Chapter 4: 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.