owners. Gunner Welk had broken jail after a brawl on Mercury.
The three fugitive friends had foregathered, and thus had been born the three Planeteers. They had performed one daring exploit after another. Each time, their exploits seemed mere criminal raids or robberies. Yet each time, their real purpose had been the securing of information as to the purposes and plans of the hostile, threatening League of Cold Worlds.
Now, the Three Planeteers were the most famous outlaws in the system. Three lone wolves of the void, extravagantly admired by all criminals and pirates, bitterly condemned by all law-abiding men. Only one man — the Chairman of the Earth Government — knew that the notorious Planeteers were really undercover spies.
Now that man, Richard Hoskins, faced the three comrades with gladness in his eyes. His powerful face, deeply lined by strain of responsibility, quivered with emotion.
'Thank God, you're here!” he repeated. “It's been days since I sent out that call to you on the secret audio- wave. I was beginning to fear something had happened to you.'
'We were almost picked up by the Earth Police tonight, sir,” John Thorn said quietly. “I was recognized.'
The Chairman hastily closed the metal shutter of the window. There was a look of deep anxiety in his haggard eyes.
'Thorn, I knew I was summoning you three into danger when I called you here. But I had to do it, for I've something to tell you which I dared not trust even to the secret wave. Something upon which the fate of the whole Inner Alliance may depend!
'But first, what can you report?” the Chairman asked tensely. “The League is still preparing to attack us?'
Thorn nodded tightly. “Yes, sir. Every dock and arsenal from Jupiter to Neptune is humming with activity. The League will have at least ten thousand cruisers ready in a few weeks, the story goes. They're working their mining bases out on Pluto at full capacity, digging fuel ores. And there's a rumor that they've planned some new and terrible agent of destruction with which they will blast our worlds into submission, after they've smashed our fleet!
'Furthermore,” Thorn added, “the League dictator, Haskell Trask, is constantly broadcasting inflammatory speeches to his four worlds. He's stirring up their war fever to frenzy, telling them that since the worlds of the Inner Alliance refuse to cede any territory, it must be taken from them by force.'
Chairman Hoskins nodded somberly. “I've heard Trask's broadcast speeches. It's that cursed power-lusting dictator who's driving the system toward war. If we'd only recognized sooner what a menace he is, we wouldn't have let the League get so far ahead of us in armaments. As it is, when their attack comes, they'll outnumber our combined navies by two to one. They'll overwhelm our fleet, unless—'
'Unless what, sir?” Thorn asked tensely.
'Unless we can use a new weapon we have,” the Chairman finished. “A weapon such as the system never heard of before.'
He paced the little study for a few moments, and then turned back to the rigidly watching Planeteers.
'You've heard of Philip Blaine, our famous Earth physicist?” he asked.
Sual Av's bald head bobbed. “I have, sir. He disappeared, a year ago. No one knows where he is now.'
'Blaine,” said the Chairman, “is in Earth's moon. For a year, he's been working in secret laboratories in the lunar caverns. He's developed a radical, revolutionary new weapon. I dare not tell even you the nature of that weapon. But it will enable us to defeat an overpowering attack of the League fleet-if we can use it!'
'If we can use it, sir?” puzzled Gunner Welk.
'Yes. For Blaine's weapon is useless, as it stands now. To operate the thing requires concentrated power of incredible volume. Atomic energy from ordinary fuels is insufficient. The only fuel that will furnish enough atomic energy to operate this thing is radite, that rare isotope of radium. To make use of Blaine's great weapon, we must have a ton of pure radite.'
'A ton of pure radite?” exclaimed Thorn incredulously. “Why, not one of the eight worlds has more than a few pounds of the stuff! It takes thousands of tons of ore to yield an ounce!'
'There is a ton of pure radite in the system,” the Chairman affirmed. “But it's not on any of the eight inhabited worlds.'
'It can't be on Pluto, surely,” protested Sual Av. “The League mining bases there would have found it long ago.
'It's farther than Pluto,” the Chairman said.
John Thorn stared. “You mean, it's on Erebus?'
The Chairman nodded slowly. “Yes, it's on Erebus, the tenth and outermost planet, that mysterious, unexplored world that swings out there in space a billion miles beyond even Pluto's orbit.'
'How can anyone know the radite's there?” Gunner Welk demanded unbelievingly. “Why, no one knows what's on Erebus! Not one of the expeditions that sailed for that planet ever came back. For centuries, no one has even tried to explore that mystery world!'
'Years ago,” the Chairman said “astronomers detected the presence of a mass of pure radite on Erebus, through their spectroscopes. Supervaluable as radite is, no one has tried to go after it, for all know it's suicide to try to visit Erebus.'
The Chairman's lined face quivered.
'But now we've got to have that radite! It alone will operate Blaine's new secret weapon. It alone will enable us to resist the League's attack, and preserve the liberty of these four inner worlds.'
He looked at the three comrades solemnly. “We have sent five big secret expeditions to Erebus during the last year, in desperate hope of getting, the radite. Not one ship, not one man, not one message has ever come back from them. The sinister mystery there swallowed them up, as it has swallowed all who tried to visit Erebus.
'Now I am calling on you Planeteers. If anybody in the system can reach Erebus and bring back the radite, you can. The chances are a thousand to one you'll perish there as mysterious air hives — all other would-be explorers of that world. But that thousandth chance that you might succeed and bring back the radite, is the last chance of the Alliance worlds to preserve their liberty—'
'We'll go, sir, of course!” Gunner Welk exclaimed instantly. “Hell, whatever's on Erebus, it can't stop us!'
Sual-Av scratched his baldhead. “I wonder what is really there? Anyway, if human men can bring that radite back—'
'Wait a minute!” Thorn exclaimed, his lean brown face suddenly eager. He turned to the Chairman. “You said nobody had ever landed on Erebus and returned, sir. But one man did land there and come back. Martin Cain, the great space pirate of, a generation ago.'
The Chairman nodded. “Yes, I remember the story now. Cain is supposed to have made for Erebus alone in a lifeboat when his ship was gunned to a wreck outside Pluto's orbit. They say he spent two weeks there and returned safely, the only man ever to do so.'
'Martin Cain,” Thorn pointed out tensely, “must have discovered the secret of how to land safely on Erebus. If we knew that secret, we could land there safely and lift the radite!'
'But Cain has been dead for years,” the Chairman reminded. “And he never told anyone what was on Erebus, they say.'
'He told one person the secret of Erebus, if what I've heard in the underworld is true,” John Thorn persisted. “His daughter, Lana Cain.'
The Chairman stared. “Lana Cain, the girl who's leader of the space pirates out in the Zone? The girl they call the pirate princess?'
'That's right.” Thorn said tautly. “They say that Martin Cain, her father, before he died told her the secret of how to visit Erebus safely, so she could take refuge there if ever she had to. She's never told anyone the secret. But she knows it!'
Sual Av's green eyes glistened. “If we could get that secret from Lana Cain—'
'That's my idea!” Thorn exclaimed. “If we three go straight to Erebus to get the radite, the chances are a thousand to one as you say that we'll simply meet the same mysterious fate as all other explorers, and never come back. Our lives don't matter, of course, but the Alliance wouldn't get that precious radite.
'Our only real chance, as I see it, is to make first for the Zone, and get this girl Lana Cain's knowledge of Erebus, by trickery or force. With that knowledge, we can go on to Erebus and have a fighting chance of winning through and bringing back the radite.'
