The Three Planeteers

with Nison and the Martian helping, the Planeteers forced, the radiant men back off the ledge. They gathered below, howling with fury.

Thorn turned quickly. Lana was stumbling to her feet from the back of the ledge.

'John, Cheerly's gone!” she cried. “While you were fighting, he and his remaining man slipped away along the ledge with the sledge of radite! They struck me down—'

Thorn whirled, wild with rage and apprehension. The cunning Uranian, seizing the opportunity when the Planeteers were engaged in the wild melee, had with his remaining follower stolen away with the radite. They could, be seen now in the distance, hurrying along the shelf by which the Planeteers had come to the ledge.

'After them!” Thorn cried.

They rushed back along the shelf, Nison and Chan Gray following joining in pursuit of the two fugitives. Rapidly they gained on the two fugitives who were encumbered with the sledge.

They saw Cheerly and his follower round a narrow place in the shelf ahead. As they rushed after them, atomic shells burst ahead and a mass of the shimmering cliff was dislodged by the flare of energy and fell in an avalanche across the shelf. It blocked the narrow way completely, halting the Planeteers.

'Cheerly used their pistols to cause that rock-fall!” Sual Av cried furiously.

'Down to the floor of the chasm! We'll follow that way and beat them back to the ship!” Thorn shouted.

'We can't!” the Venusian cried. “Look, that mob has followed us!'

The maddened crowd of radioactive men below, seeing the Planeteers’ party moving away along the narrow ledge, had followed along the floor of the chasm. They were gathered now below, preparing to climb up in furious attack once more.

'We're trapped!” Gunner Welk yelled. “We can't go further along the ledge and we can't go down through that crazy mob!'

Already the crazed radioactive men were climbing up to the ledge. Lana uttered a hopeless cry.

Thorn swept her behind him, and he and his comrades and their two glowing friends sprang to repel the assault of the shining horde. With rocks, with their fists, with their clubbed atom-pistols, they beat back their insensate attackers.

But again and again the radioactive men came up at them. Time was dragging past. Thorn felt as though he were struggling in an endless nightmare of horror and despair.

The radioactive attackers had limbs broken, bodies crushed in many places — yet still they came on. The flame of strange energy and life that throbbed in every atom of their bodies could not be extinguished or dimmed by any bodily harm.

As the glowing men below gathered for another charge up the rock wall,

Clymer Nison spoke to the exhausted, staggering Planeteers.

'I may be able to turn them,” said the space-pioneer. “It is a chance to stop Cheerly..'

Thorn saw Nison step to the edge of the ledge and speak to the radioactive horde gathering again below. “There is no use in attacking us any longer!” Nison cried to them. “We do not have the radite. Those who took it from the niche have fled with it, and are escaping!'

A chorus of insanely raging yells answered him, as the half-crazy horde started forward to climb again to the attack. But a huge Jovian among the glowing horde held back his companions.

'Clymer Nison speaks truth!” he shouted. “See, the radite is gone from the ledge and so are some of the men. We must scatter and search for the thieves!'

'Scatter and search!” went up the husky, furious shout from the radioactive mob.

They began to split up, starting along the chasm in both directions, searching carefully for Cheerly and the radite,

'By heaven, Nison, your idea worked!” panted John Thorn. “Quick, now — we've got to get back to the meteorite-mountain. That's where Cheerly will have headed with the radite.'

'There's nothing for us to fear, since Stilicho and his men hold Cheerly's ship and crew prisoner,” Sual Av gasped.

'Cheerly must know something has happened to his ship,” Thorn retorted. “That Uranian is a devil for cleverness.'

Thorn helped Lana as they scrambled down the rook wall, to the floor of the chasm.

And as they started at a trot back eastward, he half-supported, half-carried the staggering girl.

* * *

Their two radioactive allies, Nison and the Martian, led the way out of the barren mountains. They saw none of the glowing horde, which had split in all directions to search furiously for the takers of the radite.

Lana, suffering from exhaustion and nervous reaction, could hardly walk. Yet she trudged valiantly with the last of her strength as they hastened over the dim desert.

'John, if we get the radite away from Cheerly now, will it be in time to save the Alliance?” she panted.

'Yes. Haskell Trask will not launch his attack until he hears from Cheerly that the radite has been secured,” Thorn told her. “If we get the stuff back to Earth's moon, and if Philip Blaine's weapon really works!'

He stopped, that goading doubt torturing his mind, that chilling, unvoiced fear that Blaine's mysterious invention might prove a failure.

The huge black top of the domed meteorite-mountain loomed slowly out of the shimmering blue mists, bulking darkly against the starry sky. They pressed toward its base, and were starting to climb up its rough asterium side, when a sound reached their ears. The roar of a ship's rockets tubes!

'Look!” Sual Av yelled frantically, pointing upward. ‘The Gargol.'

The Saturnian cruiser was blasting off, rising from where it had been parked beside the Venture, with a reverberating roar of tubes. It shot up at dizzying speed, and disappeared in the dark

'God, Cheerly has got away in it, somehow,” Gunner cried hoarsely.

They scrambled frantically on up the mountain, driven by overmastering fear. When they came to where the Venture lay, they stopped, aghast.

A fight had taken place here. A half-dozen space-suited pirates lay in a scorched, dead heap. Other men in suits were running out from the Venture.

Out of that little crowd sprang a gray beast with blazing green eyes, that limped on a scorched leg as it bounded frantically toward Lana and nuzzled against her. After the space dog came Stilicho Keene, his wrinkled face recognizable through his glassite helmet.

'You brought the lass back!” he cried, joy lighting his faded eyes. Then as his face fell on the glowing forms of Clymer Nison and Chan Ora he gasped, “But who—'

'What happened here? Who was in the Gargol when it took off?” Thorn cried fiercely.

'Cheerly — and that there radite!” groaned the old pirate. “He fooled us, neat. He and his man came up here a half-hour ago, dragging the radite on their sledge. They were wearing suits like yours, ray-proofed and with even the helmets coated, so we couldn't see their faces plain enough. And Cheerly imitated your voice so that I thought he was you, John Thorn!

'He said that he and Sual Av had brought the radite back, and that Gunner was following with Lana. We never suspected him, he imitated your voice so well, and we couldn't even recognize his fat figure in that shapeless suit. He took the radite into the Gargol, saying we'd use the Saturnian ship to return to Earth in. He even went into the Venture for a few minutes, I suppose to see if you'd any papers or secrets worth stealing.'

He fell silent.

'Go on, man!” Thorn cried. “How did he get away with the Gargol, when you had its crew under guard?'

'He did it easy,” groaned the old man. “He and his man, posing as you and Sual Av, went into the Gargol. We didn't follow, never suspecting. And Cheerly and his man blasted down our guards in there, set free his Saturnian crew, and took off, with a blast of their guns that killed six of our men!'

'And now he's on his way back to Saturn with the radite!” Gunner cried. “We've got to catch him!'

'We'll catch him. The Venture can overhaul him!” Thorn cried. “Into the ship, all of you! We're blasting off!'