_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.