doctor Weeks. I am Captain Virginia Crane."

I acknowledged curtly her introduction of herself and told her the
admiral was dead. Her cheeks, already pale, grew white. I asked her the
number of the space flyer's crew. She said ten. So far, four were dead,
three alive, including myself, and the rest unaccounted for, I told her.
She winced. In a moment, though, she pulled herself together with a grit
which I could not deny, despite my disapproval of her being here.

"I suppose you wonder why you're here," she said suddenly, "and where we
are."

"I don't need to be told where I am," I said coldly, "but a little
information as to who was responsible for my coming to Orcon wouldn't be
amiss. I suppose it was Forbes."

She cut me off with a look.

"It wasn't the admiral." Her really beautiful eyes narrowed. "It was I
who planned your abduction and got him to execute it."

"You!"

I drew back. My manner was formal and cold.

And after that I guess I pretty well boiled over. But did it gain me
anything? Before I had said half enough to soothe my lacerated feelings,
the girl simply shrugged and looked bored.

"Don't be a fool," she ordered curtly. "We needed you, and I, for one,
was not going to see your egotistical ideas about an unimportant piece
of work--your cosmological chemistry--jeopardize the safety of the
world. Oh, I know the government wanted you in your laboratory. But with
Ludwig Leider loose on Orcon, and you the only one in our Zone who knew
much of anything about the planet, what could you expect?"

                   *       *       *       *       *

I hardly know what might have happened between us if she had not
mentioned Leider's name when she did. The insults with which she had
begun had hardly been atoned for by her half understanding of my refusal
to join Forbes, and I was still in a rage. Yet, as it was, at the
mention of Leider I snapped to attention.

"Ludwig Leider! Here?"

"Yes," she replied significantly.

"But that makes a difference! Why wasn't I told? Why this silly
kidnapping?"

She moved a little on the couch and looked at me.

"There was not time to tell you and to chance putting up with further
silly arguments on your part. When the secret service detail which had
been handling the Leider case brought in word of his whereabouts, there
was time only to get a ship specially outfitted for such a tremendous
journey and start. We _had_ to kidnap you."

I hardly heard her last words. Ludwig Leider--scientist extraordinary,
renegade, terrorist. Everyone of our latter day century knew that he was
the greatest example of the megalomaniac--the power-seeking
genius--which the human race had produced for decades. Everyone knew
that he--furious because he had been denied the high position he craved
as ruler for life of the united peoples of Earth--had been the leader of
the interplanetary struggle which had resulted in Forbes' brilliantly
successful attack on Calypsus. And everyone knew that he had escaped
from Calypsus. And that, while he was free, there could be no real
safety anywhere, either for Earth, which he hated, or any of its allied
planets. Leider, here! No wonder I had been observing queer goings on in
Orcon!

                   *       *       *       *       *

Somehow I forgot to be angry with poor dead Forbes. Almost I forgot to
disapprove of the woman.

"See here!" I broke out. "If your secret service detail was right, and
Leider _is_ on Orcon, we've got to stop talking and get going. Tell me
more about your expedition."

"Do you know," she said presently, "I rather thought you would make
quite a leader--and fighter--if you could ever be aroused. As for the
expedition, we have only this one ship. It's that kind of a job."

"Oh, suicide party, eh?"

I ignored her remark about my ability as a fighter. I had never aspired
to any sort of naval or military leadership.

"Yes," she answered; "suicide party. And I suppose, with our ship
wrecked, our admiral dead, and contact with Leider not even made as yet,
it's become doubly so. But we've got to do something."

She leaned forward on the couch.

"Our primary objective," she went on, "was to reach Orcon and scout, and
then radio information back to Earth. But we also have two tons of the
new explosive, kotomite, aboard and are to do damage if we can. What are
you going to do, Doctor? The command is yours now."

I was well enough versed in the upper space tactics of our modern navy
to appreciate the wisdom which had been used in sending the one ship
alone on the expedition, and I could well understand the reasonable hope
of success which had been promised. I confess I was staggered to know
what could be done, however, now that the admiral was dead and the ship
wrecked. As for my having inherited the command, I was even more
disconcerted.

"_I_ don't know what we're going to do," I said in answer to Captain
Crane's question. "I doubt if Forbes would know, if he were alive, and
I'm by no means the commander he was. But, as you say, we have to do
something. So, since it's a little early in the game to explode the
kotomite and call it a day's work, we better declare a truce between
ourselves, and then check up on the ship. Come on, if you're able."

She was able.

                   *       *       *       *       *

In the next twenty minutes we found that it was the forward end of the
great flier which was damaged, and that while she was in fair shape
amidships and astern, she would never fly again. We discovered that the
three unaccounted-for men of the crew were lying forward, and found that
two were dead and one lived--a radio man named LeConte. He had two ribs
broken. Half a dozen atomic guns remained to us, and we found intact one
dynamo capable of generating the new cold light in considerable
quantities. It was not an encouraging check-up, though. Out of a crew of
ten, only the four of us were alive; Captain Crane, the Jap, LeConte,
and myself. And all of us were more or less battered. The ship was still
habitable, but smashed beyond hope of repair. Around us stretched
Orcon--in the control of Ludwig Leider.

I got LeConte, the radio man with the broken ribs, into the small cabin
where the Jap still lay and made him comfortable. Then I set the Jap's
broken arm. I gave both him and LeConte an injection of penopalatrin in
order that their shattered bones might be decently knitted in two or
three hours. The Jap presently came to, and I found that he was a
civilian like myself, but one who had long been employed on the U. S. W.
research staff as a ray and explosive expert. I realized at once that he
was the inventor of the kotomite with which the ship was loaded.

All of them, including Captain Crane, told me the story of the crash.
Captain Crane hadn't been responsible, after all. Their magnogravitos
system had failed in some mysterious manner as they approached Orcon. In
spite of the checking effect of their helium pontoons, which had
expanded properly when they had come into Orcon's atmosphere, they had
slammed into a sea of light and crashed. That was all anyone knew. But
everyone suspected that Leider had been somehow responsible.

"I do not enjoy the prospect," Koto said after a glance at his
temporarily helpless left arm. "If Leider is able to wreck a space ship
before she ever reaches his planet, he has more power than he ever had
during the Calypsus war."

                   *       *       *       *       *

I said nothing, but simply looked at LeConte, and nodded approval when
he muttered something about getting his sending set in shape, if that
were possible. We were sitting in the small cabin and Captain Crane was
searching my face with those discomforting, violet-lighted gray eyes. I
knew she was asking me once more what I was going to do, and I knew
that, except that we might fire the kotomite, I could tell her nothing.

We sat on in silence. Then, however, before I spoke about the kotomite,
a change came.

All at once I felt the space flier tremble under me. It rocked gently
over on one side and began to move. Slowly, but definitely.

Koto and I were on our feet in a flash. Captain Crane stiffened and
faced me, waiting.

"What is it?" Koto gasped.

"We'll find out what it is," I flung back. "Miss Crane--Captain--on deck
with you. Here, Koto, a hand with one of the guns. We'll take it up out
of the hatchway and through the main cabin."

LeConte, I knew, was the one we must be careful of, with his cracked
ribs.

"Get to your apparatus," I ordered him, "and stay with it until you get
through to Earth."

With that I jumped into the main cabin, stepped over Forbes' lifeless
body, and caught hold of the nearest of the atomic guns. I was to be a
leader, after all.




CHAPTER II

_The Cable of Menace_


It was dark when we gained the deck; as dark as it had been when I first
regained consciousness. Captain Crane was attending to that problem,
however. As Koto and I floundered with the gun on the slippery
telargeium plates of the outer hull, I heard her moving about. Then she
uttered a cry of relief, and there came a faint click. Instantly the
darkness all about--the clinging noisome darkness of Orcon at night--was
shattered.

The blessed rays of our one good lighting dynamo were loosed!

I saw the girl standing braced beside a stanchion, staring over the
ship's side.

"Come on, Koto!" I snapped.

I am no fighting man by trade. Nevertheless, there was a kind of
instinct which told me to get the gun set up at any point of vantage
along the ship's side. And Koto understood.

"There," he breathed after but a few seconds, and from the experienced
way in which he touched the disintegration-release trigger with his one
good hand, I knew we were ready.

The flier was still moving, slowly and smoothly. She seemed to be half
lifted, half drawn by some colossal force. I leaned far out over the
rail.

A long, slender, but apparently indestructible cable had been affixed to
our stern by means of a metal plate at its end which I guessed to be
magnetic. I saw that the cable vanished under lashing waves which broke
on a not distant shore, and that we were being drawn irresistibly toward
the waves.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The light from the deck brought out dazzling scintillations from a beach
composed of gigantic crystal pebbles as large as ostrich eggs. On the
beach and grouped thickly all about our hull, swarmed a legion of
creatures which--

Well, they were the brood of Orcon. They were the creatures who had
given Ludwig Leider refuge and allied themselves with him in his attempt
to make trouble for Earth. And they were half-bird, half-human! Their
faces, bodies, arms, and legs were human. _But they had wings!_
Translucent, membranous structures, almost gauzy, which stretched out
from their shoulders like bat's wings. And their skins, as they surged
about in the beams of our light, gleamed a bright orange color, and
about their heads waved frilled antennae which were evidently used as
extra tactile organs to supplement the human hands. I could see
instantly that the Orconites possessed a high degree of intelligence. Of
all the queer breeds that interplanetary travel and exploration had
produced, this was the queerest.

I swung to Koto, who was crouching beside the gun.

"Get rid of that cable before we go under!" I exclaimed.

I had already guessed that the plate which held the cable to our stern
was magnetic. It was easy to see that the cable had been fastened there
by the Orconites and that our ship and ourselves might be drawn to
destruction. I flung myself over to Koto's side to help him with the
gun.

The howling wind which had been at a lull as we reached the deck, broke
loose again, and, as a gust hit us, Koto, gun, and I were all but swept
overboard. The winged legion overside gave loud cries and braced
themselves against the gusts. I saw Virginia Crane clinging desperately
to her stanchion beside the light switches.

"More light if you have it!" I screamed to her against the wind.

Then Koto and I got the gun going.

                   *       *       *       *       *

My first feeling was one of intense relief. As the thing went off under
our hands, and I knew from a faint trembling and a low hiss that the
weapon was functioning perfectly, I felt thankful indeed for the
instinct which had made me get the gun on deck. It could be only a
matter of seconds now until a whole section of the metallic cable was
disintegrated completely and until our ship was free.

Breathlessly I watched the greenish atomic stream play along the bright
length of the cable of death, and, as Koto and I steadied the gun
together, I knew he shared my relief. Despite the howling of the wind,
the yells of the Orconites, the continued slow movement of the ship, and
the hideous churning of the waves astern, I laughed to myself.

"Doctor Weeks!"

I saw that Captain Crane had gone aft to watch the effects of our fire.

"All right," I bellowed. "What--"

"Nothing is happening back here! Your gun! What's the matter with it?"

I was too startled to answer otherwise than I did.

"Nothing's the matter with it. What's the matter with _you_?"

But the next instant I knew she was right.

"My God, Doctor!" Koto cried, and I knew he had leaped to the same
conclusion I had.

Suddenly I brushed Koto's hands away from the gun, and myself directed
it so that its ray cut straight across one whole group of the queer
creatures on the beach. Then I cursed.

Instead of being cut down, broken like so many blades of grass, not one
of the creatures showed that the ray had touched them at all. They only
uttered tremendous hoarse sounds that might have been laughter.

I stood up.

"Koto, Leider's found means of protecting both raw materials and living
beings against the atomic gun!"

                   *       *       *       *       *

Captain Crane was beside us now, and I saw that she did not need to be
told of the disaster. As Koto turned away from the gun, I thought of
LeConte below. When the waves closed in on us, he would be caught like a
rat.

The shriek of the wind and the crash of waves grew louder. I felt upon
my face the sting of spray from the aqueous solution of which the
lashing sea at our stern was composed. The cable held, and the ship
continued to move. We were barely a hundred yards away from the shore.

All at once, though, a string of both chemical and physical
formulae--the last thing a man would expect to think of in such a
position--flashed into my mind.

"Here, wait a minute," I thought. "If Leider's done this thing, it
means--it must mean--that he's juggled his atomic structures through
production in terrific quantities of the quondarium light which I
theorized about last year! But he can't have done that without playing
hell with the action of magnetic forces from beginning to end! I believe
if we take the gun aft and direct it at--"

That was as far as I got with forming words. I flung myself toward the
gun and began to drag it to a position aft, where we might direct its
ray full force, at close range, against the magnetic metal plate which
held the cable to our stern.

"Help me!" I yelled at the others.

Koto was the first to close in. Struggling, slipping, hampered rather
than helped by our great strength, we clawed our way aft. A combined
lurch of ship and blast of wind threw Captain Crane down, but she
staggered up.

We dropped the gun with a thump at a spot where the bulging curve of the
stern swelled directly under the muzzle. I grabbed at the trigger just
as a new surge of movement brought the flier perilously close to a
great, inrushing wall of water which was not water. Koto's face was
drawn, and Virginia Crane was staring in horrified fascination at the
gun.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Again came the faint trembling of the beautifully constructed mechanism.
The green ray leaped out across the blinding whiteness of our light
rays. I jammed the muzzle down until the whole force of the atomic
stream was spouting against the magnetic plate which held the cable to
our stern.

"Look, Doctor! Look!" Captain Crane cried.

But I was already looking.

For an instant a flash of blue light played about our ship. There was a
single sharp, crackling sound; and, ringing in the night, an echoing,
high-pitched twang.

Koto let out a shout. I took my hands away from the gun.

Backward the twanging cable snapped, demolishing with one touch a score
of the clustering Orconites. Into the waves it snapped, and our ship,
ceasing to move, came to rest upon the glittering pebbles of the beach.

I heaved a deep sigh.

"What came to me a moment ago," I said breathlessly to the others, "was
the idea that when atomic structures are so juggled that they are no
longer affected by the gun, all the forces of magnetism, which usually
are immune to the atomic stream, are rendered liable to disruption by
it. We could not destroy Leider's cable, but we could play the deuce
with its magnetic grip on us."

Koto was looking at me wide-eyed, and I saw that his interest was as
keen as my own. Even Virginia Crane, scientist though she was not, was
interested.

We were in no position, however, to sit still and think. The waves
astern and the howling wind were subsiding noticeably, but the
inhabitants of Orcon all about us were still creating a great hubbub.
Our next obvious move, regardless of what they might do, was to get hold
of one of them and make him talk.

                   *       *       *       *       *

After a gesture to Koto and Captain Crane to stay where they were, I ran
to a spot on the deck where I had seen a permanent ladder fixed to the
side of the ship. Three jumps took me down to the beach, and three more
took me into the very midst of the mob.

The confusion brought about by the destruction of the score or so of
Orconites by the flying cable, and by our unexpected salvation, all
worked for me. And another thing worked for me, too.

These people had great intelligence, but they seemed like sheep when it
came to a question of physical, hand to hand encounter. Of rough and
tumble fighting with fists they knew nothing--as indeed not many people
do in this century, even on Earth. The result of it all was that they
shrank back when I charged into them, and not a blow was struck, even
when I caught up the nearest figure in my path, swung it over my
shoulder, and tore back to the ladder. In two shakes I was standing on
the deck again, my prisoner all safe.

"What a creature!" Virginia Crane cried as I presented her and Koto with
my struggling but helpless prize.

That was just what I had thought after my first glimpse of the whole
brood of them. Close inspection showed, as I had supposed, that the
Orconite was a man, and yet not a man. The body, the limbs, the enormous
head, the features of the orange-colored face were human; and the chap
began to spout excited sounds which were certainly the words of
intelligent speech. But also he was winged, and from the orange forehead
waved those curious, frilled feelers!

                   *       *       *       *       *

He was clad in a single loose garment of woven cloth which permitted
free action for both limbs and wings. A small, flat black box with a
mouthpiece into which he could speak, was strapped to his chest in such
a position that it was almost concealed by the folds of his blouse. We
were to find out presently the purpose of this instrument, but I did not
examine it carefully then. As the creature glared balefully at us from
his intelligent dark eyes, I glanced over the side of the ship to see
whether trouble was to be expected from his fellows.

And for the moment they surged about so much, and made so much noise,
that I thought trouble might come. The shouting, however, was caused by
their dismay at all that had happened to them, and I saw that instead of
making ready to attack they were preparing a retreat. We had whipped
them temporarily.

We had thrown them into such disorder, indeed, that in another moment a
whole force of them gave proof of their ability to fly, by taking off
from the beach. Up and out they swept, out into the intense blackness
which overhung the sea behind us. In another moment the whole crew had
vanished, and I was glad enough of it.

"Come on below," I said to my two companions. "There's no telling how
long Leider will keep his hands off us, and we've got to find out from
our prisoner whatever we can."

With that I turned to the companionway, lugging the winged man, and the
others followed.




CHAPTER III

_In the Grip of Ludwig Leider_


Once we were below, LeConte joined us from the radio room. After taking
a swift look at our prisoner, and listening to our account of what had
happened above, he reported that the radio had been put out of
commission by the crash but could be repaired. All of us then held a
hasty conference and decided that since no one was badly in need of
rest, LeConte would return to his sending set, Koto would keep a deck
watch, and Captain Crane and I would see what we could learn from the
prisoner.

From the start it had been certain that the Orconite's strength was not
to be compared to our earthly powers. Therefore I made no attempt to
bind him, but simply shoved him into a seat in the main cabin of the
flier--the room in which Forbes' body still lay--and began to try to
make him talk.

I knew that Leider must have some way of communicating with his allies,
and I was determined that if he could, I could. But it was uphill work.
The creature closed his mouth, assumed a sullen look, and sat tight. He
knew what I was after--that I could tell by the expression of his
face--but he met with stolid silence all of my attempts to address him
in such languages as I knew of Earth and our allied planets. I got
nowhere, until, in a manner as sudden as it was unexpected, something
happened which ended the deadlock.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The way it happened was this. As LeConte, working in the radio room
close off the main saloon, completed a connection which had been broken,
he called to us that he was making progress, and a moment later we heard
the click of his sending key and the shrill squeal of a powerful
electric arc breaking across the transmission points of his set. I
realized at once that this did not mean that the set was wholly in
order, for the pitch of the squealing arc was too high and too sharp,
but I did know that there was hope of establishing communication with
Earth soon. And, too, I realized another thing.

The moment that shrill, squealing sound impinged upon the Orconite's
ears, he jumped and uttered a cry of pain. There was something about his
nervous organism that could not stand these sounds!

"LeConte," I shouted, "close your key again!"

After that the battle was won. By the time I had explained to LeConte
why I had given him the order, and he had filled the cabin two or three
times with the screech, the Orconite was ready to speak. He trembled in
his seat. His mouth twisted with pain, and a look of agony seared his
eyes. He burst into fluent Orconese speech. Then he made a swift pass
with one hand at the black box on his chest, touched a switch there, and
began to rattle his Orconese into the mouthpiece.

The result--well, one might have known that Leider would have found some
ingenious means of making the difficult speech of Orcon easy. Out of the
small instrument into which our prisoner spoke his hard, rattling words,
came a flood of pure German.

An instrument for translating spoken Orconese into spoken German. That
was what the little box was.

"Shut the accursed transmission set off!" came from the box in a clear
German which I understood readily. "I will talk. Ask what you want to
know. I cannot stand this!"

                   *       *       *       *       *

His face still contorted, the Orconese touched a second switch on the
box, and indicated that I was to speak at the instrument. I did so, in
German. The result was an instant translation into the prisoner's own
tongue.

The rest was easy.

"What is your name?" was my first question.

"Hargrib."

"What were you and your people trying to do to us with the cable you
hitched to our stern?" I asked next.

"Destroy you."

The whole story was this: In a power house on an island only a few
hundred yards off the beach was kept a magnetic cable which Leider had
been using in connection with some deep sea dredging apparatus he kept
there. When our ship crashed, the order had come from headquarters that
the cable be fastened to us and the ship drawn into the sea. I concluded
that we had missed an unpleasant fate by a narrow margin.

Quickly Hargrib confirmed our belief that it was Leider who had wrecked
our ship while it was still approaching Orcon through space. A ray which
had crippled the magnogravitos had been used. So great was Leider's
power that, after disabling us, he had even been able to direct our
course so that we had crashed on the beach close to the headquarters he
had set up for himself deep in the wilderness, away from the cities of
Orcon.

The Orconite's free mention of Leider's name and his open admission
that the man was king and god in Orcon, made direct inquiry about him
easy. Also it was plain that Hargrib, now he had been cornered, would
hold nothing back because he believed we would never live long enough to
make trouble, regardless of what information we gained.

                   *       *       *       *       *

To state the rest of it briefly, we learned that Leider had come to
Orcon immediately after his defeat at Calypsus. He had found ready
allies here, on the crazy, distant planet which had been too remote to
tempt explorers from Earth until necessity had forced our voyage. The
people of Orcon knew science and machinery, and were advanced in every
respect. From communication which they had had with other peoples in
their own zone of the Universe, they had even heard of Earth and its
allied planets. They had lent themselves readily to Leider's fierce
plans to make trouble for Earth.

As to what Leider's plan of war was, Hargrib could not tell us much, for
his duties kept him absorbed in other work, not connected with the
campaign. He stated definitely, however, that Leider had almost
completed the development of apparatus which would enable him to strike
his blow without ever leaving Orcon. The whole work was being carried
forward in tremendous subterranean laboratories and power rooms which
had been established in a series of natural caverns only a few miles
distant from the desolate beach on which we were lying at that moment.
Hargrib said that with the coming of daylight, we would be able to see
the mountains in which the caverns were concealed, just as we would be
able to sight the nearby island whence had been shot the cable which had
so nearly done for us.

At this point my natural curiosity as a scientist made me desire greatly
to ask a thousand questions about the planet itself, with its bubbling
chemical seas and its erratic orbit, and I did ask a few things. The
answers I received confirmed the theory I had already formed that Orcon
did not revolve regularly, but had days and nights which might last
anywhere from a few hours to a month. I was told--what I had already
guessed--that the bubbling fluid which composed the seas changed the
orbit of the planet as the nature of the fluid's chemical elements
changed.

Also I was told flatly and calmly, as though there were nothing at all
remarkable about the fact, that Leider had penetrated so deeply into the
chemical secrets of Orcon that he was able to control the coming of day
and night. Finally I was told that the planet had a hot, moist climate
instead of the frigid one to be expected when any sun was so remote,
because of the continued warmth-giving chemical action of its seas.

                   *       *       *       *       *

I could have gone on seeking information for hours. Captain Crane,
however, showed impatience at even the few questions I did ask, and I
knew that she was justified. It was my duty to think about the position
we were in and the task we had in hand.

I asked Hargrib sharply what was to be expected from Leider now that his
cable party against us had failed. And he told me.

The sum of it was that Leider was working eagerly to complete his
preparations for the attack on Earth. Although it was he who had sent
word from headquarters that we were to be destroyed, he had not paused
to attend to the matter himself. Hargrib thought, however, that the
failure of the cable party might change this attitude, and expressed
the belief that Leider would interview us now before he put us out of
the way. He swore, and I believed, that he did not know when or how
Leider would come to us or have us brought to him. Also he did not know
when or how we would finally be exterminated.

I now asked a series of indirect questions which led me to believe that
neither Hargrib nor his master knew of the thing I had been conscious of
from the start--that we had aboard the ship an amount of high explosive
sufficient to do ghastly damage not only to this section of the coast
but to the whole planet of Orcon. I gathered, however, that Leider
suspected we were armed against him in some way, and would watch us
carefully.

                   *       *       *       *       *

By now daylight had begun to peer in through the ports, a greenish
daylight which grew out of the north, and with its coming I resolved on
a plan of action.

"I am done with Hargrib," I said suddenly to Captain Crane. "We'll lock
him up in one of the staterooms, and after that we'll see if we can't
get busy with something that will at least help Earth, even if it
doesn't help us."

Hargrib, still terrified by those radio sounds he could not stand, made
no protest when I ordered him into the stateroom which had belonged to
the ship's second officer, and we were rid of him in a moment.

I now called LeConte from the radio room and Koto in from the deck, and
after Captain Crane and I had told them what we had learned, I made my
proposal.

The plan was simply that LeConte should continue to work on his sending
apparatus until he reached Earth, while Koto, Captain Crane and I set
out on a reconnaissance. I said that I hoped to be able to locate
Leider's headquarters and learn what method of attack he intended to use
against Earth; and that I hoped further that at least one of us would be
able to bring word back to LeConte, who could send it to Earth. Finally
I indicated that we would see what could be done with our two tons of
kotomite as soon as we had made the attempt to send information home. I
told LeConte, who would stay with the ship, to fire the explosive
himself if anything happened to make him believe that we had been killed
while scouting.

I did not fail to point out that since our atomic guns were useless
against the Orconites and Leider, we should have to go unarmed on our
expedition, and I did not fail to state that the whole effort seemed
futile. But the opportunity offered by Leider's present withdrawal was
one we could not afford to miss. We were drowning people, I said, and we
must clutch at straws. And my friends were good enough to agree.

                   *       *       *       *       *

As soon as the conference was ended, therefore, we disposed of our six
dead by the simple process of disintegrating them with one of the atomic
guns, and then LeConte returned to the radio, and Koto, Captain Crane
and I went on deck to have our first look at Orcon by daylight.

The first thing we saw was the small, rocky islet just off the shore
whence had come the cable. It seemed a harmless place now, with only one
squat building of stone and no Orconites about, but we were glad enough
to turn away from it and look toward the dark and ragged range of
mountains which loomed up some five miles inland--the mountains of
Leider's headquarters. Not that the sight inspired us with greater
confidence. It didn't. But it was good to look at the mountains,
because the fact that we were going there meant that at least we should
be acting instead of idling.

No Orconite was visible anywhere.

With the coming of daylight--the greenish daylight of Orcon--the sea
behind us had calmed until its surface was disturbed only by gigantic
lazy bubbles which broke with muffled, thudding explosions. The air
smelled of chlorine, iodine, and sulphurated hydrogen, but was
breathable. I saw that the principal characteristic of life on Orcon was
an organic ability to thrive under almost any climatic conditions. Many
of the huge, crystal clear boulders which covered the beach and the
coastal plain which led to the hills, were covered with leafless flowers
which had immense, leathery petals and sharp, fang-like spines. Other
evidences of swift growing life showed on every hand. Ugly, jelly-like
creatures oozed about the ship and everywhere else. In places the very
rocks seemed ready to come to life.

                   *       *       *       *       *

After one good look about, I issued the order to start. As we clambered
down the ship's ladder to the beach and set out resolutely toward the
hills, I made myself try to hope, and for a time did muster up a little
cheer.

I did not keep it, though. In less than ten minutes something happened
which ended our expedition in a terrible manner.

What began it was a long shout which came echoing from LeConte back on
the ship. The instant I heard the cry I knew, somehow, that trouble had
started. Leider had kept off us as long as we had remained quiet, but at
our first move he had gone into action.

While LeConte's cry still echoed in my ears, I swung to face the ship
and saw him waving frantically from the deck. At that moment I also had
a queer impression that the sunlight was growing brighter on all the
glittering rocks, and that some new feeling was creeping into the air.

"Doctor Weeks!" LeConte cried across the distance between us. "Come at
once!"

Terror had laid hold of the man. Captain Crane, Koto and I began to run
to him.

"What is it?" I shouted.

"I don't know," came the thin answer. "I almost had Earth when my whole
set went to pieces. Come, quickly!"

"We will, if we're able," I muttered to myself, and said aloud as I ran
in the gigantic bounds possible on Orcon: "Koto, Captain, do you feel
anything queer in the air as if--as if--"

I never finished. Suddenly Captain Crane screamed and flung out her arms
to me with the gesture of one about to fall.

"Doctor Weeks!" she gasped. "Frederick, help me!"

                   *       *       *       *       *

And that was all. Before she could choke out another word, before I
could do more than clutch at her, she had been caught up by an invisible
power, caught up straight into the now dazzlingly brilliant green air,
and swept away from us as if she were a feather in a tornado.

It was over before realization could sink in. Nor was her departure all.
From the ship came a ringing yell, and as LeConte, in the distance,
clutched a stanchion as if for dear life, the whole battered, glimmering
gray shape of the flier moved, shivered, and in a flash was caught up
and whisked away as easily as had been Virginia Crane!

"He's got us!" I sputtered as I turned to Koto. "He was only waiting
until we started to march against him."

"God, yes. Horrible!" he muttered.

Then _his_ kindly yellow face went white. Even while I stood looking at
him, he, too, was swept away into space.

When my turn came, it was as if implacable fingers took hold of my
wrists, the front of my coat, my shoes. I distinctly remember thinking
that after all the peace we'd had, something as astounding as this was
almost bound to have happened. The glittering boulders of the coastal
plain fell away, and I felt myself being whirled through space. The
speed was taking my breath away. A ringing came into my ears, spots
floated before my eyes, a nauseating light-headedness swept me, and I
lapsed into unconsciousness.




CHAPTER IV

_In the Caverns of Orcon_


I came out of it to find myself lying on my back upon the rocky floor of
a cavern more lofty than any cathedral. The air was warm and charged
with a pungent, almost mephitic odor. Blue light filled the vast
subterranean place. I heard the far-away, droning throb of machinery.
Crackling sounds like static on a vast scale ripped back and forth at
intervals.

Neither Captain Crane, Koto, nor LeConte was in sight, but wherever I
looked as I twisted my head slowly, I saw winged Orconites staring at
me. They stood back against the walls of the cavern chamber, their wings
folded, the antennae on their orange foreheads waving gently. None was
close, but all watched with cold, intelligent interest. I decided that I
was in Leider's headquarters, a closely guarded prisoner. It was to be
supposed that Leider had brought us here, as Hargrib had said he might,
to interview us before he finished us off.

Fear for the others laid hold of me, but I was still too dazed and giddy
to get up and look for them. I lay still, trying to remember everything.

"He waited until we made an aggressive move," I thought, "and then he
did _something_ to us. He did something which brought us shooting
through the air here to his headquarters!"

After I had progressed so far, it did not take me long to realize what
method Leider had employed to fetch us to the caverns. Nor did it take
me much longer, once I was sure of the method, to roll over heavily and
begin to yank the metal buttons off my coat. Since the many
guards--fully twenty of them--made no move to interfere, I did not stop
until I had torn every button off my clothing, dumped from my pockets
every object which had a scrap of metal on it, and even dug the metal
eyelets out of my shoes.

                   *       *       *       *       *

What had happened was that Leider had simply readjusted the forces of
his damned power houses so as to yank us to him, ship and all, _without_
the medium of a magnetic cable. What he had done was to direct at us a
magnetic current so terrific that, taking hold of the few odds and ends
of metal on our persons, it had snatched us bodily through space. And
the ship, too! It was stupendous; incredible.

Full consciousness had returned by this time, and fear possessed me even
more completely than it had before--fear for what might be going to
happen to Earth and fear of what might already have happened to my
friends. The Leider who had planned the Calypsus war had had no such
gigantic powers as these. As thoughts of Virginia Crane and the others
increased until they filled my whole mind, I sat up on the floor of the
cavern and then rose slowly to my feet.

The guards never relaxed their vigilance, but they made no move as I
moved; they only stared, and I ventured to call out.

"Captain Crane! Koto! LeConte!" I shouted loudly.

No answer came. Since the Orconites still did not prevent me, I began to
walk swiftly down the length of the great, echoing cathedral cavern,
toward an abutment of rock which jutted out from one wall, separating
the room I was in from another. Again I shouted, and the whole place
rang with echoes, and my fears grew.

But all at once fear vanished. I knew that the worst had not happened
and that I was not to be left alone.

"Doctor Weeks!" It was Koto's voice, and it came from behind the
abutment of rock toward which I was hurrying.

"Koto!" I yelled and entered the next cavern and saw it all.

                   *       *       *       *       *

He was lying stretched out on the rocky floor of an underground room as
vast as the one I had left behind me. He was unhurt, and he was waving
to me! Captain Crane, just waking up, was stretched out beside him. Our
ship, a colossal bulk of battered, gleaming metal, had come to a
lighting point some fifty yards beyond them. LeConte was sitting on the
deck, staring groggily at me.

Guards were posted all around the walls of this new cavern, and those I
had just walked away from now came crowding in to join their fellows,
but none spoke to us or held us back. In another thirty seconds LeConte
had slid down from the ship, Captain Crane had stumbled to her feet,
Koto had flung an arm about me, and we were all babbling together.

I will not attempt to tell of our feelings during that interval. But the
reunion did much for us. When I had returned to consciousness, it had
been with the thought that our puny scouting expedition had been wrecked
before it had begun, and that all else had been lost to us. Now the mere
fact that we were together once more changed my attitude suddenly and
completely.

"Defeated?" I asked myself, and as I gripped the warm hands of friends I
knew that we were not defeated at all. Rather it seemed that everything
we could have hoped to gain was won.

The penopalatrin I had injected in Koto and LeConte had mended the
former's broken arm and the latter's cracked ribs, so that none of us
was in any way disabled. And we seemed to be free within limits. And our
ship was here in Leider's caverns--our ship laden with two tons of the
most terrific explosive science had ever created. And the Orconites,
though they might be suspicious, knew nothing of our weapon.

Now that hope had sprung to life again, I knew that the opportunities
open to us were huge. We were in great trouble, and whatever we did
would probably not be easily done, but there was a strong chance that we
might yet strike a blow that would help the peoples of Earth in their
hour of need.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It was not necessary to explain to the others all that was passing in my
mind, for I could tell by their expressions that they were comprehending
the possibilities as clearly as I.

"What's Leider up to?" Captain Crane asked after a while.

"He's brought us here to put us through an interview," I answered. "He
hasn't sent for us yet because he's busy getting ready for his war.
Also, since he's a Prussian all the way through, he's probably ignoring
us in the belief that his absence will make us more impressed with his
mightiness."

"Yes, but what are we going to do while he ignores us?" she snapped
back.

"Quite a lot," I answered, and turned to LeConte. "What are the chances
of getting word to Earth?"

"Impossible," he said, shaking his head. "The set was wrecked when the
magnetism--or whatever it was--took hold of us."

"All right. Never mind it." I looked at Koto now. "Koto, what do you
have to do to fire your explosive?"

I was sure now that the thought had already been in their minds, for
Captain Crane and LeConte nodded and Koto smiled.

"The kotomite," he answered, "is packed in telargeium drums in the
ship's hold, and protected against being exploded until oxygen is
admitted to the drums and force applied. It was our original hope to
land on Orcon, deposit the drums, and fire them by a time fuse. The
quickest way now would be simply to place one of our atomic guns in the
hold, turn it loose, and get out. The stream of the gun would in a very
short time disintegrate the drums to admit oxygen, and would at the same
time set off the explosive."

"Good," I said shortly, and without more ado glanced about the cavern to
look over the situation with regard to the forty or so Orconites whom we
had been ignoring, and who had ignored us, ever since we found each
other.

                   *       *       *       *       *

They were standing motionless against the walls, eyes alert, ugly
antennae waving, but with their arms folded across their chests. There
seemed to be no reason why we should not all march boldly to the ship,
climb aboard, and forthwith do the work that was to be done there. I
had, however, a feeling that our task was not to be so easily
accomplished, and was not long in discovering that the feeling was
correct.

The moment I told the others to come with me, and we all started to walk
toward the ship, the whole encircling force of Orconites began to move
silently forward. When we were within a few yards of the ship's ladder,
a tall lithely built Orconite who seemed to be captain of the guard,
flopped his wings, shot across the cavern, and dropped down before us.
Into the instrument on his chest he rapped a word of Orconese which was
translated instantly into the German.

"_Verboten!_" was the word.

Forbidden! The Orconites were not taking any chances with us. It was
discouraging, but no more than I had expected. It simply meant that if
we were to be interfered with, we should have to do something about the
interference.

I quickly began to work out a plan.

First of all I shrugged at the captain of the guard and turned back from
the ship as though his refusal to let us aboard was of no consequence.
Next I spoke to the others.

"Come on," I said in a normal voice. "Don't make a fuss now, but pull
back, from the gangway."

They saw, I think, that I was planning something, and we retreated
together, with the result that the Orconites ceased to threaten and once
more fell back to the walls of the cavern. Their captain flew over and
joined them.

                   *       *       *       *       *

"I thought for a moment," I said, "that we might tell the captain that
Hargrib was locked up in the ship, and so furnish an excuse to get
aboard. But that isn't good. Some of the Orconites would surely go with
us, and in that case it would be next to impossible to get at the
kotomite properly. What we need is at least a couple of minutes which
will be uninterrupted. We'll leave Hargrib right where he is, and get
access to the ship in another way. We'll fight for it!"

"Fight?" Captain Crane shot a glance at me, and I saw that the idea
appealed to her.

"So far as I can see," I said quickly, "Leider hasn't armed his guards
with any unique weapon, but has merely left them to watch us. And the
Orconites don't know how to fight! Think of the ease with which I got
away with Hargrib last night. When it comes to dealing destruction with
scientific weapons, their power is appalling. When it comes to a
slugging match, they are only so many sheep. And Leider's forgotten to
take that fact into account!"

I felt really sure that the guards were not armed with some mysterious
weapon we could not see, and Koto felt the same.

"Doctor, you're right!" he exclaimed. "Leider's made a mistake! He's
forgotten what damage can be done by physical strength, and left us
alone with a mere flesh-and-blood guard. There are forty of the
Orconites and their leader, and only four of us. But we have strength
that they never dreamed of possessing. It makes the odds almost even!"

"Right," I snapped. "And they will be even altogether if we can get hold
of some clubs."

                   *       *       *       *       *

Koto and the others looked doubtful at that, but I had been thinking
hard of the problem all the while we were talking. I motioned
unobtrusively toward the end of the room, where a tunnel, blue-lighted
and lined with curious, glittering dials like ammeters, gave entrance,
evidently, to another great underground chamber. On the floor of that
tunnel, close to the entrance, lay a pile of heavy stalactites of some
mineral which resembled jade. The spikes had seemingly been cleared off
the tunnel roof and left to be carried away. They were pointed enough to
be used for stabbing, and looked heavy enough to make stout clubs.

Captain Crane smothered an exclamation as she glanced at the pile, and
Koto and LeConte smiled.

Our conversation all this while had been carried on with seeming
casualness, and not even the leader of the Orconites showed suspicion.
More than ever I felt that neither they nor Leider would be prepared to
defend the ship against a sudden physical attack.

"The weak point for us," I said, "is that we'll have to make an awful
row, and the alarm will go out, and eventually some weapon will be
brought out to stop us. But if we work quickly, there's a good chance
that we can finish everything before Leider is able to step in with some
devilish freak instrument. Take it easy until we've got the clubs, and
then cut loose for all you're worth. Captain Crane, it's a great pity
you're a woman. In all this you'll simply have to--"

I did not finish. Something in the look she gave me stopped me quite,
and somehow, whether I would admit it or not, I knew she was as fit as
we were. By this time we were strolling away from the ship toward the
tunnel.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Blue-lighted, brilliant, the opening loomed larger as we approached. The
same sounds of static on a vast scale which filled our cavern, filled
the tunnel, but the place was deserted. The pile of jade spikes
shimmered right at the entrance. A few of the guards behind us sauntered
at our heels without speaking, and the dozen or so about the tunnel
closed in toward the opening, but no restraint was put upon us.

"We seem to have the freedom of the place and the key to the city!" was
Captain Crane's dry comment.

"Yes," I answered. "I'm pretty sure it's going to be a case of lambs led
to the slaughter. Looks as if--Oh, good Lord, look!"

At the moment when I spoke those last words, we had approached to within
thirty or forty feet of the pile of stalactites, and from the quick
movement which eight or ten Orconites made ahead of us, drawing
themselves up in a line across the tunnel mouth, I knew that we had
almost reached the limit of our freedom. But it was not that fact, or
the movement of our guards, that brought the exclamation from me.

"Look!" I cried again, even though I knew each of the others had seen as
clearly as I.

From where we were walking slowly forward, it was possible to see clear
down the tunnel to the tall, lighted cavern beyond our own. In the
center of that cavern, with her nose pointing toward a wide tunnel down
which showed a glimmer of daylight, rested the long, needle-like, bright
hull of the most beautifully designed space flier I had ever seen.

We did not need to be told that this was Leider's own cruiser. A ship of
such magnitude and exceeding beauty could have been nothing else.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The guards knew we had seen and were aware of our excitement, but
contented themselves by standing fast in the line they had already
formed across the tunnel. We advanced another few yards.

"Mother of Mercy!" LeConte whispered, almost in awe.

"There's a chance for us!" Koto gasped. "A chance! We'll set one of the
guns going in the hold of our own ship, and then--"

Captain Crane's face was flushed with intense excitement, and her
fingers were moving as though she felt the delicate controls of the
space ship under them even now.

"Could you pilot it?" I asked.

"_Could_ I! Give me the chance!" she cried.

"All right," I snapped, "we will!"

And in that second I enlarged my plans to take this gorgeous new
development into account.

"Fight to take the cruiser," I ordered. "Captain Crane, Koto, LeConte,
get aboard as soon as you can cut your way through. I'll take care of
our ship and the kotomite at that time and join you, if possible. Come
on!"

Thus was it decided. Thus did we enter our fight with an outlook as
utterly different from our original one as hope is different from
despair. Our discovery of the cruiser had been almost accidental, a
thing which might never have taken place except for our trip to get the
spikes of jade. Surely such a happy accident had never happened before!

                   *       *       *       *       *

The moment I gave the command to go ahead, and we started to run, all of
the ugly, bird-like faces of the Orconites across the tunnel became
convulsed, and the creatures commenced to howl at us. Before we hurled
ourselves against the line, swift reinforcements shot through the air
over our heads and joined them, and the temporary uncertainty which had
held them gave way, so that they met our advance with an advance of
their own. But we did not care.

A few smashing blows which I delivered with my fists served to bring
screams of agony from the several creatures immediately about me, and as
one or two staggered and crashed to the floor, the others gave way a
little. In a moment I was through the line to the pile of stalactites.
And the others were through with me.

"Here you go, Koto!" I cried, and stooping down in spite of the jostling
bodies and clammy hands that tried to prevent us, I caught up one of the
long, needle-pointed, heavy stalactites. As I shoved it at him and
snatched another for myself, Captain Crane and the others armed
themselves.

By this time every Orconite in the heavy guard was on the spot, and the
whole mass was all over us, gasping, burbling, flapping their wings,
fighting to clutch at us with their hideous orange hands and waving
antennae. Decidedly the fight was on, and I was forced to admit the fact
that, though these creatures might be sheep, even sheep have power. But
the first skirmish was already won, and I had faith that we could win
the real battle.

I balanced my peculiar weapon in my hand to get the feel of it, then
brushed aside a pair of sucking paws which were trying to take it from
me, and plunged the spike clean through the body of the man who held me.

He fell without making a sound. I regained my weapon by planting my boot
on his chest and wrenching it free.

I swung the spike like a club and crushed two heads with a single blow
at each. A downward blow served almost to hack a long, clutching arm
from an Orconite's body. With four men out of the struggle, I looked to
see how my companions were faring, and was assured by a single glance
that they were as well off as I.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Encouraged greatly, I met an advance of pressing, jostling bodies by a
return to my original technique of stabbing. I stabbed every time a hand
reached out to hold me, and if I did not take a life with each stab, I
at least drew a spout of greenish-colored blood.

It was not a nice business, any of it, especially as the Orconites were
as fearless before our onslaught as they were powerless. But it had to
be done. We were fighting for far more than our own lives.

The blue-lighted corridor with its rippling sounds of static and its
gigantic ammeters became worse than a shambles. We walked upon, stumbled
over, wallowed amongst the piled corpses of the slain, whose master,
knowing more of the science of destructive warfare than any other being
in the Universe, had nevertheless forgotten that it was still possible
for mankind to fight with their hands.

Such a fight could have only one ending.

When the end came I saw that Virginia Crane was splashed with the ugly
blood of the Orconites from her smooth forehead to the soles of her
flying boots, but she was unhurt. The rest of us were likewise
blood-stained and uninjured. We were all too excited to feel tired. The
moment the pressure about us began to relax, she surged toward the
waiting cruiser at the end of the tunnel, and I shouted to Koto and
LeConte.

"Go and help her, you two! I'll do the work on our ship!"

They did not question my order, but obeyed.

There were only ten or a dozen of the winged ones left now, and when the
two men leaped after the woman, it was easy for me to fight a jabbing,
slashing battle which not only protected the retreat, but enabled me to
work my way slowly toward our own ship and its kotomite.

                   *       *       *       *       *

With Leider's cruiser already headed toward the tunnel which led out
from the underground hangar, I knew that it could be taken into space
with a minimum loss of time. I believed that I could get an atomic gun
going in our hold quickly, too. My hopes rose high as I darted a glance
over my shoulder and saw Captain Crane and Koto taking, three at a time,
the gangway steps which led to the deck and control room, with LeConte
directly behind them. Now there were only seven guards left instead of a
dozen, and those were at last showing signs of being cowed. I cut down
two, and gave a great bound which carried me away from the others in the
direction of our wrecked ship.

No sooner, though, did I tense myself for a second leap than I felt a
nerveless sensation in my knees, as though the bones had turned to
butter, and knew that my high hopes had budded too soon. Instead of
leaping, I staggered on for two short steps, then stopped because I
could stagger no farther. Looking back at the cruiser, I saw that
LeConte, still on the gangway, had stopped also. Captain Crane and Koto
were making weak, despairing signs at me from the entrance to the
control room. Both of them looked as sick as cats. I heard a laugh, a
shrill, rasping sort of laugh, from the forward end of the bright
cruiser, and I looked in that direction.

I saw a short man, bald headed, with frog eyes peering at us from behind
thick prismatic glasses. He was clad in baggy green overalls, and was
slowly waving in our direction a glistening metal tube which he held in
both hands. From the end of the tube emanated a purplish light.

"You were clever, my good young friends," he chortled, "to think of
fighting with your hands, but you were not quite quick enough. Not
to-day goes anyone in my cruiser! What do you think of the enervating
ray, heh? Ingenious, not? Ludwig Leider discovered it. I am Ludwig
Leider. You shall come with me and with your own eyes watch the
de-energizing of New York and Paris and Berlin. For I am ready to do
away with your paltry Earth now!"

I felt the last energy ooze out of me and I sunk, all in a heap, on the
floor of Ludwig Leider's cavern.




CHAPTER V

_Death in a Box_


New York. We did see it with our own eyes. The instrument through which
we gazed was like a metal box with a ground-glass top and a mesh of
slender wires leading away from the table on which the box rested.
Leider touched a button amidst a long row of buttons on the table. All
we had to do after that was to look at the ground-glass plate, and the
picture was there.

We, in Leider's private laboratory on Orcon, saw the crowds of a mass
meeting of some sort in Union Square, saw a boy and a girl kissing each
other in the shadow of bushes in Central Park, saw a little fox terrier
watching with only one eye open.

We could not speak, any of the four of us, as we stared at that very
simple box which wrought miracles. I stood still, thinking of the things
which had happened after our capture, when the cruiser had already
seemed to be in our grasp.

First of all, Leider had restored our energy to us by the simple process
of turning off the ray which emanated from the tube in his hands. Then a
veritable legion of Orconites had come to the cavern in which the
cruiser rested, and we had been marched through the very heart of the
power rooms, with their hum and clack and dazzle of mighty machinery,
to the laboratory. That was all.

The Orconites had left us outside the heavy doors of the private room,
but, just as there had been no opportunity to attack while they marched
with us, Leider gave us no opportunity to harm him while we were alone.
Though he had forgotten once the damage we could do in a fight, he was
not going to be fooled again. He kept the great table of the box between
ourselves and him, and his wary hands were always closer to a certain
row of control buttons than ours were to his.

                   *       *       *       *       *

It was he who broke at last the silence which had fallen as we watched
New York from Orcon, and his voice was loud in the hushed laboratory
from which the noises of his subterranean power houses were shut out.

"Sit down," he commanded, "and keep away from the table and the
reflector."

Then, when we had taken chairs beside the table, he began to speak to
us.

"That little dog you saw--I have it in my power to withdraw from him in
one second all the energy which makes him run, jump about, live. That I
can do by touching controls here at my table without even leaving this
marvelous, marvelous room." A frown crossed his forehead above his
pop-eyes, and he exclaimed with swift anger, in a croaking voice, "And
what I do to the little dog, I can do as easily to the whole population
of your loathsome Earth!"

I looked up at him where he stood with the table between us, and at
length found my tongue.

"And of course you will do it, you swine!" I burst out.

His momentary anger had passed as swiftly as it had come, and, ignoring
my epithet, he rocked smugly on the balls and heels of his feet and
smiled.

"Ah, Herr Doktor," he answered contentedly, "I will destroy Earth, of
course! For who has better cause than I, whom Earth would not accept as
her master? All of the people there will lose the power to move, and
they will die. I am ready now, in the uttermost degree. After you so
neatly but uselessly saved yourselves from drowning last night, I
finished. As easily can I de-energize the peoples of Earth as I can
you--the four of you--if you should make the move to harm me."

                   *       *       *       *       *

Captain Crane was staring first at Leider, then at me, and her cheeks
were gray and ghastly looking. Koto and LeConte were both sitting tight
in chairs beside our own, watching me rather than Leider. I looked over
the shelves, the whole complex apparatus of that incredible room, but
saw no weapon of any kind. And my hands were useless because _his_ were
so close to the damnable controls.

"But what becomes of Earth itself, after our peoples are gone?" I asked
presently.

Leider shrugged and his eyes twinkled behind the thick glasses.

"Herr Doktor, you are a brilliant man. Amongst the most brilliant, I
should say, of any who on the Earth have labored. Yet of science you
know less than a child. What should I do with Earth except to sit here
in my own room, and, with the anarcostic ray, reduce its solid structure
into stardust which will drift away into space like the smoke from one
tiny match? Pouf! like that."

I looked at the table, at Leider's wary hands. I knew that the man was
ready, even as he had said, to do away with Earth. I guessed that we
would die, too, when Earth was gone--probably here in this room. And it
seemed likely that the destruction would begin at a not distant moment,
for there was some quality of fanatical evil lurking even now in
Leider's face.

Then, however, I stiffened in my chair very suddenly indeed. If I could
find a way to get close to the box on the table without rousing Leider's
suspicion, the outlook might not be so black!

"Leider," I exclaimed all at once, and there was a vigor in my words,
"it's all very well for you to be saying these mighty things, but do you
know what? I don't believe you can draw the energy out of the human race
or disintegrate the Earth, either!"

                   *       *       *       *       *

I think if I had kicked him I could not have surprised him more. Which
was exactly what I had hoped to do.

"You--you do not _believe_?" he said, incredulously.

"No I don't!"

"Ach, Gott!" A black fury overcame him. Hideous fury. He was already
standing beside the table. Quaking from head to foot, he pointed
savagely at the box. "Get up and look into the reflector!" He choked and
his voice rose to a scream. "Get up! Stoop close to the reflector and
watch! Watch there, I say!"

The thing which had launched me on my course of action was the fact that
the picture-making box was not screwed to the table. The only thing
which held it there was the soft mesh of wires!

With a concealed gesture to the others to stay still, I rose, placed my
hands on the table close to the box, and leaned forward as though to
look at the glass.

"It shall come now!" Leider yelled, and at that moment took his eyes off
me, while he reached with a rage-palsied hand for the twinkling line of
buttons.

The instant he looked away from me, I gave a tug which jerked the heavy
box away from its wires as easily as a weed is plucked from soft earth.
As I made the move Leider looked up and screamed. His hand, already
reaching for the buttons, darted forward. But the instant had been all I
needed. Before the darting hand ever reached the table, I struck Leider
a sharp blow, and hurled the box to the floor.

In a moment more the others were around me. The box was shattered to
matchwood. Leider was lying on the floor behind his table with one arm
doubled limply under him and dark blood welling from a forehead gash
which I hoped went as deep as his brain.

Koto and LeConte kicked open the laboratory door and shot through.
Captain Crane and I jumped after them.




CHAPTER VI

_Through the Darkness of Orcon_


Gongs clanged, blue lights flashed on and off with the lurid glare of
sulphur pits burning in hell, and screaming, winged Orconites, all mixed
up together, pelted toward us as thickly as the snowflakes of a
blizzard. I don't suppose the destruction of one little mesh of wires
had ever created such a disturbance before.

Leider's cruiser rested in the hangar two caverns away.

"Play hide-and-seek with them!" I shouted against the turmoil.

The initial wave of the attack struck us as we tore from the laboratory
corridor into the first power room. Captain Crane went down under the
onslaught of what must have been a hundred Orconites, and it took all
the tearing strength of Koto's, LeConte's, and my hands combined to
burrow through the piles of creatures who covered her, and get her out.
By the time she was on her feet again, a new legion was at us.

I had not, however, suggested hide-and-seek meaninglessly.

While the others fought, and wildest confusion reigned, I pulled off my
coat, flung it aside, and crammed myself into a loose, one-piece costume
of Orcon which I tore off a corpse. Then I fought while my three
companions repeated the operation. We succeeded in confusing the mob to
such an extent that we were able to work our way through the fringes of
the melee and move clear across the first room, before we were
recognized.

                   *       *       *       *       *

The alarm of our escape, though, spread into the next room almost as
soon as we reached it, and a foolish attempt we made to keep bunched
together and get through with a dash, betrayed us before we got well
started.

Now it was a case of being drowned again by a sheer deluge of men. While
the Orconites pawed me, tripped me, and otherwise discommoded me, I
broke necks, dug out eyes, tore quivering antennae from foreheads until
I felt as if I had been doing nothing else for hours. And those beside
me were doing the same. Yet always more bladder faces rose in front of
us, and more wings beat down from above. Not even our supreme strength
was great enough to stand it.

Out across the bleeding, crumpled bodies and the teeming swarms beyond,
I saw as through a red mist the glittering, whirling maze of Leider's
wondrous generators, and began to curse to myself.

For the steady pressure was forcing us slowly back toward the machines
and toward the rugged, high wall of the cavern beyond, and I knew that
once we reached the wall we could retreat no farther and must stand
there to fight until we were completely exhausted. I drew closer to
Virginia Crane and did what I could to help her with her main group of
assailants while still battling my own.

Oddly enough, I was remembering how, when she had been caught up by the
magnetic current that had brought us here, she had cried out to me,
calling me by my given name.... The recollection filled me with a queer
emotion, partly rebellion and partly--something else. In the crisis we
were facing now, I somehow lacked my wonted power to shun femininity.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Side by side we struggled against our enemies, tearing at them with our
whole strength, yet always we were driven closer to the wall which would
finally stop us.

"Oh," she finally gasped, "I--didn't want--to die!"

"No," I answered through set teeth as I hurled down an Orconite only to
be confronted by two more; "but I'm afraid--we must. Well, we've done
away with Leider, anyway."

"Yes," she choked. "That's--something."

Koto and LeConte were as hard pressed as we. Then, as we fell steadily
back into a passage between two of the vast generators, back toward the
solid wall of the cavern, a queer thing happened.

Despite the fact that LeConte was embroiled with a dozen winged men, his
face became crinkled with a broad grin!

"Watch!" he yelled suddenly, and I _did_ watch.

We were within a few feet of the driving gear of one of the generators.
Quick as a bolt of lightning, LeConte caught a deadly firm hold on one
of the ugly, squawking orange-skinned creatures, raised him into the
air, and there held him poised while he swung around to face the
generator.

Genius!

There was a shriek, then a thousand shrieks. Impelled by the Frenchman's
tremendous heave, the winged man shot forward and struck full, with a
splashing sound, against the terrifically revolving armature. A
thunderbolt seemed to explode in our faces. All in that room, we as well
as the Orconites, reeled dazedly back. A stench of seared flesh and
short circuited wires smote our nostrils. Darkness--smothering, thick,
absolute darkness--settled over us.

                   *       *       *       *       *

"Come on!" LeConte shouted amidst the blessed inkiness of it, and I felt
him tug at my hand. Captain Crane's hand slipped into my other, Koto
caught hold of her, and we started forward.

Genius indeed, this stroke of LeConte's.

Clinging stoutly to each other, we pushed through the meager,
floundering opposition which was all that was offered in the intense
darkness, and began to forge swiftly ahead. Ten yards ... a hundred. A
slight decrease of the sounds of crying and panting and of confused
flopping wings told us we had passed through the arch which separated
the wrecked power room from the hangar.

"Captain," I whispered as we battered against some confused and helpless
Orconites and flung them aside, "could you make anything of the control
system on the cruiser before Leider got us?"

Virginia Crane said vigorously that she had.

"The light switches are all on a board to the right of the entrance
door. The other controls are as readily accessible."

"Leaves us in something of a position!" I whispered.

The hand which she had placed in my own tightened its grip. I heard
LeConte grunt with satisfaction as he pressed forward. I began to figure
on ways and means of getting to our wrecked ship alone after the others
were aboard the cruiser.

We crossed another fifty or sixty yards of the darkness, and found fewer
of the badly shaken Orconites in our path. Now, in that thick obscurity,
I sensed that we were nearing the magnificent, tapering hull with its
fish-scale sides.

"Come on!" I urged unnecessarily. I kicked into several of the yielding
bodies left from our first fight, before Leider had taken us, and in a
little while the feel of cool, smooth metal under my hand told me we had
reached the gangway.

"Up you go, Captain!" I snapped, and as she clutched the slender rail of
the gangway and plunged upwards, "LeConte, you next. Koto--"

But Koto laid a firm hand on my arm.

"No, I do not go."

                   *       *       *       *       *

We stopped where we were. The noises of pursuit were still around us,
and I could have slugged him for making a delay.

"You fool, get aboard!" I roared.

But it did no good.

"No."

"Get the motors started!" I called to Captain Crane. "LeConte, you help
her." Then I turned to Koto and in the dark waved a fist under his nose.
"You idiot--"

"No, my friend," he laughed at me. "You killed Leider. LeConte put out
the lights. Captain Crane will pilot the ship. Now it's my turn. You
will pardon my insubordination, but you will also please to hurry up the
gangway before I knock you unconscious and throw you up. Damn it, it's
my explosive, anyway, isn't it? Who has the best right to fire it?"

With that he whirled away from me.

"Don't wait!" he called over his shoulder.

I laughed at him and sang out the order to Captain Crane to stand by. As
for myself, I remained standing on the small platform at the foot of the
gangway.

The moment Captain Crane flipped a switch which flooded the control room
and a score of ports along the hull with golden light, I thought the
yells which rose from the other room and the far side of this one would
blow the roof off. By the time we felt a quiver run through the hull,
and heard the sweet, deep-throated hum of the gigantic power plant, a
mob of Orconites had formed for a new attack. It was hideous that we
could not wait for Koto in darkness, but the light was essential to
Captain Crane's preparations, so there was nothing to be done. I felt
that Koto's chances of getting back to us were one in a thousand.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Yet suddenly, as I still clung to the foot of the gangway, LeConte
thrust his head from the control room door and yelled at me to hang on
tight. At once the ship moved forward, and, rolling easily on her ground
gear, swung left and lunged toward the swooping mob of Orconites.

Handling that space flier in the cavern was like trying to navigate a
one-hundred-thousand-ton freighter in a pond. But Captain Crane did
it--she whom I had once accused, to myself, of misnavigating and
wrecking our other ship. The Orconites had formed themselves in a dense
group. We went into them, mowed them down, stopped under the great arch
which led to the inky black power rooms, backed up, and, as the
screaming lines reformed, crunched terrifically into them again.

By this time I saw in the corridor leading to our old ship, where the
darkness was only partially broken by our lights, a dark-headed grinning
man who was bent nearly double with the speed of his running.

"He's coming!" I howled.

"He's coming!" LeConte echoed to Virginia Crane in the control room.

And again the miracle of the hundred-thousand-tonner in the pond was
performed. Again the cruiser backed up and swung around. We headed
toward Koto, straight toward him.

                   *       *       *       *       *

There still were droves of Orconites to contend with. Flocks of them had
taken to their wings, and were filling the whole upper reaches of the
cavern, now that a juggernaut had the floor. They had spied Koto and
were swooping toward him. But they could not seize him without coming to
the floor, and they could not come to the floor without contending with
the juggernaut.

Now the cruiser seemed to swoop. I saw a swirl of wings all about,
battering down and down about the Jap; then I clung to the gangway rail
with one hand and reached far out with the other toward our friend.

He leaped, and I felt the warm contact of his hands gripping my arm. I
gave a heave, and landed him on the steps as neatly as a fisherman ever
netted a trout.

"All clear!" I screamed up the gangway.

It was not until we were on the deck, and the cruiser was gliding
magnificently forward toward the shaft which led outside to space and
light, that Koto spoke. But when he did, his words had significance.

"It's done!" he panted. "The gun is firing against the drums!"

We dove into the control room, and LeConte banged the outer door shut
and jammed huge catches, battening it down for our flight through space.

"Get out as fast as you can!" LeConte panted on, speaking now to Captain
Crane as she headed us gently into the tunnel. "The kotomite's due to go
off the second the first drums are disintegrated."

I dropped limply on to a seat beside the pilot and sat still.

                   *       *       *       *       *

We passed through the tunnel in five or six seconds. In another five
seconds, we had not only taken off, but had worked up a formidable
speed. We barely felt the explosion when it came. But on the instrument
board in front of Virginia Crane, gleamed a little box with a
ground-glass top, and in that we saw, as by a magic, what happened on
Orcon.

First the mountains which topped the subterranean power houses were
lifted off. Then the whole planet rocked. Finally the caverns were
inundated by the deluge of the sea which, in the beginning, had so
nearly swallowed us.

Orcon was not destroyed, but we knew even then that such of its
inhabitants as might remain alive would not soon again dream of making
an attack upon Earth.

On the way back, as Earth took form and grew round in the interminable
reaches of space ahead of us, I got on well with Captain Crane. It
started when she asked me if I were still so cocksure that woman had no
place in the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol, and I was forced to answer that
I was not. After that, one thing led to another.

We were photographed together when we landed beside the colossal,
metal-roofed hangars of the Long Island station of the U. S. W. The
snapshot was published in that afternoon's tabloids under the caption:
Betrothed.


Transcriber's Note:

This e-text was produced from Astounding Stories January 1932. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Winged Men of Orcon, by David R. Sparks