The Winged Men of Orcon | Page 2

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?"
* * * *