The Three Planeteers

turned.

'Instruments are operating again!” he reported. “But our audio was permanently wrecked by the radiation of Erebus.'

'Lay a course straight for Saturn,” Thorn ordered Stilicho. “Cheerly will be making straight for that world, and we'll be following him directly.'

Gunner Welk grunted.

'And if we catch up to him,” he gritted, “I've got plans for what I'll do to that Uranian.'

'Shall I cut some of the tubes now?” the old pirate asked nervously. “We're shaking now like we're fit to come apart.'

'No! Leave all stern tubes on for utmost acceleration!” Thorn rapped, his haggard, worn, brown face stiff with desperate determination. ‘We'll either wreck this ship by back-blasting, or we'll overtake Cheerly — one of the two!'

Lana came silently to Thorn's side, looked up at him with a deep anxiety in her blue eyes.

'John, you must sleep a little,” she begged. “For days you've been toiling and worrying. You'll collapse unless you rest.'

'Rest? How can I rest when the radite we've come through hell to get is millions of miles ahead of us!” Thorn said rawly.

* * *

As the next hours passed, the rocket-tubes of the Venture continued to roar unceasingly, the ship quivering and creaking sickeningly. Their speed was mounting to momentous heights — already they were traveling faster than the fastest ship in the system's history.

And still the stern tubes roared, the Venture's velocity accelerated. Erebus faded to a dim speck behind them, vanished. The sun-star was brighter and bigger ahead, and the yellow spark of Saturn was largening dead, ahead.

Time passed, slow, tense hours that dragged into a full day, and then another. The exhausted Planeteers and pirates took turns sleeping and watching. They could not know how fast they were traveling now — the instruments were not calibrated for such tremendous velocity — but knew their speed must be an appalling one.

They neared the orbit of Uranus, and by now Saturn presented a perceptible disk ahead. Thorn haggardly watched the little glowing sphere of the aura-chart.

'Cheerly's ship can't be far ahead of us now,” he estimated. “The highest speed the Gargol could attain would bring it about this far by now.'

Lana stood with her gold head by his shoulder, watching as tensely as he.

'There, John!” she cried in a moment, pointing.

In the fore of the aura-chart a red speck had appeared, a ship a million miles ahead of the Venture.

'That's the Gargol—it must be!” Thorn cried. “Cut the stern tubes, Gunner!'

Gunner Welk, standing turn at the firing-keys, obeyed instantly. But the aura-chart showed they were still rushing after their quarry with such speed that they would flash past it. Thorn ordered the bow-tubes fired for the purpose of slowing them down.

As the ship rocked and quivered to the blasting brake-thrust of the tubes, Sual Av came up into the control- room, sleepily rubbing his eyes. Old Stilicho's anxious face was behind him.

'We'll come up to Cheerly soon,” Thorn rapped. “That means a fight. He'll never give up that radite willingly.'

'The Gargol has heavier batteries than we do, and a bigger crew,” reminded Stilicho Keene.

'But we can outmaneuver them!” Lana said. She cried into the interphone to the pirate crew, “On suits and prepare for action, men!'

'Go down and take command of our batteries, Gunner,” Thorn ordered. “I'll take the controls. Suits on, everyone!'

In a few moments Thorn, in his space-suit now like the others, was poised over the firing-keys. Sual Av tautly watched the aura-chart, while Lana and old Stilicho peered ahead.

'We're close,” muttered the Venusian, his eyes on the chart.

'There's the Gargol!' Lana cried suddenly, pointing ahead through the glassite window. “And they've spotted us!'

Thorn saw the Saturnian cruiser in the black, starry vault ahead-a long torpedo-like shape pluming white fire from its rocket-tubes as it put on all possible speed to escape. Jenk Cheerly obviously had no desire to risk battle.

But the Venture, imbued with its unprecedented potential speed, swiftly came up on the tail of the naval cruiser. Now atom-shells began to burst in blinding flares near Thorn's ship as the Gargol cut loose with its stern guns.

'I'm going to run up under their keel!” Thorn called into the inter-phone. “Try to score a hit on their stern tubes, Gunner!'

The Gargol veered around suddenly ahead, to bring its broadside batteries into play. The heavily-gunned cruiser loosed a brief hail of shells in the direction of the Venture.

But the pirate ship shot clear like lightning as Thorn smashed down a key. Swiftly, it veered after the Saturnian ship, seeking to run beneath its keel.

The Gargol rolled, to keep presenting its guns toward its enemy. For a brief moment the two ships rushed side by side through space, their rocket-tubes flaming and their guns pouring shell at each other.

Whizzing white flares of energy burst around the Venture, and it rocked wildly as it was hit. Red lights flashed on the panel before Thorn, warning that two keel compartments had been holed.

But Gunner's pirates were not idle. They were concentrating all their fire upon the Gargol's stern, hoping to wreck its tubes and completely disable the cruiser. The Saturnian ship volleyed upward through space in a sharp veering turn to escape that fire.

'We didn't get ‘em!” Stilicho muttered. “But they'll get us if we come too close quarters again. Their guns and inertrum armor are too heavy for us!'

'We're closing in again!” Thorn exclaimed, his black eyes blazing now. He called down to Gunner, “Stand ready! And get those stern-tubes!'

Like two fighting hawks of space, locked in a death combat out here in the lonely immensity of starry space, the two ships maneuvered. Then again, using his superior speed, Thorn drove the Venture in close against the Saturnian ship.

Guns of the Gargol vomited shell that blinded Thorn as they broke around the Venture. He clung with wild recklessness to the side of the enemy, as Gunner's batteries let go.

'They're hit!” Lana cried, her blue eyes blazing with electric excitement.

The Gargol's clustered stern rocket-tubes had, been struck by a salvo of atom- shells that had blasted the tubes into a fused, horribly twisted mass of inertrum.

They saw the Saturnian cruiser rock wildly as the fused rocket-tubes backblasted. An instant later, they saw a vastly greater explosion rip out the whole stern wall of the Gargol, blowing mangled men and twisted metal into space.

'Their tubes back-blasted into the power-chambers, and the chambers themselves let go!” cried Sual Av, momentarily aghast. “It must have killed almost everyone aboard!'

'We're going aboard the wreck!” John Thorn exclaimed. “Take over, Stilicho, and run us alongside.'

The old pirate brought the Venture quickly alongside the silent, drifting wreck. Magnetic grapples hooked on, and then the Planeteers and Lana and a dozen pirates donned space-suits and clambered through the great hole that had been torn in the stern of the Saturnian ship.

The interior of the Gargol was a scene of utter devastation. The terrific violence of the explosion had bent solid inertrum like tin, had slain most of the crew outright. A few space-suited Saturnians