The Three Planeteers

behind.'

'It's all my fault,” Thorn said bitterly.

Lana Cain was looking at Thorn. The girl's face was white and stunned, her blue eyes wide and unbelieving. Then as her gaze swung from Thorn's face to the rifled papers on the floor, her expression changed to one of flaming wrath.

'It's true, then,” she whispered throbbingly to Thorn. “You are a traitor to the Companions, a paltry thief trying to steal my secrets. And I know. what you were after!” she flared. “The secret of Erebus. Because I wouldn't tell it to you, you slipped in here, trying to steal it.'

'Lana, listen—” Thorn began with desperate earnestness.

Lana cut him off with a stinging slap across the face. The space dog Ool jumped forward, great eyes blazing.

'All the time you were listening to my plans, pretending sympathy, you were only thinking of how you could get that secret from me!” flamed Lana. “I wouldn't tell it to you, because I didn't want you or anybody else to go to that terrible world. I almost wish now that I'd told you, that I'd let you go blundering out to Erebus to meet the horrible fate you'd meet there!'

'What are we waiting for? Why don't we blast these dogs down now?” demanded Brun Abo, the scarred- faced Jovian.

A fierce growl of approval of the suggestion went up from the other pirate captains. Even old Stilicho Keene was looking at Thorn and his two comrades with accusation in his face.

'Boy, I never thought you Planeteers would do a thing like this,” said the old pirate dismally.

Thorn was thinking with desperate rapidity. Should he tell Lana the truth, that they Planeteers were, agents of Earth who only sought the Erebus secret to get the radite that would save the Alliance?

He saw that it would gain nothing to tell. It would make no difference to the girl, who was so bitter against Earth she would do nothing to help that world. And it would give away the great secret that the Alliance had a weapon with which it might be able to resist the League attack.

'Lana, listen to me,” Thorn said rapidly. “I'm not denying that we Planeteers came here seeking the secret of Erebus. We have a vital reason for wanting it, and when you wouldn't tell it, I had to try to steal it. I admit all that.

'But I want to warn you that there's someone else here, someone right here in this room now, if I'm right, who means to get that secret and use it to take millions of lives. You can save all those lives by giving us the secret and letting us go!'

'You pile one lie on another!” blazed Lana. “You try to cover your own guilt by accusing innocent men!'

'Let's take them out and blast them down now!” cried Brun Abo,

'It's the penalty for treachery among the Companions,” old Stilicho said miserably. “I guess we got to do it.'

Lana Cain paled a little. She shook her head.

'No, we'll not kill them now,” she said. “Put them in the brig until morning.'

'And why shouldn't we kill them now?” demanded Brun Abo of her. “Is it possible you've a tenderness for this Thorn?'

The girl turned on the Jovian, as though stung,

'I've only hate for such treacherous liars!” she flared. “But we're going to execute them, not murder them. In the morning is soon enough.'

Surprisingly, Jenk Cheerly supported her.

'Lana's right,” the Uranian squeaked and the girl glanced gratefully at him.

Thorn tried to speak again, but Brun Abo snarled an order, and the four pirates covering the Planeteers forced the three comrades to march out of the Council House into the night.

The brig, as the pirates called their prison, was a small, square, metal structure behind the main street of Turkoon Town. It had but one room, into whose dark interior they were rudely thrust. The heavy metal door slammed, and the wave-lock clicked.

'Make the best of your time till morning, Planeteers,” rasped Brun Abo as he and his men left.

'John, they didn't leave any guards outside,” said Sual Av quickly in the darkness. “Maybe we can get out.'

They rapidly inspected their prison. But Thorn found that there was no chance whatever of escape from it.

The building was wholly constructed of inertrum, most intractable of metals. The two tiny, barred windows were mere loopholes, and the wave-lock of the door could only be operated by the secret frequencies of its wave- key applied from the outside.

'There's no getting out of here,' grunted Gunner Welk. “Damn that fat Jenk Cheerly! It was he who suspected you were up to something, John, and followed you with Kinnel King—'

'Either Cheerly or Brun Abo must be the League spy here!” Sual Av declared tensely. “And it looks to me as though Cheerly is the man. He only joined the pirates recently, and it was he who tipped them off about the Jovian freighters, the League trap that, nearly succeeded in capturing Lana.'

'What the devil are we going to do?” demanded the big Mercurian. “We can't break out of this place and we're due to be blasted at dawn.'

'There's only one chance left us,” Thorn rapped. “When they take us out in the morning, we'll make a break and try to seize Lana. I don't think the pirates would take a chance of hurting her by firing at us then. We might get away with her.'

Gunner Welk's rumbling voice came slowly, “But the girl might get hurt in the fight, John. I thought you were sort of in love with her.'

'Yes,” added Sual Av. “and it looked to me as though she was beginning to feel the same way about you.'

'Are you two space-struck to say such things?” Thorn demanded fiercely. “Me, in love with that wild pirate girl?'

Then his voice wavered a little. “Even if I did love her, I'd have to forget it. For we have to get that secret out of her somehow, if the Alliance is to have a chance. That is bigger and more important than everybody in the entire zone.'

'All right, we'll try it,” rumbled Gunner Welk. “It looks like our last bet.'

* * *

Presently Gunner Welk and Sual Av were sleeping on the floor calmly oblivious to whatever fate the dawn might bring.

But John Thorn could not sleep. Restlessly, he paced the darkness of the little metal room. In his mind queerly persisted the image of Lana's white, stunned face and accusing eyes. He tried to drive that reproachful face from his thoughts and couldn't.

White mists from the jungles had seeped into Turkoon Town as the night advanced, a cold fog that nipped the bones.

A little wind moaned through the dark, sleeping pirate stronghold, and at intervals came raucous calls of weird life teeming in the fern-forest.

Thorn heard a ship blasting off from the distant field, the thudding thunder of its tubes rapidly dying away. He wondered broodingly if ever he and his two comrades would see space again.

Or was the coming dawn to end forever the career of the Planeteers?

Hours dragged past, and finally a faint dawn light began to illumine the swirling gray mists outside. Suddenly through the fog came a wild, distant cry. It was echoed in a minute by raw shouts in other voices.

Thorn leaped to the little window, but could see nothing through the mists. He heard his comrades scrambling up,

'What's happened?” exclaimed Sual Av, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

'I don't know!” Thorn cried. “But something's wrong.'

He could hear a babel of raging shouts and calls crackling like flame through Turkoon Town, waking everyone. And men were running through the clearing mists toward the field of ships.

'Stilicho!” yelled Thorn through the window as he glimpsed the old Martian pirate running painfully along the