The Three Planeteers

As the blasting roar of the rockets died, Sual Av turned from the instrument he had been manipulating.

'The atmosphere checks as air, but loaded with elements I can't identify without analysis,” he reported.

'We'll play safe and wear our spacesuits,” Thorn declared. “Come on!'

They hastened down into the midcompartment of the ship. Stilicho's motley pirate crew were waiting there, all of them looking a little scared by the fact that they had actually landed upon the surface of Erebus.

'We're going over the top of this mountain to find and capture Cheerly's ship, Thom rapped to them. “On suits, everybody! And bring all the dampers we have. There's to be no using of atom-guns unless absolutely necessary, for we don't want to hurt Lana.'

Five minutes later, the big door port of the Venture ground open. Out through the air-lock moved the company of forty men, all in suits and helmets, with John Thorn in the lead.

Thorn noted that they stepped out onto a rough jagged surface of black metal. The whole mountain, it seemed, was of black metal, pocked here and there with deposits of glistening ores. The top of the dome-shaped mass loomed starkly against the dusky, starry sky.

Thorn could not repress a tautening of his nerves. This was Erebus, the forbidden world that had claimed so many explorers’ lives since nine centuries ago. From the curving side of the mountain on which the Venture lay, he could look out westward across the barren deserts, wrapped in mysterious, shimmering blue radiance.

The little party was armed with several of the cylindrical dampers that could put atom-guns out of commission, and with atom-pistols belted outside their space-suits. They started up the side of the metal mountain, trudging against a gravitation that was surprisingly strong for so small a world. The Planeteers and old Stilicho led, and beside them ran the space dog, Ool, his green eyes blazing as though he sensed they were on the same world as Lana Cain.

They reached the top of the domed mountain, and Thorn crouched down with his comrades to reconnoiter. Cheerly’ s ship, a long, many-gunned Saturnian naval cruiser with the name Gargol on its bows, lay only a few hundred yards down the curved rough metal slope. They could see a few men in space-suits outside the ship, digging glistening ores from the deposits that packed the metal mountain,

Sual Av's voice reached Thorn by conduction, as the Planeteers crouched with the old pirate and the space dog.

'They're digging fuel-ores for the return trip,” the Venusian muttered. “They can't have sighted our ship.'

Thorn nodded his glassite helmet tensely. “Here we go,’ he said, rising to his feet and signaling the pirates behind them. “Whatever you do, be careful you don't injure Lana!'

The space-suited attackers swept down the rough curve of the mountain in a silent run toward the Saturnian ship. They were half-way to it before one of the diggers there glimpsed them,

Instantly, the man fired his atom-pistol at them. The little shell struck a man behind Thorn, a pirate who fell as the blinding flare of energy enveloped him. Thorn swung the damper he carried toward the Saturnian who had fired, and killed his weapon. “Quick, men!” Thorn yelled, then remembered that their audios were off, and signaled with his arm.

The little pirate band swept fiercely down the metal slope. Out of the ship, Saturnians in space-suits were pouring and leveling atom-pistols. The dampers carried by Thorn and several of his men deadened many of the weapons, but atom-shells from others flared blindingly among the pirates and felled a half dozen men,

Then Thorn and his followers reached the Saturnians. It became a fierce fight at close quarters, shells of atom-pistols flaring and men falling, under the solemn stars of the darkly. The space dog leaped and tore horribly with his great teeth and talons among the enemy. Thorn swung his heavy cylindrical damper as a great club as he and Gunner and Sual Av fought forward.

The Saturnians, appalled by the fierceness of the pirate attack, scrambled back through the air-lock of the ship.

'After them!” Thorn cried, waving his arm in a fierce forward gesture. “Don't let them get away with the ship.'

Gunner flung the damper he carried, and it jammed the air-lock door. Then Thorn's men were pushing into the ship.

In ten minutes, the fight inside the ship was ended, Taken by surprise, unprepared for an attack, the Saturnian crew had not been able to withstand the rush of Thorn's followers.

A dozen of the Saturnians lying dead, the survivors stood with hands raised in surrender. As soon as the air- lock door was closed and the oxygenerators functioning, Thorn ripped off his helmet and ordered the massed prisoners to take off their helmets also.

As each sullen green Saturnian face emerged to view, Thorn's pulse pounded. But when all the prisoners were unhelmeted, he felt a shock of bitter disappointment. Neither Jenk Cheerly nor Lana were in the ship!

'Where's Cheerly and the girl?” he demanded fiercely of the crestfallen Saturnian cruiser captain.

'Cheerly left here yesterday, taking two men and the pirate girl,” answered the captain sullenly. “They went toward those mountains westward.'

'Cheerly had located the radite there?” Sual Av cried eagerly. The Saturnian nodded sulkily.

'Yes, after we landed our ship here, Cheerly worked with our spectroscopes until he ascertained that the deposit of radite lay somewhere in, those mountains. He took the girl with him because he, believed she knows exactly where it is, though she said she didn't.'

'Then all we have to do is to wait till Cheerly comes back here with the radite, and grab him!” Gunner exclaimed.

'No, we can't do that!” Thorn cried. “Cheerly would bring back the radite, but he wouldn't bring back Lana! We've got to go after him!'

'In our ship?” old Stilicho asked eagerly.

Thorn shook his head. “We daren't. This is the one safe place on Erebus where a ship can land, remember. We'll have to follow on foot, in our space-suits.'

He saw a quick gleam of satisfaction in the sullen eyes of the Saturnian captain. And Thorn's face tightened.

'You will come along with us,” he told the green-faced captain suspiciously.

The Saturnian went livid. “I won't go!” he gasped, all secret satisfaction gone at once, “I won't!'

Thorn seized him by the throat. “Why not?” he harked “What are you afraid of? What is it that makes you glad at the idea of us going on foot to those mountains?'

The Saturnian was silent, helpless rage and fear contending in his face.

'Tell, or I'll make you walk out there by yourself!” Thorn menaced. The threat crumpled the captain's spirit.

'I'll tell!” he gasped. “It means a hideous doom if you venture off this mountain without protection. For all the matter of those deserts and mountains out there, all the matter of Erebus except this single metal mountain, is radioactive matter.

'Erebus is a radioactive world. That's the secret the pirate girl knew, that no one else guessed. A ship that landed anywhere except on this mountain would instantly itself become radioactive by induced radioactivity from the soil on which it landed. The same fate would befall an unprotected man who stepped off this mountain. This metal mountain is the only non-radioactive matter on the whole planet!'

CHAPTER XVII In the Shining Waste

A radioactive world! A world, every atom of which was throbbing with natural or induced radioactivity, constantly emitting streams of deadly radiation, changing slowly and spontaneously through the long ages into different elements farther down the atomic scale! This, then, was the secret of Erebus!

The thing was so stupefying that the Planeteers and old Stilicho and his pirates were silent, stunned. Every man there looked wildly at his neighbor, bewildered by the incredible assertion the Saturnian captain made.