The Three Planeteers

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!"

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—"

"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.