The Three Planeteers

They tumbled into the Venture, leaving the two radioactive men standing staring. Inside the craft, its doors closed, the Planeteers and Lana and Stilicho climbed to the control-room. The old pirate yelled urgently into the interphone.

'Power chambers on!” he ordered.

They heard the clash of the injectors below, and then the rising roar of the power chambers.

A terrific explosion shook the ship next moment. They were all thrown from their feet, and heard cries of pain and terror from below.

'Good God, something's let go!” Gunner yelled,

Thorn led as they hastily climbed down to the stern compartment that housed the four big power- chambers.

The compartment was a wreck. The power-chambers had exploded with frightful force, killing three pirate engineers.

'That damned Cheerly must have done this when he came into the Venture!' a wounded, staggering engineer gasped. “The power-chamber safety was jammed— deliberately jammed!'

'Cheerly's won again, curse him!” Gunner yelled wildly. “It'll take us days to rebuild these power-chambers, if we can do it at all. And by that time he'll be half-way back to Saturn!'

CHAPTER XX At Uranus’ Orbit

The cruel stars above Erebus looked down upon a scene of strange activity. Out of the dimly shining deserts of that terrible world, out of the shimmering blue hazes that perpetually wrapped its surface, rose the huge black bulk of a rounded metal mountain. And on the top of that mountain, space-suited men who staggered from days of frantic labor were now nearing the end of their toil,

The Venture was being made ready for blast-off. New power-chambers had been built into the ship in the days that had passed. Lacking in inertrum with which to build the new chambers, John Thorn had used the metal of the mountain, the black asterium which was fully as strong as inertrum itself. With atomic furnaces and atomic welding-torches, the Planeteers and Stilicho's pirates had labored almost unceasingly to construct the new chambers. Lana Cain's order had been enough to make the pirates obey Thorn utterly.

Thorn had been torn with almost unbearable apprehension in these days of terrible toil. Each day, each hour, meant that Jenk Cheerly was millions of miles farther toward Saturn with the radite. No one of them all, except Thorn himself, believed there was the slightest chance to overtake the spymaster now,

Gunner Welk and Sual Av, reeling with fatigue, stumbled up to where Thorn was superintending the last preparations.

'All ready, as far as I can see,” Gunner said hoarsely.

Stilicho Keene and Lana came up anxiously as he spoke.

'Boy, are ye crazy to think that you can overtake the Gargol when it's got days’ start of us?” averred Stilicho.

'We'll overtake them,” Thorn said fiercely. “We've got to!'

'But to do it, we'd have to travel three times as fast as any spaceship ever traveled before!” Stilicho exclaimed.

'That's what we're going to do!” Thorn clipped.

They stared at him, as though they believed his mind had been strained by the days of superhuman toil and anxiety.

'We're going to use radioactive matter for fuel in our power-chambers!” Thorn explained. “It will yield several times as much power as ordinary metallic fuel. We can get up to a speed no ship has ever attained before!'

'But no one's ever dared use radioactive fuel before,” Lana whispered, stunned. “It would crumble any power-chamber it was used in.'

'You forget we've got asterium power-chambers in the Venture now!'

Thorn cried. “And asterium is proof against radioactivity. The daring originality of Thorn's plan burst upon the others, taking their breath away.

'By heaven, it may work!” Gunner exclaimed excitedly. “If the power doesn't make our rocket-tubes back- blast.'

'We'll have to take that chance;” John Thorn said harshly. He turned. “Here come Clymer Nison and Chan Gray now. They volunteered to bring the radioactive fuel we'll need.'

The two glowing figures of the radioactive men were coming up onto the top of the metal mountain, dragging after them the asterium sledge. Upon the sledge, in a rudely forged asterium box, was a great mass of shining mineral.

Thorn's quick orders superintended the pirate engineers as they carried the asterium box of minerals into the Venture, and prepared it for use, then Thorn turned to the two radiant radioactive men.

'We're ready to start,” he told Clymer Nison haggardly. “We want you to come back with us, to Earth,'

Nison shook his shining head, sadly. “That cannot be. We would be death to you. The radiation from our bodies would slay you, in time, and would disintegrate your ship.'

'But you can't stay here, wandering this hellish world forever!” Thorn cried. “You, one of the greatest of men in the system's history, you whom Earth would welcome with joy.'

Clymer Nison's haunted, shining eyes looked past them, far away into tragic memory.

'To Earth I am dead, now,” he said slowly. “And the Earth I knew nine centuries ago, is dead, too. It must remain that way. But one thing you can do for us.'

'Anything you mean!” Thorn exclaimed.

'You can give us poor damned souls upon this world, us radioactive men, the boon of real death,” Nison said.

'If scientists of Earth came here with the needed mechanisms, they could end the game of unhuman life within us by using forces to transmute the radioactive atoms of our bodies into pure energy, dissipating our atomic structure, our life and consciousness, forever. That is the greatest gift you could give us — the peace of death.'

Thorn felt a hard lump in his throat. It was moments before he could answer,

'It shall be done,” he choked. “A party of scientists will be sent here to do what you ask.'

He turned toward the awe-stricken group behind him who were staring in deep silence at the tragic, glowing men.

'We must start,” Thorn said unsteadily. ‘Into the ship!'

Inside the Venture, the Planeteers climbed again with Lana and Stilicho to the control-room, while the door was ground shut. They removed their space-suits, and then Stilicho nervously gave the order into the interphone.

'Power-chambers on!'

All stiffened, as from below came the soft, rising roar of the chambers, growing rapidly to a thunderous throbbing that shook the whole fabric of the cruiser. The radioactive fuel, being broken down in the power chambers, was yielding such unprecedented torrents of energy as to threaten a new explosion.

'Blast off!” Thorn told the old pirate.

Stilicho's thin hands descended on the firing-keys. With a raving roar of released titanic energy, a spuming plume of fire from their rocket-tubes, the Venture shot skyward.

Up from the domed metal mountain, up from the shimmering blue hazes of Erebus, the cruiser arrowed; picking up speed with appalling acceleration. Air screamed briefly outside, then faded away.

Night black space, starred with the bright yellow speck of the far-distant sun, lay ahead. Rocketing faster and faster, shuddering and creaking to the thrust of its tubes, the Venture flashed on,

Sual Av was hanging tensely over the instrument panel, and the Venusian's green eyes flashed at he