"You Planeteers saved me down there!” she exclaimed. “If you hadn't rammed in between ships and broken those grapple-lines—"
John Thorn felt a queer sense of shame as her warm little hand grasped his. If she knew his real reason for taking such desperate chances to save her, he thought — But it was for four great worlds.
"I'll never forget this, John Thorn,” Lana was saying earnestly.
"I'll never forget it, either,” growled Gunner Welk, rubbing a bruised shoulder. “When we wedged, between the two ships it nearly threw me right through a wall of the gun-deck."
Sual Av grinned ruefully. “I'm not so sure I want to be a raid pirate, if this kind of thing happens often."
"It was a cunning trap set for us Companions by the League navies,” declared Lana. “They even actually loaded those freighters with rich cargo, knowing we'd have spies watching who would report that, and that we'd make an attack when we heard. And they had those cruisers disguised as tankers, ready to gun us as soon as we were busy looting the freighters."
Her blue eyes flashed. “But we escaped their trap! We didn't lose more than four of our ships, and we've got a good portion of the freighters’ cargoes — the cargoes that were to be the bait of the trap!"
"If old Stilicho Keene watched those freighters and tankers sail from Jupiter why didn't he suspect their game?” Thorn asked her keenly. “A close look at the tankers would have showed him that they were disguised cruisers."
Lana looked troubled. “I can't understand why Stilicho didn't see that.” She added loyally, “But it can't be any fault of his. And, anyway, we, got out safely."
"If that League cruiser that grappled onto you had gunned you, it would have been the end of you,” John Thorn told her. “I can't understand why they didn't when they had you helpless."
"Neither can I,” Lana confessed. “They must have wanted to capture me, and take me to be tried and executed as a lesson to the whole system. If so, they overreached themselves!"
She turned to the Jovian pilot, and ordered, “Straight to Turkoon, now. There's no danger of more pursuit."
As the Lightning throbbed on through the Zone, homing toward the jungle asteroid like all the other scattered pirate ships, John Thorn drew his two comrades unobtrusively back down into the privacy of the narrow corridor below the control-room.
"There was something damned queer about that trap the League set!” Thorn declared. “Their whole object seemed to be to capture this ship — to capture Lana — and they took good care not to fire once at her craft, lest they kill her."
Sual Av stared, perplexed. “But why would the League set such an elaborate trap as that to capture her?"
"Why did we come here to seek out the girl?” Thorn countered meaningly. “Because she has a secret that we want."
Gunner Welk started. “You mean that the League may be after the secret of Erebus, too? That the League may be trying—"
"Trying to get that radite on Erebus, the same as we are?” Thorn finished. He frowned. “It's possible. Remember, we heard that the League planned some frightful new agent of destruction to use on the Alliance worlds, to beat them into submission after they smash our fleet. Maybe the radite has something to do with that!"
Sual Av's green eyes widened. “Then it might be a League agent who put that Ear in your pocket yesterday, who is working from inside the pirates as we are and helped plan this trap? But who is it? Brun Abo, or Jenk Cheerly, or old Stilicho, maybe?"
"Whichever it is, if a League agent is after the girl's secret, we've got to beat him to it!” burst Gunner. “'But how?"
"She'll never tell me the secret, I'm sure of that, even though she feels grateful to me now,” Thorn said, frowning. “But she may have written down what her father told her about Erebus. She may have the secret among her papers."
Sual Av's ugly face stiffened. “You mean to search her papers? John, it's too dangerous! If these pirates caught you—"
"I've got to take the chance,” Thorn rapped. “With the League working against us, there's no time to lose now!"
CHAPTER VIII
Out of the Past
That song that was roaring now from hundreds of, lusty throats had been the traditional song of the space pirates for centuries. Every corner of the Solar System had shivered at the sound of it at one time or another. It echoed now in a fierce, swinging chant through the night at Turkoon Town,
The pirates and their women were feasting at rude tables and benches around a huge fire of dry fern-logs that blazed in the center of the street. The tables groaned with enormous masses of food, huge haunches of Jovian marsh-steers, rosy canal-fruit from Mars, sticky confections looted from Neptunian ships. And there were platoons of bottles and bulging casks from every world in the system. Strong drink was going down with the food as the Companions celebrated their partially successful foray.
Above the firelit feasters stretched the night sky of the Zone, the most wonderful in the system, a black canopy gaudy with thousands of blazing stars, with the yellow topaz of Saturn and the far green emeralds of Uranus and Neptune blazing high. Comets moved like mysterious, white ghosts through the jungled heavens, and constantly meteors flashed and ran across the black sky-span.
At one of the tables sat Lana Cain, her smooth hair gleaming like dull gold in the firelight, her hand absently patting the neck of the great gray beast crouched beneath her — Ool, the space dog.
John Thorn sat beside her, his dark face inscrutable and his black eyes watchful. Sual Av was feasting heartily farther down the table, joking and laughing with the other pirate captains, while Gunner Welk ate in brooding silence.
"They are like children, the Companions,” the girl said to Thorn over the din of voices and clatter of bottles. “Already they have forgotten that they nearly met death in that trap today, in their rejoicing over the loot we got."
Thorn shrugged. “I can't say that I blame them. An outlaw has to take his fun when he can — he never knows whether he'll see the next day or not."
Lana's blue eyes, dark in the ruddy firelight, studied Thorn's lean face thoughtfully.
"But you Planeteers are not like most outlaws, John Thorn,” she said. “There is something different about you — something purposeful, I don't know what."
Thorn sensed faint danger, but he smiled as he fingered a goblet of wonderful pink Martian glass.
"The only real purpose we Planeteers have is to hunt excitement, I guess,” he told her. “We've done a lot of damn fool things, without much reason."
"Thorn, why do you not stay here with me, with the Companions?” Lana asked, impulsively grasping his hand. Her blue eyes eager on his, she added earnestly, “I have great plans, and with you Planeteers helping—"
She was interrupted by a sudden uproar in a fierce voice along the table. Thorn jumped up.
Old Stilicho Keene was standing, his rheumy eyes glaring with rage, his thin, bony hands trembling with passion as he faced the obese green Uranian, Jenk Cheerly.
"Say that again,” shrilled the old pirate to the Uranian, “and I'll blow your lying head off your pig's body!"