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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.
"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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!"
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