"We came after you, Cheerly,” Thorn cried throbbingly. The Uranian shrank back as he heard Thorn's voice.
"The Planeteers!” he exclaimed wildly.
Lana stumbled forward, unrecognizable in her ray-proofed suit, but her silver voice wildly glad from inside it.
"John! John Thorn!” she cried. “I knew you would follow somehow."
Thorn, gripping her tightly for a moment, saw beyond her the little asterium sledge, and the mass upon it which was wrapped in the sheets of asterium Cheerly had prepared and brought. That mass was no more than four feet in diameter each way, and a corner of it that protruded through the hastily wrapped sheets showed that it was a huge chunk of dense matter blazing with intolerable white brilliance.
There was the radite, at last! The isotope that was the rarest element in existence, the block of blazing matter that contained locked within it incalculable power that might sway the future of the whole system!
"I knew you would escape from Saturn and come after us,” Lana was sobbing wildly. “But I feared—"
"John, here they come!” Gunner Welk yelled wildly.
The radioactive mob below were scrambling up to the attack again. And this time, as though enraged by the appearance of the newcomers with two of their own glowing kind, the maddened mob of radiant men came with ferocious determination.
There was no time for Thorn to deal Cheerly the fate he deserved, no time for anything. The first of the glowing men was already scrambling onto the ledge!
Gunner fired his atom-pistol at them viciously. But the flare of blinding energy did not harm the glowing men. The emanations from their radioactive bodies simply repelled that energy.
"Use rocks!” Thorn yelled, stooping and picking up a chunk of shimmering stone and hurling it.
It knocked one of the glowing men off the ledge. But others were scrambling onto it. It became a wild battle to hold the ledge against them.
Clymer Nison and Chan Gray, the glowing Martian, fought by the side of the Planeteers and Cheerly's men. They seized glowing attackers and hurled them down. But still others gained the ledge, and it became a crazy hand-to-hand melee.
Thorn, struggling in the insane grip of one of the glowing men, saw others tear the helmet off one of Cheerly's followers. As the terrific radiation omnipresent on this planet struck the luckless Saturnian's unprotected face, he screamed like a hurt animal. And almost instantly, his face and body began to glow with that ghastly blue emanation.
The Planeteers fought with their metal-clad fists. Gunner Welk's great arms swept a clear circle around him, the big Mercurian roaring. Sual Av pulled off a glowing attacker who had leaped on Thorn's back and was trying to wrench away his helmet.
For minutes the crazy struggle went on. A fight with maddened lost souls on a planet of the damned! But with Nison and the Martian helping, the Planeteers forced, the radiant men back off the ledge. They gathered below, howling with fury.
Thorn turned quickly. Lana was stumbling to her feet from the back of the ledge.
"John, Cheerly's gone!” she cried. “While you were fighting, he and his remaining man slipped away along the ledge with the sledge of radite! They struck me down—"
Thorn whirled, wild with rage and apprehension. The cunning Uranian, seizing the opportunity when the Planeteers were engaged in the wild melee, had with his remaining follower stolen away with the radite. They could, be seen now in the distance, hurrying along the shelf by which the Planeteers had come to the ledge.
"After them!” Thorn cried.
They rushed back along the shelf, Nison and Chan Gray following joining in pursuit of the two fugitives. Rapidly they gained on the two fugitives who were encumbered with the sledge.
They saw Cheerly and his follower round a narrow place in the shelf ahead. As they rushed after them, atomic shells burst ahead and a mass of the shimmering cliff was dislodged by the flare of energy and fell in an avalanche across the shelf. It blocked the narrow way completely, halting the Planeteers.
"Cheerly used their pistols to cause that rock-fall!” Sual Av cried furiously.
"Down to the floor of the chasm! We'll follow that way and beat them back to the ship!” Thorn shouted.
"We can't!” the Venusian cried. “Look, that mob has followed us!"
The maddened crowd of radioactive men below, seeing the Planeteers’ party moving away along the narrow ledge, had followed along the floor of the chasm. They were gathered now below, preparing to climb up in furious attack once more.
"We're trapped!” Gunner Welk yelled. “We can't go further along the ledge and we can't go down through that crazy mob!"
Already the crazed radioactive men were climbing up to the ledge. Lana uttered a hopeless cry.
Thorn swept her behind him, and he and his comrades and their two glowing friends sprang to repel the assault of the shining horde. With rocks, with their fists, with their clubbed atom-pistols, they beat back their insensate attackers.
But again and again the radioactive men came up at them. Time was dragging past. Thorn felt as though he were struggling in an endless nightmare of horror and despair.
The radioactive attackers had limbs broken, bodies crushed in many places — yet still they came on. The flame of strange energy and life that throbbed in every atom of their bodies could not be extinguished or dimmed by any bodily harm.
As the glowing men below gathered for another charge up the rock wall,
Clymer Nison spoke to the exhausted, staggering Planeteers.
"I may be able to turn them,” said the space-pioneer. “It is a chance to stop Cheerly.."
Thorn saw Nison step to the edge of the ledge and speak to the radioactive horde gathering again below. “There is no use in attacking us any longer!” Nison cried to them. “We do not have the radite. Those who took it from the niche have fled with it, and are escaping!"
A chorus of insanely raging yells answered him, as the half-crazy horde started forward to climb again to the attack. But a huge Jovian among the glowing horde held back his companions.
"Clymer Nison speaks truth!” he shouted. “See, the radite is gone from the ledge and so are some of the men. We must scatter and search for the thieves!"
"Scatter and search!” went up the husky, furious shout from the radioactive mob.
They began to split up, starting along the chasm in both directions, searching carefully for Cheerly and the radite,
"By heaven, Nison, your idea worked!” panted John Thorn. “Quick, now — we've got to get back to the meteorite-mountain. That's where Cheerly will have headed with the radite."
"There's nothing for us to fear, since Stilicho and his men hold Cheerly's ship and crew prisoner,” Sual Av gasped.
"Cheerly must know something has happened to his ship,” Thorn retorted. “That Uranian is a devil for cleverness."
Thorn helped Lana as they scrambled down the rook wall, to the floor of the chasm.
And as they started at a trot back eastward, he half-supported, half-carried the staggering girl.
Their two radioactive allies, Nison and the Martian, led the way out of the barren mountains. They saw none of the glowing horde, which had split in all directions to search furiously for the takers of the radite.
Lana, suffering from exhaustion and nervous reaction, could hardly walk. Yet she trudged valiantly with the last of her strength as they hastened over the dim desert.
"John, if we get the radite away from Cheerly now, will it be in time to save the Alliance?” she panted.
"Yes. Haskell Trask will not launch his attack until he hears from Cheerly that the radite has been secured,” Thorn told her. “If we get the stuff back to Earth's moon, and if Philip Blaine's weapon really works!"