CHAPTER V
_Death in a Box_
New York. We did see it with our own eyes. The instrument through whichwe gazed was like a metal box with a ground-glass top and a mesh ofslender wires leading away from the table on which the box rested.Leider touched a button amidst a long row of buttons on the table. Allwe had to do after that was to look at the ground-glass plate, and thepicture was there.
We, in Leider's private laboratory on Orcon, saw the crowds of a massmeeting of some sort in Union Square, saw a boy and a girl kissing eachother in the shadow of bushes in Central Park, saw a little fox terrierwatching with only one eye open.
We could not speak, any of the four of us, as we stared at that verysimple box which wrought miracles. I stood still, thinking of the thingswhich had happened after our capture, when the cruiser had alreadyseemed to be in our grasp.
First of all, Leider had restored our energy to us by the simple processof turning off the ray which emanated from the tube in his hands. Then averitable legion of Orconites had come to the cavern in which thecruiser rested, and we had been marched through the very heart of thepower 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 marchedwith 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 wasnot going to be fooled again. He kept the great table of the box betweenourselves and him, and his wary hands were always closer to a certainrow of control buttons than ours were to his.
* * * * *
It was he who broke at last the silence which had fallen as we watchedNew York from Orcon, and his voice was loud in the hushed laboratoryfrom which the noises of his subterranean power houses were shut out.
"Sit down," he commanded, "and keep away from the table and thereflector."
Then, when we had taken chairs beside the table, he began to speak tous.
"That little dog you saw--I have it in my power to withdraw from him inone second all the energy which makes him run, jump about, live. That Ican do by touching controls here at my table without even leaving thismarvelous, marvelous room." A frown crossed his forehead above hispop-eyes, and he exclaimed with swift anger, in a croaking voice, "Andwhat I do to the little dog, I can do as easily to the whole populationof your loathsome Earth!"
I looked up at him where he stood with the table between us, and atlength 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, ignoringmy epithet, he rocked smugly on the balls and heels of his feet andsmiled.
"Ah, Herr Doktor," he answered contentedly, "I will destroy Earth, ofcourse! For who has better cause than I, whom Earth would not accept asher master? All of the people there will lose the power to move, andthey will die. I am ready now, in the uttermost degree. After you soneatly but uselessly saved yourselves from drowning last night, Ifinished. As easily can I de-energize the peoples of Earth as I canyou--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 cheekswere gray and ghastly looking. Koto and LeConte were both sitting tightin chairs beside our own, watching me rather than Leider. I looked overthe shelves, the whole complex apparatus of that incredible room, butsaw no weapon of any kind. And my hands were useless because _his_ wereso close to the damnable controls.
"But what becomes of Earth itself, after our peoples are gone?" I askedpresently.
Leider shrugged and his eyes twinkled behind the thick glasses.
"Herr Doktor, you are a brilliant man. Amongst the most brilliant, Ishould say, of any who on the Earth have labored. Yet of science youknow less than a child. What should I do with Earth except to sit herein my own room, and, with the anarcostic ray, reduce its solid structureinto stardust which will drift away into space like the smoke from onetiny match? Pouf! like that."
I looked at the table, at Leider's wary hands. I knew that the man wasready, even as he had said, to do away with Earth. I guessed that wewould die, too, when Earth was gone--probably here in this room. And itseemed likely that the destruction would begin at a not distant moment,for there was some quality of fanatical evil lurking even now inLeider's face.
Then, however, I stiffened in my chair very suddenly indeed. If I couldfind a way to get close to the box on the table without rousing Leider'ssuspicion, 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 youknow what? I don't believe you can draw the energy out of the human raceor disintegrate the Earth, either!"
* * * * *
I think if I had kicked him I could not have surprised him more. Whichwas 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 alreadystanding beside the table. Quaking from head to foot, he pointedsavagely at the box. "Get up and look into the reflector!" He choked andhis voice rose to a scream. "Get up! Stoop close to the reflector andwatch! Watch there, I say!"
The thing which had launched me on my course of action was the fact thatthe picture-making box was not screwed to the table. The only thingwhich held it there was the soft mesh of wires!
With a concealed gesture to the others to stay still, I rose, placed myhands on the table close to the box, and leaned forward as though tolook at the glass.
"It shall come now!" Leider yelled, and at that moment took his eyes offme, while he reached with a rage-palsied hand for the twinkling line ofbuttons.
The instant he looked away from me, I gave a tug which jerked the heavybox 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, alreadyreaching for the buttons, darted forward. But the instant had been all Ineeded. Before the darting hand ever reached the table, I struck Leidera sharp blow, and hurled the box to the floor.
In a moment more the others were around me. The box was shattered tomatchwood. Leider was lying on the floor behind his table with one armdoubled limply under him and dark blood welling from a forehead gashwhich 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 ofsulphur pits burning in hell, and screaming, winged Orconites, all mixedup together, pelted toward us as thickly as the snowflakes of ablizzard. I don't suppose the destruction of one little mesh of wireshad 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 laboratorycorridor into the first power room. Captain Crane went down under theonslaught of what must have been a hundred Orconites, and it took allthe tearing strength of Koto's, LeConte's, and my hands combined toburrow 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 mycoat, flung it aside, and crammed myself into a loose, one-piece costumeof Orcon which I tore off a corpse. Then I fought while my threecompanions repeated the operation. We succeeded in confusing the mob tosuch an extent that we were able to work our way through the fringes ofthe melee and mo
ve clear across the first room, before we wererecognized.
* * * * *
The alarm of our escape, though, spread into the next room almost assoon as we reached it, and a foolish attempt we made to keep bunchedtogether and get through with a dash, betrayed us before we got wellstarted.
Now it was a case of being drowned again by a sheer deluge of men. Whilethe Orconites pawed me, tripped me, and otherwise discommoded me, Ibroke necks, dug out eyes, tore quivering antennae from foreheads untilI felt as if I had been doing nothing else for hours. And those besideme were doing the same. Yet always more bladder faces rose in front ofus, and more wings beat down from above. Not even our supreme strengthwas 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'swondrous generators, and began to curse to myself.
For the steady pressure was forcing us slowly back toward the machinesand toward the rugged, high wall of the cavern beyond, and I knew thatonce we reached the wall we could retreat no farther and must standthere to fight until we were completely exhausted. I drew closer toVirginia Crane and did what I could to help her with her main group ofassailants while still battling my own.
Oddly enough, I was remembering how, when she had been caught up by themagnetic current that had brought us here, she had cried out to me,calling me by my given name.... The recollection filled me with a queeremotion, partly rebellion and partly--something else. In the crisis wewere facing now, I somehow lacked my wonted power to shun femininity.
* * * * *
Side by side we struggled against our enemies, tearing at them with ourwhole strength, yet always we were driven closer to the wall which wouldfinally 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 tobe confronted by two more; "but I'm afraid--we must. Well, we've doneaway with Leider, anyway."
"Yes," she choked. "That's--something."
Koto and LeConte were as hard pressed as we. Then, as we fell steadilyback into a passage between two of the vast generators, back toward thesolid wall of the cavern, a queer thing happened.
Despite the fact that LeConte was embroiled with a dozen winged men, hisface 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 oneof the ugly, squawking orange-skinned creatures, raised him into theair, and there held him poised while he swung around to face thegenerator.
Genius!
There was a shriek, then a thousand shrieks. Impelled by the Frenchman'stremendous heave, the winged man shot forward and struck full, with asplashing sound, against the terrifically revolving armature. Athunderbolt seemed to explode in our faces. All in that room, we as wellas the Orconites, reeled dazedly back. A stench of seared flesh andshort 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 felthim tug at my hand. Captain Crane's hand slipped into my other, Kotocaught 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 intensedarkness, and began to forge swiftly ahead. Ten yards ... a hundred. Aslight decrease of the sounds of crying and panting and of confusedflopping wings told us we had passed through the arch which separatedthe wrecked power room from the hangar.
"Captain," I whispered as we battered against some confused and helplessOrconites and flung them aside, "could you make anything of the controlsystem 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 entrancedoor. 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 heardLeConte grunt with satisfaction as he pressed forward. I began to figureon ways and means of getting to our wrecked ship alone after the otherswere aboard the cruiser.
We crossed another fifty or sixty yards of the darkness, and found fewerof the badly shaken Orconites in our path. Now, in that thick obscurity,I sensed that we were nearing the magnificent, tapering hull with itsfish-scale sides.
"Come on!" I urged unnecessarily. I kicked into several of the yieldingbodies left from our first fight, before Leider had taken us, and in alittle while the feel of cool, smooth metal under my hand told me we hadreached the gangway.
"Up you go, Captain!" I snapped, and as she clutched the slender rail ofthe 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 helpher." 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 outthe lights. Captain Crane will pilot the ship. Now it's my turn. Youwill pardon my insubordination, but you will also please to hurry up thegangway before I knock you unconscious and throw you up. Damn it, it'smy 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. Asfor myself, I remained standing on the small platform at the foot of thegangway.
The moment Captain Crane flipped a switch which flooded the control roomand a score of ports along the hull with golden light, I thought theyells which rose from the other room and the far side of this one wouldblow 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, amob of Orconites had formed for a new attack. It was hideous that wecould not wait for Koto in darkness, but the light was essential toCaptain Crane's preparations, so there was nothing to be done. I feltthat 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, LeContethrust his head from the control room door and yelled at me to hang ontight. At once the ship moved forward, and, rolling easily on her groundgear, swung left and lunged toward the swooping mob of Orconites.
Handling that space flier in the cavern was like trying to navigate aone-hundred-thousand-ton freighter in a pond. But Captain Crane didit--she whom I had once accused, to myself, of misnavigating andwrecking our other ship. The Orconites had formed themselves in a densegroup. We went into them, mowed them down, stopped under the great archwhich led to the inky black power rooms, backed up, and, as thescreaming lines reformed, crunched terrifically into them again.
By this time I saw in the corridor leading to our old ship, where thedarkness was only partially broken by our lights, a dark-headed grinningman 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 wasperformed. Again the cruiser backed up and swung around. We headedtoward Koto, straight toward him.
* * * * *
There still were droves of Orconites to contend with. Flocks of them hadtaken to their wings, and were filling the whole upper reaches of thecavern, now that a juggernaut had the floor. They had spied Koto andwere swooping toward him. But they could not seize him without coming tothe floor, and they could not come to the floor without contending withthe 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 railwith 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. Igave a heave, and landed him on the steps as neatly as a fisherman evernetted a trout.
"All clear!" I screamed up the gangway.
It was not until we were on the deck, and the cruiser was glidingmagnificently forward toward the shaft which led outside to space andlight, 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 shutand jammed huge catches, battening it down for our flight through space.
"Get out as fast as you can!" LeConte panted on, speaking now to CaptainCrane as she headed us gently into the tunnel. "The kotomite's due to gooff 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 fiveseconds, we had not only taken off, but had worked up a formidablespeed. We barely felt the explosion when it came. But on the instrumentboard in front of Virginia Crane, gleamed a little box with aground-glass top, and in that we saw, as by a magic, what happened onOrcon.
First the mountains which topped the subterranean power houses werelifted off. Then the whole planet rocked. Finally the caverns wereinundated by the deluge of the sea which, in the beginning, had sonearly swallowed us.
Orcon was not destroyed, but we knew even then that such of itsinhabitants as might remain alive would not soon again dream of makingan attack upon Earth.
On the way back, as Earth took form and grew round in the interminablereaches of space ahead of us, I got on well with Captain Crane. Itstarted when she asked me if I were still so cocksure that woman had noplace in the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol, and I was forced to answer thatI 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. Thesnapshot was published in that afternoon's tabloids under the caption:Betrothed.
Transcriber's Note:
This e-text was produced from Astounding Stories January 1932. Extensiveresearch did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on thispublication was renewed.
The Winged Men of Orcon: A Complete Novelette Page 5