* * * *
The Venture roared closer to the green asteroid and then dropped rapidly toward it, air whistling outside its walls.
'I didn't think an asteroid this small could have an atmosphere,' commented Sua Av, peering downward.
''It must have unusual mass for its size—probably a core of neutronium or other super-heavy elements,' Thorn guessed. 'Otherwise, the escape of its air molecules would be inevitable, and it wouldn't be able to hold an atmosphere.'
'Let's hope that nothing holds us here, once we get what we're after,' muttered Gunda Welk.
Thorn was taut with the same thought. Down in this hell's nest of pirates was a boy with a secret that would save four worlds from conquest—if they could get it from him.
Turkoon widened beneath them, a little world blanketed by thick green fern-jungles. Directly underneath was a raw brown oval, a big clearing that had been blasted from the jungle. At one end of it gleamed the straggling chromaloy buildings of a town of considerable size, while parked ships covered the rest of the field.
The Venture landed with a roar of brake-blasts and a bumping jar beside the scores of parked ships. The door ports were rapidly unscrewed, and warm, heavy air hit the Planeteers’ faces as they followed old Stilicha Keene out of the ship.
'We'll go right up to the Council House. Martina Cain's house, it was, and Lann lives there now,' the old pirate told the three. Her rheumy eyes glistened. 'I want to see the faces of some of these young milksop captains when they learn that I've brought in the Three Planeteers!'
They went with Stilicha Keene across the field and through the main street of the straggling pirate town.
Turkoon Town sprawled, unkempt and somnolent, in the pale wash of light from the shrunken, setting sun. The looming dark green wall of the jungle was only rods from the outermost metal cabins.
Solemn, green and dark towered the fifty-foot jungle all around. Colossal ferns crowded each other, the space between their huge trunks choked with underbrush. Here and there in the tangle, blindly writhed 'crawler vines,' parasitic fungoid creepers that wandered with their peculiar power of self-locomotion, searching for a host. Through the upper jungle and out over the town drifted 'floating flowers,' white blooms that drank sunlight and water vapor from the air, and never touched ground after they budded free.
Thorn and her two comrades were eyed without interest by the motley population of the town—a population as varied in origin as the pirate crew they had already met. The women were from every inhabited world in the system. And there were also many men here—hot-eyed red Martian girls, languid white Venusian men, tall, awkward green girls from Saturn, brazen-faced Earth girls. All were clad in incongruously rich tunics and jewels-pirate loot.
Children, hybrids of a half dozen different peoples, fought and chased each other along the dusty brown street. And there was an astounding variety of animals from all planets, some chained, others running free. Solemn-eyed, furry Martian vardaks, green Venusian swamp pups, a big, hopping uniped from Io, and many others-all of them brought home here by the far-ranging pirate crews.
The crew of the Venture was stumping into town behind them, caning loudly to let all know they had returned. But by now, Stilicha Keene had brought the Planeteers to the long, low chromaloy building that faced the end of the main street.
The snow-haired old pirate painfully climbed the steps, and led them into a big, low-ceilinged, dusky room.
A small group of women stood in it, all wearing atom pistols.
'Where's Lann?' demanded the old pirate as this little group turned toward her.
'We're waiting for him. He'll be out in a moment,' answered a squat, scarred-faced Jovian who was one of the group. 'So you finally got back, Stilicha!'
'Yes, I'm back,' shrilled the ancient Martian. 'And a cursed strange thing it is that old Stilicha Keene has to go out on reconnaissance while you younger women rest your bones.'
The old pirate spat real juice viciously out the open door and then turned to Thorn and her two comrades.
'Boy, I hate to admit it, but these are the captains of the Companions now,' she told Thorn. 'Aye, these; the worthless lot who call themselves pirates in these degenerate days. Yon ox of a Jovian is Brun Abo. The pretty fellow beside her is Kinne Queen, and the fat hog yonder is Jen Cheerly, the latest to join our ranks.'
Thorn's black eyes swept the pirate leaders. The woman beside the Jovian, the woman called Kinne Queen, was an Earthwoman, middle-aged, with a very handsome face and brooding eyes.
Jen Cheerly, the third pirate captain, was a Uranian of incredible obesity. Her fat, puffy body seemed about to burst her jacket, and her pale-green, rotund face was featureless except for two bright, pig-like little eyes.
The obese Uranian stared at Thorn and her two comrades with those little eyes, and then spoke in an incongruously high and squeaky voice to old Stilicha Keene.
'Where did you pick up these three?' she asked. 'And why did you bring them here?'
Stilicha Keene cackled, her rheumy eyes glistening.
'You'll find out who they are in a minute, Jen,' she shrilled. 'It's going to be a surprise for you, and all you other louts who call yourselves pirates.'
A door in the rear of the room suddenly opened, and a boy in white silk jacket and trousers entered the room.
'You're back, Stilicha?' he exclaimed eagerly as he saw the old Martian. 'What did you learn at Jupiter?'
Thorn's gaze riveted on the boy. She heard a low whisper from Sua Av behind her.
'So that's Lann Cain,' whispered the Venusian.
Lann Cain's eyes looked past the old Martian into Thorn's face. She felt the impact of his challenging stare as though it were a tangible shock.
The pirate boy was a slender, imperious figure in his silk garments. His proud, graceful form seemed somehow vibrant with force. The bronze-gold hair that hung to his shoulders was like a casque of dull gold flame around his face, catching the glints of sunlight in its strands.
His face was white, dynamic, with hardness in the straight red mouth and in the stubborn set of his small chin. His dark blue eyes, as they stared into Thorn's face, were growing slowly darker, as though storm were gathering in them, tiny lightnings seeming to flash in their depths.
Thorn was momentarily bewildered, badly startled. She had expected some blowsy, barbaric, aging boy, whom she could, without difficulty, trick out of the secret she wanted. But this boy was as beautiful-and as dangerous-looking-as a sword blade.
The Three Planeteers For All Page 7