The Winged Men of Orcon

The Winged Men of Orcon, by
David R. Sparks

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Winged Men of Orcon, by David
R. Sparks This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Winged Men of Orcon A Complete Novelette
Author: David R. Sparks
Release Date: July 30, 2007 [EBook #22176]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
WINGED MEN OF ORCON ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Jana Srna and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration]
The Winged Men of Orcon

A Complete Novelette
By David R. Sparks
Far out at the edge of the Universe two scientists play a game of
wits--Earth to the winner.
CHAPTER I
The Wrecked Space-Ship
When I came to, it was dark; so dark that the night seemed all but fluid
with black pigment. Breathing was difficult, but in spite of that,
however, I felt exhilarated mentally. Also I felt strong, stronger than I
ever had in my life before. I tried to raise my hands, and found that I
was handcuffed.
I lay sprawled out on a sharply canted floor of metal, and from outside
the house, or whatever it was I was in, I could hear the screeching and
howling of the wind. I touched my face with my fettered hands, and the
act gave me a feeling of comfort, for the scar on my cheek was still
there and I knew that I was myself.
[Illustration: A flash of blue light played about our ship.]
Twisting around, I sat up, and with great difficulty drew a lighter from
my trousers pocket. The flame glimmered up. I knew then that I was
lying in the control room of a great flying machine!
All about me I saw crumpled human forms clad in glistening gray
flying jumpers. It was very, very hot. I thought I caught the sound of
waves crashing on a shore. Through a broken port blustered a hot wind
laden with an odd odor suggestive of garlic and kelp. It was just as dark
outside as in. I stirred about a bit, and found that I was in good shape
except for the handcuffs.
A low moan came from behind a bulkhead door at one end of the
control room. I listened, and again the sound was repeated. With the

lighter still flickering in my hands, I got to my feet. The bulkhead door
was jammed, but I found a heavy telargeium spanner-wrench on the
floor, and with a strength which frightened me--a strength which could
have come only by some upset condition of gravitation--I soon crashed
the door open. I had no sooner done it, however, than I forgot about the
moan which had fetched me.
* * * * *
What I saw first, hanging on a hook on one wall, was a bunch of keys,
one of which readily opened the lock of my handcuffs. Then there was
a long-barrelled, gleaming atomic gun, undamaged, and a couple of the
new cold-ray flashlights. Free, I caught up one of the flashlights, and
placed back on their hook the keys which had opened the cuffs. Then I
stooped over each corpse, and confirmed my first impression that two
of the dead men were strangers to me, but that I half recognized one.
The vaguely familiar man was clad, under his gray jumper, in the
uniform of a rear admiral of the U. S. W. Upper Zone Patrol Division.
He wore a medal of high honor, the Calypsus medal. I knew that he
was Wellington Forbes, the man who had defeated the planet Calypsus
three years before.
Wellington Forbes! And I with him!
I think I may be excused my temporary forgetfulness of the moan
which had brought me to Forbes' death chamber. Uppermost in my
mind was the manner in which I had been brought here. For it was he,
approaching me through the medium of letters and messengers, who
had begged, implored me to help him against Orcon, the eccentric
planet of my own discovery, the planet which belonged to a solar
system at the other end of the Universe from ours. Because of my
knowledge of Orcon, with its bubbling seas, its brooding nightmares,
and lastly, its queer conduct toward Earth, he had wanted to take me
away from my telescopes to fight. And I had refused.
Now I understood how I came to be here.

I knew that this dead man had kidnapped me after drugging me with
one of the new amnesiacs. Yorildiside, I reckoned it. And just because I