Выбрать главу

"Your plans?” he repeated, interrupting. “What do you mean, Lana?"

She stopped and looked up at him. “Do you think that being leader of the pirates is all I want? No, that is only a means to an end. I have a dream, the same dream my father had — a dream of making the Zone a place of orderly life and happy cities, instead of just a wild, lawless jungle."

Her words came with an eager rush. “There are hundreds of asteroids in the Zone that are habitable, or could be made habitable. A whole new world, that could be independent and self-sufficient, and could be a refuge for oppressed people from all parts of the system, people fleeing from tyranny and injustice."

Lana's voice throbbed with earnestness. “My father worked with that dream in mind, organized the scattered bands of pirates and made them temper their bloodthirsty ways. I've worked toward that goal, too. And now, when the League of Colorsis about to attack the Inner Alliance, the chance is, coming to make that dream come true. For with interplanetary war going on, we could organize our new world in’ the Zone without interference. And millions of people may want a safe refuge."

Thorn was impressed by the girl's sincerity and breadth of ambition.

"But, Lana, are all the eight worlds as bad as you seem to think?” he said slowly. “It's true the four worlds of the League are crushed under the fanatical tyranny of Haskell Trask, their dictator, but what about Earth and the other three inner worlds? They have no tyranny or oppression."

"They have black injustice that is as bad as tyranny,” answered Lana, her starlit face hardening. “Look at what they did to my father!"

Thorn saw that he could not change her bitter obsession on that subject. He shook his head.

"Perhaps you're right,” he said. And he added thoughtfully, “I was wondering why a girl like you was content to live as leader of these wild pirates. But I understand, now that you've told me of your scheme."

"And you'll help me make that dream come true, John Thorn? You Planeteers will, stay?” Lana asked eagerly. She added earnestly, “You're the first one I've ever told of my plan."

Thorn was touched. “I'll have to talk to Sual Av and Gunner Welk before I can promise to stay,” he evaded.

He put his hand to his head, and winced. “I'm not feeling so good yet, after those Eight Goblets. I think I'll pass up the rest of the feast, and sleep it off."

"You're not ill?” Lana asked anxiously. “If you are—"

She was gazing up at him, her dark eyes wide with worry in her starlit face, her hand on his shoulder.

Thorn felt a sudden strong impulse to kiss her. He mastered himself, but he suspected that his feelings had shown in his face, for Lana's expression changed.

"I–I must go back to the feast,” she said, with an unaccustomed shyness. “If I am not there, they will be quarreling. I will see you in the morning."

He watched her move back down the dark street toward the firelit feast, the space dog silently accompanying her. Then Thorn turned and walked with assumed unsteadiness to his cabin. But instead of entering the cabin, he slipped. around it, and then hastened along the back of the street toward the Council House.

The long, low metal building was dark and silent. Thorn listened outside a back door, then pushed stealthily inside. The dull red ray of his pocket fluoric flash-lamp lighted him through store-rooms and a kitchen. The place was deserted.

He found Lana's bedroom quickly. It was a bare chamber with a chromaloy cot and chest, and a rack of atom-pistols on the wall. There was a closet, to which Thorn went first. In it hung a dozen suits of the mannish silk jackets and trousers the pirate girl always wore. But in the back of the closet, Thorn found a single gaily-flowered flowing tunic-dress of the type worn by Earth women to social functions.

A queer wave of tenderness swept him as he touched the gay, flowered dress. It was obviously unworn. He could picture Lana taking it secretly from pirate loot, trying it on—

"Hell, am I going soft on the girl?” John Thorn muttered to himself. “I'm wasting time!"

He searched through the big chest. In it he found a flat viridiurn box that was packed with papers.

Thorn's pulses raced as he hastily started scanning the papers by his little ray of dull red light. The first he unfolded was a parchment document, discolored with age. It was a captain's commission in the Earth Navy, dated over forty years before, made out to Martin Cain. Across it was stamped “CANCELLED."

Most of the other papers were old letters of Lana's father. They told nothing. Then Thorn muttered an exclamation as he took out of the box a thick log-book, bound in marsh-calf skin, and filled with the square, precise writing of Martin Cain.

Swiftly Thorn riffled the pages until he found the year he was looking for. With taut eagerness he read the entries.

9-27. (Off Pluto.) It looks as though our raid on the Pluto mining bases with a single ship was too daring. We are being hotly pursued by Neptunian cruisers, and can hear the audio-calls of others.

9-28. Fear net is closing in on us. Space alive with audio calls.

9-29. I, Martin Cain, am sole survivor of my ship's company. We were trapped and attacked at 7:Z2, sun-time, by eight Neptunian cruisers. We got two, but the rest gunned us till our power-chambers exploded and tore our ship apart. I was flung clear, and found one of our lifeboats that also had been thrown clear. Got away in it unnoticed. But am far outside Pluto's orbit, where they had chased us. Dare not go back to Pluto, and have not half enough fuel to take me to Saturn, the next nearest world sunward.

I am taking a desperate chance-am heading outward, toward Erebus. I know no one has ever yet visited that world and returned, but my last chance is to get fuel-ores there, for it is far nearer than Saturn. I greatly fear that I shall never get back to the Zone to see my little girl and my wife again.

Thorn turned to the next entry, his pulse pounding with excitement. But the next entry was dated weeks later.

12-7. Back to the Zone again, thank God, I shall never go beyond Pluto's orbit again.

Thorn desperately ran through the following pages. But there was no mention whatever in them of Erebus.

Why had not Martin Cain made one entry about his visit to Erebus? What was there on that far, dark, mysterious planet that Cain had so carefully kept secret?

"'Raise your hands, John Thorn!"

Thorn turned, appalled. Lights had flashed on in the little room. Standing in the doorway were two men.

They were Jenk Cheerly, the fat Uranian, and the Earthman, Kinnel King. They were covering him with atom-pistols, and their faces were deadly.

CHAPTER IX

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.