The Three Planeteers

CHAPTER XIII Dictator of Worlds

THE girl's white face flushed crimson, as the machine over her head blared forth her secret thoughts. Then she raised her gold head and looked at Thorn with brave steadiness.

"I would not have told you, John Thorn.” she whispered. “But since the psychophone has spoken it, I must admit it — I do love you."

Thorn's green-stained face worried, and in the rush of his mingled emotions, it was a moment before he could speak,

"Lana, I love you, too,” he said unsteadily. “I have, since that night of the feast at Turkoon."

"You do?” she whispered, incredulous, wondering joy dawning in her eyes. “You do, John Thorn?"

There was a long moment in which Lana's shining blue eyes clung to his, as he stared through the door-grating. And in that moment, the psychophone attached to the girl was speaking metallically on, stiltedly trying to voice her rush of joyous emotions.

Sual Av stirred restlessly beside Thorn. He and Gunner Welk had listened in silence until now.

"John, we'd better not be lingering here,” the Venusian cautioned.

"Yes, this is no place for love talk,” rumbled Gunner. “God help us if Cheerly catches us here before we get Lana out!"

"Cheerly!” The psychophone spoke the girl's blazing thought as she heard the name. “I hate that traitor!"

"Lana, what have Cheerly and Haskell Trask done to you?” Thorn exclaimed, his face hardening. “Have they harmed you."

"Since they brought me here they've had this attached to me,” Lana said bitterly. “All these days I've sat here trying not to think of the secret of Erebus that they want. And I've known that sooner or later I'd slip and think of it."

Each time Lana spoke, the psychophone was metallically speaking also, voicing the thought behind her words.

"They mustn't get that secret!” she cried. “On the way here I learned by overhearing Cheerly's talk, why they want it. There's a mass of radite on Erebus, and that's what they're after. They plan to use that radite against the Alliance in their coming attack. They intend to make atomic bombs of the radite!"

"Radite bombs?” exclaimed Thorn, his face blanching under its stain. “Good God, one atom bomb charged with that super-powerful stuff would destroy a whole Metropolis!"

"Then that is the terrible new agent of destruction we heard the League was planning!” hissed Gunner Welk. “That is why Haskell Trask is delaying his attack on the Alliance until he gets the radite from Erebus!” Lana exclaimed. “He wants to follow up his expected naval victory by a terrific bombing that will break all the inner world's resistance. That's why I'd rather die then give them the secret of Erebus!"

The girl looked at John Thorn through the grating with pleading earnestness in her worn white face.

"John, I told you I hated Earth for what it had done to my father, that its fate didn't concern me. But when I heard what Trask plans to do to Earth and the other Alliance planets, I realized Earth is still my native world, that I couldn't let that happen.

"And it's your native world, too, John. Even though you Planeteers are outlaws, you're bound to the inner worlds by blood and birth. Just as I am. We mustn't let Trask's plan succeed!"

Now was the moment to explain. “Lana, we Planeteers are not really outlaws at all!” Thorn said eagerly. “We're secret agents of the Alliance, and we're after that radite on Erebus because it can save the Alliance from defeat when the League attacks."

"Then I'll tell you the secret of Erebus!” the girl cried joyfully. “If it means saving the Alliance worlds from conquest, as you say—"

"Hush, Lana! Don't think of it now! Wait!"

Sual Av had been searching the bodies of the two slain guards. The Venusian hastened back now to Thorn's side.

"John, there's no wave-key on those guards,” he reported anxiously. “How are we going to get Lana out?"

"We'll have to break through this cell-door somehow!” Thorn exclaimed urgently.

"Break through an inertrum door?” said Gunner Welk incredulously.

A quick examination of the door justified the big Mercurian's doubt. The heavy inertrum of the door would resist even their atom-pistols. And the wave-lock was wholly invulnerable.

"We've got to get her out somehow!” Thorn cried.

"John, listen to me,” said Lana quickly. “You can't get me out. But you Planeteers can get away, by the way you came. I'll tell you the secret of Erebus, the way to land on that world safely, and you three can get the radite.

"But we can't leave you here, Lana!” Thorn cried desperately. “Just when you and I have found each other—"

"You must!” she declared, her blue eyes bright with purpose. “What is my safety against that of all the inner Worlds?"

"She's right, John,” said Sual Av in a low, strained voice. “God knows I hate to go and leave her here. But remember, we promised the Earth Chairman we'd do anything to get that radite."

"We've got to do it, yes,” muttered Gunner, his huge fists clenched. “But we'll come back, and if they've harmed her—"

John Thorn faced crucial decision, his mind torn by conflicting emotions. His heart throbbed with desperate anxiety for Lana. Yet clear before him came the weary face of the Earth Chairman, telling him the Alliance's last hope was in the Planeteers.

"We'll do it,” Thorn said hoarsely. He could not say more. He could only stare haggardly into Lana's eyes.

"Then listen to the secret of Erebus that my father told me, John!” the girl cried. “It's doom, hideous and ghastly doom, to land anywhere on Erebus except—"

"Listen!” Sual Av cried suddenly. “Someone is coming!"

From beyond the locked door at the end of the short corridor came a sound of voices and approaching footsteps.

"It must be the captain of guards on his inspection!” exclaimed Lana fearfully.

"No time to get back to that drain!” Thorn rapped. “Quick, into one of these cells! Drag those bodies in, too!"

In an instant, he and the Venusian and Mercurian had seized the scorched bodies of the two dead guards and had dragged them into an empty cell across the corridor from Lana's cell. As they swung shut the door of their hiding place, the door at the end of the corridor opened, and men entered the prison.

John Thorn, peering through the grating in the door of the hiding place, stiffened in every muscle as he saw the men. One of them was a tall Saturnian captain of guards. Another was an obese, waddling figure with a puffy green face and pig-like little eyes — Jenk Cheerly.

But it was the third man of the group, the one who strode in front, upon whom Thorn's eyes riveted. This man was a middle-aged Saturnian of tall stature, with a bony, nervous green face and very deep, dark eyes that stared gloomily straight ahead.

"Haskell Trask!” murmured Sual Av in Thorn's ear, his faint whisper surcharged with excitement.

Haskell Trask, self-appointed Leader of the League of Cold Worlds, absolute dictator of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune! Thorn's pulse pounded at sight of that bony, nervous face.

"Why are no guards on duty here as I ordered?” Jink Cheerly was asking the captain of guards in his squeaky voice.

"I did station two here, sir,” replied the officer, worriedly, to the fat spymaster. “They must have sneaked out for some reason. I'll have them court-martialed for it."

"I should have put my own, Secret Police here instead of depending on you,” said Cheerly in vicious anger. “You've failed in your duty, Captain."

"No man must fail in his duty now!” declared Haskell Trask in his harsh, high, fanatical voice. “In this great hour when we approach our fated destiny, every man in the League worlds must give his all for the tremendous and glorious work that faces us!” Haskell Trask spoke as though he were exhorting a crowd a thousands, his voice incongruously declamatory. His gloomy eyes flashed with a deep fire, his tall, bony figure rigid.

John Thorn felt a chill as he heard. The voice and face of Trask were those of a madman, a man utterly convinced of the rightness of his actions and the wickedness of his enemies.

The captain hurried ahead to the door of Lana's cell and was turning the invisible beam of a wave-key on its lock. Trask and the fat Uranian spymaster halted and waited.

"John, we can gun down Trask from here!” Sual Av whispered excitedly, tensely fingering his atom-pistol.

"No. Killing Trask now wouldn't stop the League, for there are a hundred of his underlings ready to take his place,” Thorn muttered tautly. “Wait, I have a better plan."

The door of Lana's cell clicked open. Watching through the grating, the Planeteers saw the dictator stride into the girl's prison-room, followed by Jenk Cheerly and the captain.

"— almost morning. Days and nights are so short on Saturn,” the psychophone was speaking forth Lana's thoughts.

Thorn understood. Lana was trying to avoid giving away the presence of the Planeteers, by thinking of other things.

Haskell Trask surveyed the girl bound in the chair, his gloomy eyes meeting her defiant blue ones.

"Are you ready yet to tell us what we want to know, girl?” he demanded harshly.

Lana made no vocal answer. But the psychophone spoke her thoughts.

"I'll never tell them! Never!"

Trask's nervous face twitched violently and he seemed seized by a raging passion. He flung his arms out widely.

"Everything is against me in my great task. Everything!” he cried with theatrical self-pity. “But I shall persevere and conquer in spite of everything! The system shall see!"

"Perhaps the girl has given away the secret to the psychophone by now, sir,” Jenk Cheerly suggested hastily. “Shall I examine the record?"

Trask nodded curtly. The fat spymaster reached up and touched a switch of the recorder. Instantly from it, began speaking the recorded thoughts of Lana, as spoken by the psychophone in the preceding hours and phonographically recorded on the tape.

John Thorn soundlessly opened the door behind which he and his comrades were hidden, and whispered tautly to them,

"Come on, but don't shoot Trask, yet!"

Haskell Trask and Cheerly were so intently listening to the record that they did not see the armed Planeteers appear silently at the open door of the cell. But the captain saw, and uttered a startled cry. Trask and the fat spymaster spun around.

"Hands high!” John Thorn rapped, his atom-pistol leveled. “Quick, or we'll blast you down!"

Stupefiedly, the three men in the cell raised their hands. Haskell Trask's bony face went livid with rage.

"You dare turn weapons upon me!” he choked to the disguised Planeteers. “Upon me, your Leader!"

But Cheerly's pig eyes suddenly widened as the fat spymaster's gaze searched Thorn's green-stained face.

"These aren't men of ours, sir!” he cried to the dictator. “I know them — they're the Three Planeteers!"

"The Planeteers!” exclaimed Trask. His deep eyes blazed. “The outlaws whose brazen robberies have made us so much trouble in the past, who have stolen so many of our secrets—"

Thorn interrupted in a hard, cold voice. “Take their guns, Sual Av. Gunner, release Lana. Careful with those nerve connections."

In a moment the girl was freed, and the Venusian had the weapons of Cheerly and the captain. Trask had been unarmed.

"We're going out of here with this girl,” Thorn told the Saturnians icily. “We're going to that court nearby where the space-cruisers are parked. You three are going to lead us there, by the shortest and least-used route. If we are challenged by anybody, or if there is any alarm, your leader here will die first."

The captain gasped with horror at the threat, and Cheerly's pig eyes narrowed. But Trask's bony face was unmoved.

"You cannot kill me,” the dictator told Thorn harshly. “Destiny has reserved me for a great work."

"My trigger-finger can change destiny pretty quick, Saturnian!” warned Gunner Welk, his voice throbbing with hate.

Thorn motioned to the door at the end of the corridor.

"Get going, and remember my warning! Lana, keep beside me."

They started, Haskell Trask and Cheerly and the captain moving with hands upraised, the Planeteers following with weapons leveled. Lana staggered, her limbs numbed by long confinement in her bonds, the back of her head aching. Thorn helped her along tenderly with his free arm.

They passed thus through the door at the end of the corridor, out of the dungeon into the dusky, diverging corridors that ran in a labyrinth here beneath the great citadel. No one was in sight in these passages as they went forward. Thorn's hopes soared.

If they could get away with Lana to where old Stilicho's ship waited out in the rings, they would soon be racing toward Erebus! And with Lana's secret knowledge to help them—

They were passing a dark cross-corridor at this moment. And Sual Av suddenly whirled around to face it.

"Look out — a trap!” he yelled wildly.

"They've got a damper!” shouted Gunner Welk, leveling his atom-pistol swiftly to fire.

Too late! The Mercurian's atom-pistol only clicked futilely. Thorn pulled trigger, but his weapon too was dead.

A score of Saturnian guards had been lying in wait in that shadowy cross-passage! And one of them held a cylindrical damper pointed toward them — an electrical mechanism that generated a short-range beam of vibratory force which damped or neutralized the electric propulsion-currents of any atom-gun's barrel solenoid, rendering it useless. The damper's beam covered the Planeteer's guns.

The Saturnian soldiers poured out of the cross-passage onto the Planeteers. Thorn clubbed his useless gun and tried to get at Haskell Trask, but went down under a smothering mass of green-faced men. He heard Lana scream as he fought fiercely.

The one-sided fight ended. Thorn was jerked to his feet by four Saturnians who gripped him. Sual Av and Lana were similarly held. Gunner Welk lay unconscious on the floor.

"We shall now find out why these Planeteers came here and who they are working for!” Haskell Trask declared.

"But they dared threaten you, sir!” protested the tall captain. “They deserve instant execution for that crime."

"The indignity to me is nothing, declared the dictator fanatically. “I am thinking only of the great cause we all serve.

"You Planeteers are not as cunning as I thought,” Jenk Cheerly told Thorn tauntingly, “or you'd have guessed that there would be a spyplate outside the entrance to the dungeon."

Thorn's heart sank. So that was how they had been detected — by a hidden spy-plate outside the dungeon entrance, by which a distant officer could keep watch over all who entered or left the prison. The spy-plate watcher had seen them forcing the dictator and the other two ahead of them, and had summoned guards with a damper to nullify the Planeteers’ weapons and make sure they had no chance to harm the Leader when they were captured.

Thorn's wild hopes had crashed in utter ruin. He could not face Lana. He felt with bitter self-reproach that he had failed her, and that he had failed the Alliance.