Jenk Cheerly's small eyes glittered with hate as he rose to face the enraged old Martian.
"I do say it again!” squeaked the obese Uranian. “I say it was your fault that we nearly got trapped by those League cruisers today! You said you spied out the freighters and tankers before they blasted from Jupiter. If you did, you would have been sure to see those tankers were disguised battle-cruisers. So you didn't do it. Or you knew about the trap, and led us right into it!"
Old Stilicho seemed to suffocate with his own passion. His bony figure was quivering, his wrinkled face livid.
"You're accusing me of treachery!” he shrilled. “Me, Stilicho Keene, that's rocketed with the Companions for fifty years! By space, Uranian, no man can—"
The old pirate's clawlike hand was darting toward the atom-pistol at his belt. Jenk Cheerly's fat hand flew toward his own weapon.
But Lana Cain sprang in between them. Her eyes were flaming with wrath.
"If you draw, I'll blast you both down” she flared. “You know our rule — no quarreling among ourselves!"
"But, lass, you heard what he accused me of!” shrilled the old pirate, outraged. “I tell you, when I saw those tankers as they sailed from Jupiter, they were tankers, nothing else."
"Isn't it likely that real tankers did sail with the freighters,” John Thorn said quietly, “to deceive any spies who might be watching them take off, and that the tankers were replaced by the disguised battle-cruisers at some secret rendezvous in space?"
Kinnel King, the handsome middle-aged Earthman captain, nodded quickly. “That must be the explanation."
"That may be so,” grumbled Jenk Cheerly in his squeaky voice, “but I still say there was something queer about it. We should have got all the cargoes of those freighters, instead of just part of them."
Stilicho Keene stiffened again, but Lana hastily intervened to calm the old pirate.
"You've forgotten to initiate the Planeteers into the Companions, Stilicho,” she reminded. “The Eight Goblets!"
The old man's face slowly cleared, and he turned around to Thorn and Sual Av and Gunner Welk.
"That's right,” he cackled. “You boys ain't real pirates till you've drunk the Eight Goblets. Eli, Companions?"
A roaring shout of laughter rose from the fierce-faced corsairs and their women gathered at the firelit tables.
"Yes, the Goblets! The Eight Goblets for the Planeteers!"
"What the devil is this?” growled Gunner Welk suspiciously. “If they try any of their tricks on me—"
Under cover of the roar of laughing voices, Thorn spoke in a rapid, low voice to his two comrades, as they three stood close together behind the tables. They were momentarily unwatched, for all the mirthfully shouting pirates were watching old Stilicho as he supervised the preparations for the coming ceremony.
"I'm going to try my plan of searching Lana's papers tonight!” Thorn told his comrades swiftly. “If she ever wrote down what her father told her about Erebus, she'd surely still have it."
"John, it'll be deadly dangerous!” warned Gunner Welk in a taut undertone. “Remember, someone here knows what we're after."
"Yes, whoever put that Ear in your Pocket must be watching us all the time,” muttered Sual Av.
"I'll never have a better chance than tonight, with everyone present at the feast,” Thorn whispered. “You two stick here — it would awake suspicion if all three of us left."
He stopped whispering abruptly as the roar of laughing voices began to lessen. Old Stilicho had held up a hand to quiet the pirate throng.
"Planeteers,” he shrilled to the three comrades, “you've got a great name in the system, and you showed today you deserve it, for you saved our Lana from that trap when no one else could have done it. We're proud and glad to welcome you three among us. Eh, Companions?"
"Yes!” roared back the pirate feasters with one voice. Lana was sitting again, smiling at Thorn's puzzled face.
"But before you can really be of the Companions,” the old pirate continued in his shrill, cracked voice, you've got to drink the Eight Goblets, in proper order-to show that as a true Companion you defy the governments and navies of all the eight inhabited worlds!"
Three grinning pirates advanced, each carrying a tray on which rested eight small glass goblets filled with various colored liquors.
Sual Av's green eyes widened. “Are we expected to—"
Stilicho Keene cackled. “Yes, lads. You're expected to drink defiance to the eight worlds as we call them off."
Thorn and his two comrades took the little goblets first handed them. They were brimming with colorless rock-liquor, the fiery distillate that is the favorite drink of Mercury.
Stilicho, grinning, raised his bony hand. And from the firelit feasters crashed a mirthful shout.
"Mercury""
The Planeteers tossed off the burning liquor. It seared Thorn's throat, but Gunner Welk smacked his lips.
"Venus!" crashed the shout an instant later.
Down went the little goblets of heady black Venusian swamp-grape wine. And the pirate horde, without giving the Planeteers time to catch breath, called out planet after planet.
A goblet of tingling brown Earth whisky; another of suave, smooth desert-flower cordial from Mars; and a bumper of raw, potent marsh-apple brandy from Jupiter followed each other.
Thorn gasped for air, but neither he nor his comrades hesitated. A goblet of musty-tasting wine from the fungus-fruits of Saturn; another of sour, strong Uranian beer; and finally a last goblet of sweet, cloying Neptunian sacra liqueur.
Thorn's head was spinning as he smashed the last of the eight goblets on the ground. Sual Av was staggering, and even Gunner Welk looked unsteady. Old Stilicho slapped Thorn's back.
"You're true Companions of Space now, Planeteers,” cackled the old pirate, and approving roars went up from the crowd.
Every pirate there knew it was the Planeteers who had saved their idolized girl leader in the fight that day. The heartiness of their lusty welcome was unmistakable.
Thorn fought to keep the liquor from overcoming him, as he went back to his seat beside Lana. His senses were hazed — he was only dimly aware that now wild music was thrumming from stringed instruments somewhere, and that two white-limbed Venusian girls were swaying in a languorous dance near the blazing fire.
Gradually, Thorn felt his senses clear. But he took care to appear still fogged. Now was the time for his attempt!
"I need some air after the Eight Goblets,” he told Lana, keeping his voice thick. “I'm going for a walk."
To his discomfiture, Lana rose from her place and took his arm. “I'll walk with you, John Thorn,” she smiled.
Thorn could not reject her, though inwardly he chafed. They moved away from the firelit feast, the space dog Ool padding silently beside the girl. None of the crowd seemed to notice them leaving, for now a lithe red Martian girl was twisting in a furious desert dance, to the roaring applause of the Companions.
The roar of shouts and laughter and crashing glass behind them faded away as they walked a little down the dark, silent and dusty street of Turkoon Town. The blazing sky above them seemed alive with the long, shining trails of flashing meteors.
Thorn looked down at the girl's gold head. Her starlit white face seemed softer now, with a queer yearning in it as she gazed along the dark street. It all seemed strangely dreamlike to the Earthman — he and the pirate girl and the green-eyed, padding space dog walking together under the meteor-blazoned night sky.
Lana Cain looked up at him and asked the question that she had already voiced earlier that evening.
"Why don't you Planeteers stay here with us,” John Thorn? With you to help, my plans could—"