hich 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 c