The Three Planeteers

A flame of eager hope leaped into the haggard eyes of the Earth Government executive.

'It's the best plan yet, Thorn! But dare you enter the Zone and seek out this pirate girl? Those corsairs are ferociously hostile and suspicious of all strangers.'

'You forget, sir,” flashed John Thorn, “that we are the Three Planeteers!'

'Yes,” rumbled Gunner Welk, cold blue eyes gleaming. “We have a reputation of our own among the outlaws of the system, sir.'

Sual Av grinned.

'I always did have a hidden longing to be a pirate.'

'Thorn, you give me new hope!” declared the Chairman. “If you can do this, in the little time left us—'

'Listen!” commanded Gunner Welk suddenly.

Through the locked door and metal-shuttered window of the study penetrated a rising tumult, the roar of rocket-cars racing up to the mansion. Then came a rush of running feet through it, and a loud knock on the door.

'Mr. Hoskins!” called a secretary anxiously to the Chairman through the door. “The police are here! They say the Three Planeteers are in the city tonight, and were glimpsed by spy-plates heading toward this mansion. They want to make sure you're safe.'

'The cursed Earth Police!” flared Gunner Welk in a hoarse whisper. “We overlooked some of their spy- plates.'

Thom's eyes were black pinpoints, his brown face taut. He knew the Mercurian was right, that they had been glimpsed by some of the hidden visiplates planted cunningly throughout the metropolis for the benefit of the police.

'I'm all right, Ames!” called the Chairman to his secretary. “Tell the police not to bother me.'

But in the next moment came a loud cry from a police officer outside the shuttered windows.

'The Planeteers are in there with the Chairman!' the man shouted. “Their tracks lead to the window-they must be making him say he's all right!'

'Break down the door!” roared another officer's voice. “Quick, before they kill the Chairman!'

A resounding battering began against the locked door and another banging at the metal shutter that closed the window.

The Chairman looked helplessly at Thorn. “I'll have to tell them the truth, that you Planeteers are really my agents, or they'll haul you off to prison,'

'No!” said John Thorn fiercely. “Once the secret that we're Alliance agents gets out, it would spread swiftly over the whole system. Our chance of getting the secret of Erebus from that pirate girl would be wrecked — our whole plan ruined.'

'But you can't escape from here the Chairman exclaimed. “They're at both window and door!'

'We can escape,” Thorn said swiftly. “But we've got to make it look as though we came here for a criminal purpose. Otherwise, people will ask why the Planeteers came to the Chairman's mansion, and it will be guessed that we're really your agents after all.'

Thorn drew a roll of flexible metal cord from his pocket, and sprang toward the Chairman.

'Forgive me for this, sir,” he cried.

The bewildered Chairman did not resist as Thorn bound his arms and legs tightly. Then the young Earthman straightened.

'Tell them we tried to kidnap you, sir,” he said swiftly to the Chairman. “That we meant to hold you for ransom.'

Gunner Welk stood ready now to open the window shutter. And Sual Av had taken a little metal sphere from his pocket.

'You're right-the light-bomb is our best chance,” Thorn clipped. “Throw it when Gunner opens the window.'

Gunner Welk suddenly flung open the shutter. Before the police hammering outside it could enter, the bald Venusian flung out the tiny sphere. The Planeteers clapped their hands in front of their eyes. The sphere burst out on the terrace amid the pressing group of police. A terrific glare of blazing white light exploded from the bomb. A tiny charge of atoms inside it had been suddenly broken down, not into energy, but into pure radiation in the frequency of light. The awful glare of radiation instantly paralyzed the optic nerves of the unprepared police, temporarily blinding them.

The glare died swiftly. Thorn and his two comrades were already plunging out through the blinded men.

'This way!” Thorn cried.

'They're escaping!” yelled a blinded officer.

The Planeteers plunged around the corner of the huge mansion, toward the long, low rocket-cars parked in front.

Sual Av jumped into one, whose power-chamber was throbbing. As the others leaped in after him, the bald Venusian yanked back the throttle. The car rabbited out through the dark grounds with a rising roar from the rocket-tubes at its rear.

'Straight for the spaceport!” Thorn yelled.

'Hold tight!” called Sual Av, with a throaty laugh. “I always did want to let one of these things out!'

A whizz and roar, a spuming flash of fire — that was the stolen rocketcar as it shot through the streets. Its speed was suicidal, but streets were almost empty at this late hour.

Now the spaceport was close ahead. Thorn could see the soaring tower of the starter, flashing varicolored landing signals to a huge freighter that was sinking ponderously down out of the stars with all its blasts braking.

The audio speaker in the car broke into frantic voice. “All police! The Planeteers have stolen a police rocket- car and are making for the spaceport, after making an attempt to kidnap the Chairman! Shoot on sight!'

'Look ahead!” yelled Gunner Welk.

Men in white uniforms were running across the spaceport toward them, between the great docks and the big freighters and liners that rested like huge torpedoes on the tarmac.

'They're too late!” the Venusian chuckled. “Here's our ship.'

Before them loomed the three-man scout cruiser that had brought them to Earth, a long, torpedo-slim craft of gleaming inertrum, on its nose the number N-77. The thick-clustered tubes at its stern told of immense powers of acceleration and speed.

John Thorn and his comrades tumbled into the little ship, as atom-pistols coughed, and shells exploded in white proton-fire around them. Sual Av spun the heavy, round door shut while Thorn and the Mercurian leaped into the control-room in the nose.

Thorn's hands flashed amid the bewildering array of controls, and the power-chambers in the stern began a soft, rising roar of atomic energy.

Thorn jammed down two firing keys. With thunderous blast, white fire burst from the keel tubes of the cruiser. It lurched upward, riding its columns of proton-flame, then shooting obliquely up across the spaceport as Thorn cut in all the stern tubes.

He was flung back, deep into the cushioned pilot chair, his entrails seeming crushed by the terrific acceleration. The shadowed convexity of Earth fell away appallingly beneath them, as the sharp clang of the friction-alarm told of walls being dangerously overheated by the too-rapid rush through the air. Then the roar of air outside the walls died rapidly away. They were out in space.

'We're clear!” shouted Sual Av, stumbling into the control-room, his grin twisted by pain of shock.

'Clear, yes — but every Earth cruiser in space will be after us now for trying to kidnap the Chairman!” Thorn rapped. “We've got to reach the Zone before they catch us!'

CHAPTER III Into the Zone