"No!” exclaimed Lana hotly. “No massacre! I told you my rules when you joined us, Jenk. The Companions willfully spill no blood as long as I lead them!"
"My rule has always been to leave nobody alive to testify against me in a space-court,” grumbled the fat Uranian shrilly. “This tenderheartedness—"
"It isn't just tenderheartedness; it's good strategy!” flashed Lana Cain, her blue eyes determined. “When freighter-men know they're going to be massacred if they surrender, they fight to the last man. But when they know that only their cargo will be taken, and their lives spared, they surrender a lot more quickly. Further, the hunt against us is never so bitter. It was my father's rule to take no life, and it's mine, and it's paid returns to the Companions."
"That it has!” declared Brun Abo, the Jovian, “It's saved us many a bitter fight-and possibly extermination."
The girl looked around them as he gave her orders.
"Our chief spatial navigator will check their course against Saturn's and ours. We'll blast off tomorrow dawn, with forty ships. That'll give us time enough to be waiting in the Zone, and when the Jovian freighters pass underneath, we'll swoop down on them."
"What about Gunner and Sual Av and me?” John Thorn asked her. “We have no ship, remember."
"You'll be furnished one, and a crew to go with it,” Lana answered crisply. “From what I've heard of you Planeteers, you'll be able to handle your part."
She ran her hand a little tiredly through her mop of dull-gold hair.
"That's all, men. See that your ships and men are ready to blast off at dawn. And not too much drinking tonight!"
As the pirate captains started to troop out, the girl added to the old Martian, “Stilicho, find a cabin for the Planeteers."
Thorn was starting out with his two comrades after the old pirate, when Lana's voice halted him.
"Wait, John Thorn. There's something I want to ask you."
Thorn turned, surprised. The girl was looking at him with a queerly thoughtful expression in her blue eyes, her small hand idly patting the space dog that had risen beside her.
"You were in the Earth Navy before you became an outlaw, weren't you?” she asked him.
Thorn nodded. “Until I deserted,” he admitted curtly.
Lana pointed up to a picture on the wall, a portrait of a hard-faced, middle-aged man with piercing eyes.
"My father, Martin Cain, was officer in the Earth Navy, too, before he became an outlaw,” she said slowly. “Do they ever speak of my father on Earth? What do they say of him?"
Thorn told her the truth. “They speak of him only as notorious pirate. Few remember he was ever a naval man."
"But he was, and one of their best officers,” Lana said bitterly. “It was the jealousy of other officers over his promotions that formed a cabal which had him dishonorably discharge. That was the reward of Earth for all the service he'd given his native planet."
"You don't think much of Earth, eh?” Thorn said curiously. “Yet, after all, it's really your native world."
"The Zone is my world — I was born here. I hate Earth for what it did to my father!” the girl flashed. “I'll be glad to see the League smash the inner worlds, for though I hate the League and its dictator, I've an even greater hate for Earth!"
Thorn felt a faint hope he had cherished until now, die within him. He had hoped that the pirate girl might be induced to save Earth from conquest by telling him the secret of Erebus. But he saw how futile had been that slight hope. This girl had only bitter hatred for the world she deemed to have wronged her father.
"Your father was an extraordinary man,” Thorn mused, looking up at the portrait. “A great fighter and organizer, a wonderful navigator. They say that he even visited Erebus, the tenth world, though I suppose that's just a baseless legend."
"It's the truth!” Lana declared proudly. “My father was on Erebus two weeks, and came back safely — the only man in the whole history of the Solar System that ever did so."
John Thorn stared incredulously. “How did he do it? How did he avoid whatever peril there has swallowed so many men?—"
"I can't tell you that,” the girl A said slowly. “I've never told anybody what my father told me about Erebus."
"Then,” Thorn said wonderingly, “you're the only person in the whole system who knows anything about that mystery world? The only person who knows how it might be visited safely?"
The girl nodded slowly. A queer expression, one of somber, haunting memory, had come into her vital blue eyes.
"Yes, I'm the only one who knows the secret of Erebus,” she admitted. “And nobody will ever learn it from me. I have reasons for keeping silence about that world!"
She trembled slightly. Thorn, watching her tautly, felt a queer chill as of a cold, alien breath in the room.
"But I do not know why I am talking of Erebus,” she said impatiently. “I am tired. I shall see you tomorrow at dawn, before our ships blast off."
Thus dismissed, Thorn left the Council House and walked slowly, deep in thought, down the street of Turkoon Town. The sun was setting, and from the little crimson disk a flood of pale red light uncannily illuminated the dark, surrounding fern jungle, the raw field and parked ships, and the straggling metal town.
He found the metal cabin assigned them. Gunner Welk and Sual Av sprang up eagerly as he entered.
"We've made it so far, John!” exclaimed the bald Venusian excitedly. “We're in with the pirates now, at least. Did you find out anything about Erebus from the girl?"
Thorn shook his head. “She won't talk about Erebus — she seems almost afraid to. I didn't dare press questions."
"We can't wait forever to get the secret out of her,” rumbled Gunner Welk warningly. “Even when we get it, it'll take a lot of time to get out to Erebus and lift the radite, remember."
"I know,” Thorn muttered. “But well ruin all our chances if we're too rash now."
He fished in his pocket for a rial cigarette.
"It's possible,” he said, “that whatever her father told her about Erebus—"
Thorn stopped speaking. His face froze as he pulled out the thing he had felt in his pocket. It was a tiny metal sphere, only a half-inch in diameter, With a minute aperture in it.
"An Ear,” exclaimed Sual Av appalledly.
Thorn dropped the thing like a poisonous snake and ground it under his heel. His dark face was grim as he looked down at the shattered fragments of the Ear.
The thing was a super-compact and super-sensitive audio transmitter. It picked up all sound in its immediate vicinity and broadcast it electro-magnetically, for a short range. Both police and criminals of the system used Ears for eavesdropping at a distance.
"Someone slipped it into my pocket in the Council House!” Thorn rapped. “See if there are any more."
But a swift search of their clothing and of the cabin disclosed no more Ears.
"Whoever put that Ear in my pocket suspects us!” Thorn said grimly. “And whoever it is knows now from our talk that we came here after the secret of Erebus, that we're after the radite!
"Thank heaven,” he added tightly, “that we didn't give away the fact that we want the radite for Earth, that we're Earth agents."
"This is bad, John,” said Sual Av, his ugly face sober. “Who do you think suspects us? Lana Cain herself?"
"If it were she, or someone loyal to her,” rumbled Gunner Welk, “she'd have sent men here to seize us by now!"
"Gunner's right — it can't be Lana,” muttered Thorn. “Someone here is playing a deep game of his own. And whoever it is doesn't like us, and knows now just what we're here for."
"John, our hidden enemy will have a fine chance to gun us tomorrow in the confusion of this attack on the Jovian freighters,” warned Sual Av.