Imprisoned Planeteers
Thorn rose slowly to his feet, keeping his hands raised. A wrong movement, he knew, would mean instant death. Inwardly he was bitterly reproaching himself for letting himself be surprised.
"So, Planeteer,” said Kinnel King in a deadly low tone, “you and your comrades seem to be traitors. Less than an hour after you've been initiated into the Companions, we find you here rifling Lana's secrets."
"Didn't I tell you, Kinnel?” squeaked Jenk Cheerly, the fat Uranian's little eyes glittering with beady triumph. “Didn't I tell you this Thorn was up to something when he slipped away from the. feast, and that we ought to follow him?"
"Take his atom-pistol, Jenk,” ordered Kinnel King without removing his eyes from Thorn. “Then go and get Lana and the others-and make sure you get the other two Planeteers!"
Jenk Cheerly lifted the weapon from Thorn's belt, and then the obese Uranian waddled hastily out of the room. Thorn stood, his hands still raised, facing the other Earthman.
Kinnel King's middle-aged, handsome face was dark with loathing, and there was a deadly expression in his brooding eyes as he watched the Planeteer.
"King, listen to me!” John Thorn said desperately. “You're an Earthman, and I—"
"Be silent!” Kinnel King hissed, his eyes narrowing to pinpoints. “I'll blast you where you stand, traitor."
In heavy silence, Thorn waited. He knew there was not the slightest chance for him to make a break under the muzzle of the other's weapon. To do so would be merely to commit suicide without gaining anything.
Presently there was a rapid tramp of many feet, an excited babel of voices entering the Council House. Into the lighted rooms came Lana Cain, and with her were old Stilicho, Brun Abe, the Jovian captain, and the waddling, gloating green-faced Uranian, Jenk Cheerly.
With them came four pirates who held atom-pistols against the backs of Gunner Welk and Sual Av. Gunner's clothing was torn, his temple bleeding from a wound, his cold blue eyes like icy flames. Sual Av's ugly face was taut and watchful.
"They'd never have got us, John,” rumbled the big Mercurian as they entered, “if they hadn't jumped us from behind."
"It's all my fault,” Thorn said bitterly.
Lana Cain was looking at Thorn. The girl's face was white and stunned, her blue eyes wide and unbelieving. Then as her gaze swung from Thorn's face to the rifled papers on the floor, her expression changed to one of flaming wrath.
"It's true, then,” she whispered throbbingly to Thorn. “You are a traitor to the Companions, a paltry thief trying to steal my secrets. And I know. what you were after!” she flared. “The secret of Erebus. Because I wouldn't tell it to you, you slipped in here, trying to steal it."
"Lana, listen—” Thorn began with desperate earnestness.
Lana cut him off with a stinging slap across the face. The space dog Ool jumped forward, great eyes blazing.
"All the time you were listening to my plans, pretending sympathy, you were only thinking of how you could get that secret from me!” flamed Lana. “I wouldn't tell it to you, because I didn't want you or anybody else to go to that terrible world. I almost wish now that I'd told you, that I'd let you go blundering out to Erebus to meet the horrible fate you'd meet there!"
"What are we waiting for? Why don't we blast these dogs down now?” demanded Brun Abo, the scarred-faced Jovian.
A fierce growl of approval of the suggestion went up from the other pirate captains. Even old Stilicho Keene was looking at Thorn and his two comrades with accusation in his face.
"Boy, I never thought you Planeteers would do a thing like this,” said the old pirate dismally.
Thorn was thinking with desperate rapidity. Should he tell Lana the truth, that they Planeteers were, agents of Earth who only sought the Erebus secret to get the radite that would save the Alliance?
He saw that it would gain nothing to tell. It would make no difference to the girl, who was so bitter against Earth she would do nothing to help that world. And it would give away the great secret that the Alliance had a weapon with which it might be able to resist the League attack.
"Lana, listen to me,” Thorn said rapidly. “I'm not denying that we Planeteers came here seeking the secret of Erebus. We have a vital reason for wanting it, and when you wouldn't tell it, I had to try to steal it. I admit all that.
"But I want to warn you that there's someone else here, someone right here in this room now, if I'm right, who means to get that secret and use it to take millions of lives. You can save all those lives by giving us the secret and letting us go!"
"You pile one lie on another!” blazed Lana. “You try to cover your own guilt by accusing innocent men!"
"Let's take them out and blast them down now!” cried Brun Abo,
"It's the penalty for treachery among the Companions,” old Stilicho said miserably. “I guess we got to do it."
Lana Cain paled a little. She shook her head.
"No, we'll not kill them now,” she said. “Put them in the brig until morning."
"And why shouldn't we kill them now?” demanded Brun Abo of her. “Is it possible you've a tenderness for this Thorn?"
The girl turned on the Jovian, as though stung,
"I've only hate for such treacherous liars!” she flared. “But we're going to execute them, not murder them. In the morning is soon enough."
Surprisingly, Jenk Cheerly supported her.
"Lana's right,” the Uranian squeaked and the girl glanced gratefully at him.
Thorn tried to speak again, but Brun Abo snarled an order, and the four pirates covering the Planeteers forced the three comrades to march out of the Council House into the night.
The brig, as the pirates called their prison, was a small, square, metal structure behind the main street of Turkoon Town. It had but one room, into whose dark interior they were rudely thrust. The heavy metal door slammed, and the wave-lock clicked.
"Make the best of your time till morning, Planeteers,” rasped Brun Abo as he and his men left.
"John, they didn't leave any guards outside,” said Sual Av quickly in the darkness. “Maybe we can get out."
They rapidly inspected their prison. But Thorn found that there was no chance whatever of escape from it.
The building was wholly constructed of inertrum, most intractable of metals. The two tiny, barred windows were mere loopholes, and the wave-lock of the door could only be operated by the secret frequencies of its wave-key applied from the outside.
"There's no getting out of here," grunted Gunner Welk. “Damn that fat Jenk Cheerly! It was he who suspected you were up to something, John, and followed you with Kinnel King—"
"Either Cheerly or Brun Abo must be the League spy here!” Sual Av declared tensely. “And it looks to me as though Cheerly is the man. He only joined the pirates recently, and it was he who tipped them off about the Jovian freighters, the League trap that, nearly succeeded in capturing Lana."
"What the devil are we going to do?” demanded the big Mercurian. “We can't break out of this place and we're due to be blasted at dawn."
"There's only one chance left us,” Thorn rapped. “When they take us out in the morning, we'll make a break and try to seize Lana. I don't think the pirates would take a chance of hurting her by firing at us then. We might get away with her."
Gunner Welk's rumbling voice came slowly, “But the girl might get hurt in the fight, John. I thought you were sort of in love with her."
"Yes,” added Sual Av. “and it looked to me as though she was beginning to feel the same way about you."
"Are you two space-struck to say such things?” Thorn demanded fiercely. “Me, in love with that wild pirate girl?"
Then his voice wavered a little. “Even if I did love her, I'd have to forget it. For we have to get that secret out of her somehow, if the Alliance is to have a chance. That is bigger and more important than everybody in the entire zone."
"All right, we'll try it,” rumbled Gunner Welk. “It looks like our last bet."
* * *
Presently Gunner Welk and Sual Av were sleeping on the floor calmly oblivious to whatever fate the dawn might bring.
But John Thorn could not sleep. Restlessly, he paced the darkness of the little metal room. In his mind queerly persisted the image of Lana's white, stunned face and accusing eyes. He tried to drive that reproachful face from his thoughts and couldn't.
White mists from the jungles had seeped into Turkoon Town as the night advanced, a cold fog that nipped the bones.
A little wind moaned through the dark, sleeping pirate stronghold, and at intervals came raucous calls of weird life teeming in the fern-forest.
Thorn heard a ship blasting off from the distant field, the thudding thunder of its tubes rapidly dying away. He wondered broodingly if ever he and his two comrades would see space again.
Or was the coming dawn to end forever the career of the Planeteers?
Hours dragged past, and finally a faint dawn light began to illumine the swirling gray mists outside. Suddenly through the fog came a wild, distant cry. It was echoed in a minute by raw shouts in other voices.
Thorn leaped to the little window, but could see nothing through the mists. He heard his comrades scrambling up,
"What's happened?” exclaimed Sual Av, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"I don't know!” Thorn cried. “But something's wrong."
He could hear a babel of raging shouts and calls crackling like flame through Turkoon Town, waking everyone. And men were running through the clearing mists toward the field of ships.
"Stilicho!” yelled Thorn through the window as he glimpsed the old Martian pirate running painfully along the street.
The old man hesitated, then hobbled quickly over to the window of the little prison. He was buckling on his atom-pistols with trembling hands, and his wrinkled face was wild.
"What's happened?” Thorn demanded tensely.
"Lana — she's been kidnapped!” hissed the old Martian. “Jenk Cheerly did it some time last night."
"Lana kidnapped?” Thorn yelled wildly, his brown face suddenly haggard. “How do you know Cheerly did?"
"This morning one of our men found our guards at the ship-field lying murdered!” babbled the raging old man. “And one of Cheerly's Uranian crew, too, fatally wounded and left for dead. The Uranian boasted about what Cheerly had done, before he died.
"He said that Cheerly was not any pirate at all, like he pretended, but a League spy — the head of Haskell Trask's secret service! He said Cheerly had planned the trap that nearly captured Lana in the attack on them freighters, and that when that failed, Cheerly had used another plan to kidnap Lana last night. He used you in his plan, John Thorn!"
"Cheerly used me to kidnap Lana?” Thorn gasped. “My God, man, what are you talking about?"
"Lana's soft on you,” spat old Stilicho. “She didn't want to see you blasted this morning, and Cheerly knew it. So, according to that dying Uranian, Cheerly told Lana that he'd help you Planeteers escape if she released you. He got Lana to start secretly with him to this brig to let you out, and once he had her alone like that, he and his men grabbed her. They blasted down the field-guards and took her in his ship. He's taking her to Saturn!"
The raging old pirate turned from the window. “We're going to follow Cheerly's ship. And God help that Uranian when we catch up with him!"
"Stilicho, wait—” Thorn cried wildly, but the old pirate was already hobbling urgently away in the mists.,
A few moments later came the thunderous roar of many ships taking off in the distance. As it died away, Thorn turned to his comrades, his face stricken.
"She was going to help us escape,” he said in a slow, choked voice. “Even after I'd tried to steal her secret, she was going to help us get away. And because of that, she's in the hands of Haskell Trask's spymaster now!"
His eyes were wild. “Think of what Trask and that fat fiend Cheerly will do to her to wring the secret out of her! And all because of me. She'd never have been kidnapped if she hadn't tried to help me!"
"It's not your fault, John,” rumbled Gunner Welk, his hard face showing his emotion. “Cheerly would have found one way or another to get hold of her, even if we'd never come here."
"And Stilicho and Kinnel King and all the rest of those pirates are trailing him now,” Sual Av added quickly. “They'll catch him and bring the girl back all right."
"I hope to heaven they do,” muttered the big Mercurian. “For if they fail, and Cheerly gets that girl to Saturn, it means that the League, and not the Alliance, will get that radite from Erebus."
Thorn started violently. For the moment, in his first wild concern for Lana's safety, he had forgotten the larger issue.
"The last hope of the Alliance is gone if that happens!” he exclaimed. His fists clenched convulsively. “And we're locked up here! Isn't there something we can do?"
"Nothing but wait,” answered Gunner heavily.
* * *
The long hours of that day were a torture infinitely prolonged to John Thorn. Pacing the little room, peering tensely from the window, he waited in terrible suspense.
They were not brought any food or water. They had been completely forgotten for the time being in the greater catastrophe. They could see the street of Turkoon Town thronged with excited pirate women and men who had been left behind by the hasty expedition that had thundered forth in chase of Jenk Cheerly.
Night came, and more hours dragged past. Then from the distance came the thudding thunder of many ships landing.
"They're back!” Thorn cried tautly. “But did they rescue Lana?"
"We'll soon know,” muttered Sual Av.
They heard the pirate crews and captains trooping back into town, heard a loud uproar of voices. They waited tensely.
Then a thin, snow-haired figure approached their window in the starlight. It was old Stilicho, Keene, moving slowly.
"Did you bring Lana back?” Thorn cried.
The old man's cracked voice was unsteady and choking with emotion as, he answered.
"No, we didn't.” His accents became shrill and wild. “We were only a few hours behind Cheerly's ship. We could see it in our ‘scopes and were sure to overtake him. And then he was joined by a force of fifty League cruisers, as an escort.
"He must have had secret arrangements with them cruisers to be waiting for him, damn him!” Stilicho continued. “We only had twenty ships. I wanted to keep after them anyway, and fight it out, but Brun Abo and the rest said it would be suicide."
Stilicho's old voice broke. “I guess they were right, maybe. Getting ourselves all killed wouldn't have saved Lana. Nothing can save her now — and I don't want to live any more, with the lass gone."
Tremulous tears were glistening on the old Martian's starlit face. He wiped them with a quivering hand.
Thorn felt a cold, ghastly shock from what he had heard. Blind emotion surged in him. And then the instinct to fight back, to persevere, rose to dominate him.
"Are you going to give up Lana for dead?” he demanded fiercely of the old man outside. “Are you just going weep like a woman for her, or are you going to do something?"
"What can I do?” Stilicho quavered. “I'd give my life for the lass, but there's nobody can save her now. She's in Haskell Trask's dungeons on Saturn, by now, and a thousand men couldn't get her out of there."
"A thousand men. Might not, but three men could!” Thorn flashed fiercely. “We three — we Planeteers!"
Stilicho stared hopelessly. “How could even you Planeteers hope to snatch her from the claws of Haskell Trask?"
"We've done things as seemingly impossible as that in the past, haven't we?” Thorn demanded. “Give us the chance, Stilicho, and we'll get her out of there or die trying!"
The old Martian's eyes widened. “If anybody could do it, you Planeteers could,” he muttered. He stared doubtfully at Thorn's starlit face. “But you Planeteers are only after the secret Lana knows, the same as Cheerly."
"We want that secret, yes,” Thorn said tensely. “But the only way we can hope to get it is by rescuing Lana! Can't you see that? I'm hoping that if we save her, she'll tell us the secret. But whether she does or not, she'll have been saved, and that's all that you care for!"
And as Stilicho still hesitated, Thorn hissed a grim reminder.
"Think what Cheerly will do to Lana to wring the secret from her! Haskell Trask isn't above torture!"
The old man's figure quivered at that.
"She'll never tell them,” he muttered, “even though they kill her. I know Lana."
Then the old pirate stiffened with decision, and he spoke rapidly to the tensely waiting three.
"I'm going to take the chance you Planeteers can save her. It looks like the only chance the lass has got. I'm going to release you, and we'll head out in my ship for Saturn, before Brun Abo and the rest find out what I've done."
"Will the crew of your ship follow you?” Thorn asked quickly, his pulses pounding with excitement and hope.
"Hell, they'd sail straight into the sun if I laid the course!” exclaimed the old pirate. His cracked voice throbbed with eagerness as he continued. “I'll have to steal the wave key of this brig from the Council House to let you out. And I'll pass a whisper to my crew to gather in the Venture at once."
The old Martian hastened away through the starlight. John Thorn swung round to his comrades.
"It's a fighting chance we've got now, at least!” he exclaimed.
"A pretty slim one,” said Gunner Welk somberly. “How in hell's name are we to get that girl away from Saturn in the teeth of all the League forces? An army couldn't do it."
"We'll have to do what an army couldn't, then,” Thorn said grimly. “There must be some way."
Presently they glimpsed Stilicho Keene hastening back to their prison. At the old Martian's heels followed a great, gray shape with blazing green eyes, Lana's space dog, Ool.
Stilicho turned the wave-key's beam on the lock. The frequencies actuated the delicate mechanism, and the door opened.
"I had a time stealing the wave-key!” panted the old man as Thorn and his comrades emerged. “Brun Abo and the rest are up in the Council House. As soon as they remember you three, they'll be here to have you executed."
"Why did you bring the space dog?” Gunner asked.
"I didn't bring him — he followed me,” Stilicho said. “He's been wild since Lana was kidnapped, and I think he senses we're going after her. The critters are a little telepathic, you know."
"Let him come along. We don't want to arouse any commotion,” Thorn said swiftly. “Is your crew waiting at the ship?"
"All ready, by now,” the old pirate replied. “Follow me. We'll have to slip out to the field without being seen."
He led the Planeteers through the starlight, close against the towering, dark wall of fern-jungle that encircled Turkoon Town. By that circuitous route they reached the field where the massed pirate ships lay glinting under the meteor-blazoned sky, The big space dog padded beside them as they approached the Venture.
They climbed hastily into the long black ship, the animal following them. Stilicho's motley crew were waiting. The doors were already grinding shut as the Planeteers followed the old pirate up to the control-room.
A few moments later, with a thunderous blast of fire, the Venture shot skyward on its desperate mission.