The Three Planeteers For All

by Edmonda Hamilton

CHAPTER V

  Secret Enemy

  IN the queerly tense silence Thorn stared at Lann Cain. Then the silence was suddenly broken by the shuffling entrance of a grotesque, four-legged creature that had followed the pirate boy into the room. It stared at Thorn with blazing green eyes.

  'It's a space dog, Joan!' exclaimed Sua Av wonderingly. 'You've heard of them.'

  'I've heard of them,' Thorn muttered. 'But this is the first one I've ever seen.'

  The space dog stood three feet high at the shoulder. Its body was of dusty, mineraline gray flesh that had an inorganic look. Its four legs ended in heavy digging paws, and its mouth was furnished with great grindingtusks. It had no nostrils, for the creature was not an air-breathing animal.

  It was, in fact, one of a unique species. The early explorers who first visited the asteroid Ceres had been amazed to find these creatures living on that airless little world. They were the product of an evolution working without atmosphere, creatures able to assimilate the inorganic elements they dug from the ground, and consume them by a chemical process other than oxidization. They had dim telepathic powers by which their rudimentary minds communed.

  'Ool will not hurt you,' said Lann Cain crisply to Thorn.

  He glanced at the blazing-eyed creature, and it lay down at his feet as it received his telepathic command.

  'Stilicha, you brought these three women here?' the boy asked the old Martian. 'Who are they?'

  'Yes, who are they?' squeaked Jen Cheerly, the obese, beady-eyed Uranian. 'What's all the mystery about them?'

  Stilicha Keene's rheumy eyes glistened, and her wrinkled face quivered with excitement as she answered.

  'Why, they're just three lasses I picked off a wreck coming back, and fetched along to Turkoon,' she quavered. The old woman paused to enjoy her coming triumph, then added, 'Maybe you've heard of these three girls. They're called the Three Planeteers.'

  'The Three Planeteers!'

  Brun Abo, the squat Jovian, uttered that startled cry. She and everyone else in the room stared at Joan Thorn and Sua Av and Gunda Welk in rigidly frozen amazement.

  The beady eyes of Jen Cheerly, the fat Uranian, were wide with astonishment. Kinne Queen, the Earthwoman, stiffened. And Lann Cain's dark blue eyes narrowed incredulously as he stared at Thorn's dark face.

  'It's them, all right,' muttered the Jovian in a moment. 'I've seen their pictures on reward notices.'

  'Those pictures on the notices were poor likenesses,' said Sua Av, a grin on her froglike face. 'They hardly did me justice, as you can see for yourselves.'

  'What do you Planeteers want here, if you are the Planeteers?' demanded Jen Cheerly suspiciously.

  Gunda Welk stiffened at the fat green pirate's question.

  'We're not in the custom of asking anybody's leave for our coming and goings, Uranian!' she flared.

  'Not even the Planeteers can talk to me like that!' squeaked Jen Cheerly furiously, her hand dropping to her side.

  'Draw that atom-pistol, and I'll shove it down your fat throat,' warned the towering Mercurian ominously.

  'Quiet, Gunda,' snapped Joan Thorn. 'I'll do the talking.'

  'Let them fight!' urged old Stilicha Keene with quavering eagerness, a ghoulish avidity in her rheumy eyes as she leaned forward. 'There's nothing to warm the blood like the sight of two good women in a stand-up fight.'

  'There'll be no fighting here!' flared Lann Cain. 'You all know my rules! If any of you doesn't like them she can get out of Turkoon and out of the Zone!'

  The boy's voice cracked like a silver whip, and his dark blue eyes were stormy now with little lightnings. The space dog, Ool, had sprung to her feet, her great green eyes blazing.

  Thorn sensed the electric force in this boy which had kept his the acknowledged leader of the wild Companions of Space. The others in the room were stricken to sullen silence by it.

  Lann's stormy eyes swung back to Thorn.

  'Jen's question was a fair one, Joan Thorn,' he declared. 'What are you Planeteers doing here? You’ never came into the Zone before—you always worked by yourselves.'

  Thorn shrugged. 'We didn't come here by choice. Perhaps you heard of the trouble we got into at Earth?'

  'We heard of your attempt to kidnap the Chairwoman there,' Lann nodded curtly. 'Go on.'

  'We bungled the job and had to run for it with half the Earth Navy on our tail,' Thorn continued coolly. 'We tried to lose them in a swarm and got wrecked. The old Martian there picked us up and brought us here to Turkoon. It's not a place we'd have picked voluntarily.' Lann stiffened, and asked dangerously, 'You don't think much then of we Companions and our ways?'

  'Not much,' Thorn answered coolly. 'I've no doubt your followers are good fighters, but they look like rather an undisciplined rabble.'

  Thorn was playing her part to the hilt. She knew well that for the famous Planeteers to seem too friendly on first acquaintance, too eager to join the pirates, would quickly arouse suspicion.

  'But, girl, I was hoping that you three would join’ up with us!' quavered old Stilicha Keene dismayedly.

  'The Planeteers work alone,' Thorn declared frowningly. Then she appeared to hesitate, and added, 'It's true that we're stranded here now without a ship—'

  Sua Av instantly played up to her. 'Yes, Joan, we need a ship and equipment. Maybe we could work with these people for a while, and take a new cruiser as our share of loot.'

  'You haven't been asked to join the Companions yet,' flared Lann Cain. 'You Planeteers are just three women here. I could order you gunned down and it would be done.'

  Joan Thorn looked at his steadily with cool black eyes. 'Would you do that?'

  'No, I wouldn't,' he admitted after a moment. 'Turkoon is a refuge for every outlaw who comes into the Zone, as long as she obeys my rules. And I don't countenance killing here.'

  Thorn smiled. 'After all, we Planeteers are in no position to be choosers. We need a ship. We'll join up with you for a while, if you're agreeable, and take a ship as our share of spoil, and then be on our way. What do you say?'

  Lann frowned in thought, his anger gone. 'We do need captains,' he murmured.

  'And where will you find better ones than the Planeteers?' cried old Stilicha Keene with shrill eagerness. 'Take them in, lass—it's heaven sent them here to help us in the big new foray we've planned.'

  'We can pull that job without their help,' squeaked Jen Cheerly, her pig-like eyes malignant. 'What do we need with the Planeteers?'

  Brun Abo, the squat Jovian, nodded sullen agreement. But Kinne Queen, the handsome Earthwoman, turned on the obese Uranian.

  'After all, Jen,' said Kinne Queen silkily, 'you yourself are still a newcomer in our midst. We don't need advice from you on this.'

  'No brawling!' Lann ordered imperiously. He continued, 'Joan Thorn, I'm taking you three into the Companions. But understand one thing. When we blast off Turkoon, everyone is under my command, even the Planeteers.'

  Thorn frowned, though inwardly her heart was pounding with elation.

  'We're not used to being under orders of anyone,' she declared.

  'Take it or leave it!' Lann flashed. 'There can only be one leader when ships go into action.'

  Thorn finally shrugged. 'Well, as I said, we're not in a position to be choosers. We follow your orders in space.'

  'That's settled, then,' Lann said curtly. His slender figure swung round to Stilicha Keene. 'Now what about your reconnaissance, Stilicha? Did you find out anything at Jupiter about those scheduled freighters?'

  The old Martian nodded her white head vigorously. 'Sure did. We slipped in to Jupiter without bein’ spotted, and landed secretly in that big marsh near Vosek. Me and one of my girls went into the city in disguise and hung around the docks. We saw rich cargo bein’ loaded in them freighters—thirty of ‘em. We waited till they took off, a bunch of tankers with ‘em. They're blasting along without any naval convoy. I figger them to cross under the Zone tomorrow, on their way to Saturn.
'

  'Didn't I tell you they'd sail without convoy?' squeaked Jen Cheerly, the obese Uranian's eyes glistening. 'Wasn't my tip right? This'll be a rich haul, and without even a fight.'

  Lann Cain turned to Thorn and her two comrades and explained crisply.

  'Jen just joined us two weeks ago. She came with her ship from Jupiter, where she had a secret base on one of the outer moons. She brought advance notice of these rich Jovian freighters scheduled to transit across the inner orbits of the system to reach Saturn which is now approaching opposition.

  'They're without convoy,' the pirate boy continued rapidly, 'because the League of Cold Worlds is concentrating all its cruisers at Saturn right now, preparing for the great attack they're going to make on the Alliance. I sent Stilicha to check their sailing and make sure they had rich cargo. We'll surprise them tomorrow when they pass under the Zone.'

  'Yes, and fine loot there'll be to divide,' squeaked the obese Uranian gloatingly. 'We'll gun them to a wreck, and gut them of every scrap of spoil, and leave not a woman alive on them to take the tale to Saturn.'

  'No!' exclaimed Lann hotly. 'No massacre! I told you my rules when you joined us, Jen. The Companions willfully spill no blood as long as I lead them!'

  'My rule has always been to leave nobody alive to testify against me in a space-court,' grumbled the fat Uranian shrilly. 'This tenderheartedness—'

  'It isn't just tenderheartedness; it's good strategy!' flashed Lann Cain, his blue eyes determined. 'When freighter-men know they're going to be massacred if they surrender, they fight to the last woman. But when they know that only their cargo will be taken, and their lives spared, they surrender a lot more quickly. Further, the hunt against us is never so bitter. It was my mother's rule to take no life, and it's mine, and it's paid returns to the Companions.'

  'That it has!' declared Brun Abo, the Jovian, 'It's saved us many a bitter fight-and possibly extermination.'

  The boy looked around them as she gave him orders.

  'Our chief spatial navigator will check their course against Saturn's and ours. We'll blast off tomorrow dawn, with forty ships. That'll give us time enough to be waiting in the Zone, and when the Jovian freighters pass underneath, we'll swoop down on them.'

  'What about Gunda and Sua Av and me?' Joan Thorn asked him. 'We have no ship, remember.'

  'You'll be furnished one, and a crew to go with it,' Lann answered crisply. 'From what I've heard of you Planeteers, you'll be able to handle your part.'

  He ran his hand a little tiredly through his mop of dull-gold hair.

  'That's all, women. See that your ships and women are ready to blast off at dawn. And not too much drinking tonight!'

  As the pirate captains started to troop out, the boy added to the old Martian, 'Stilicha, find a cabin for the Planeteers.'

  Thorn was starting out with her two comrades after the old pirate, when Lann's voice halted her.

  'Wait, Joan Thorn. There's something I want to ask you.'

  Thorn turned, surprised. The boy was looking at her with a queerly thoughtful expression in his blue eyes, his small hand idly patting the space dog that had risen beside him.

  'You were in the Earth Navy before you became an outlaw, weren't you?' he asked her.

  Thorn nodded. 'Until I deserted,' she admitted curtly.

  Lann pointed up to a picture on the wall, a portrait of a hard-faced, middle-aged woman with piercing eyes.

  'My mother, Martina Cain, was officer in the Earth Navy, too, before she became an outlaw,' he said slowly. 'Do they ever speak of my mother on Earth? What do they say of her?'

  Thorn told his the truth. 'They speak of her only as notorious pirate. Few remember she was ever a naval woman.'

  'But she was, and one of their best officers,' Lann said bitterly. 'It was the jealousy of other officers over her promotions that formed a cabal which had her dishonorably discharge . That was the reward of Earth for all the service she'd given her native planet.'

  'You don't think much of Earth, eh?' Thorn said curiously. 'Yet, after all, it's really your native world.'

  'The Zone is my world—I was born here. I hate Earth for what it did to my father!' the boy flashed. 'I'll be glad to see the League smash the inner worlds, for though I hate the League and its dictator, I've an even greater hate for Earth!'

  Thorn felt a faint hope she had cherished until now, die within her. She had hoped that the pirate boy might be induced to save Earth from conquest by telling her the secret of Erebus. But she saw how futile had been that slight hope. This boy had only bitter hatred for the world he deemed to have wronged his mother.

  'Your mothers was an extraordinary woman,' Thorn mused, looking up at the portrait. 'A great fighter and organizer, a wonderful navigator. They say that she even visited Erebus, the tenth world, though I suppose that's just a baseless legend.'

  'It's the truth!' Lann declared proudly. 'My mothers was on Erebus two weeks, and came back safely—the only woman in the whole history of the Solanr System that ever did so.'

  Joan Thorn stared incredulously. 'How did she do it? How did she avoid whatever peril there has swallowed so many women?—'

  'I can't tell you that,' the boy A said slowly. 'I've never told anybody what my mother told me about Erebus.'

  'Then,' Thorn said wonderingly, 'you're the only person in the whole system who knows anything about that mystery world? The only person who knows how it might be visited safely?'

  The boy nodded slowly. A queer expression, one of somber, haunting memory, had come into his vital blue eyes.

  'Yes, I'm the only one who knows the secret of Erebus,' he admitted. 'And nobody will ever learn it from me. I have reasons for keeping silence about that world!'

  He trembled slightly. Thorn, watching his tautly, felt a queer chill as of a cold, alien breath in the room.

  'But I do not know why I am talking of Erebus,' he said impatiently. 'I am tired. I shall see you tomorrow at dawn, before our ships blast off.'

  Thus dismissed, Thorn left the Council House and walked slowly, deep in thought, down the street of Turkoon Town. The sun was setting, and from the little crimson disk a flood of pale red light uncannily illuminated the dark, surrounding fern jungle, the raw field and parked ships, and the straggling metal town.

  She found the metal cabin assigned them. Gunda Welk and Sua Av sprang up eagerly as she entered.

  'We've made it so far, Joan!' exclaimed the bald Venusian excitedly. 'We're in with the pirates now, at least. Did you find out anything about Erebus from the boy?'

  Thorn shook her head. 'He won't talk about Erebus—she seems almost afraid to. I didn't dare press questions.'

  'We can't wait forever to get the secret out of him,' rumbled Gunda Welk warningly. 'Even when we get it, it'll take a lot of time to get out to Erebus and lift the radite, remember.'

  'I know,' Thorn muttered. 'But well ruin all our chances if we're too rash now.'

  She fished in her pocket for a rial cigarette.

  'It's possible,' she said, 'that whatever his mother told him about Erebus—'

  Thorn stopped speaking. Her face froze as she pulled out the thing she had felt in her pocket. It was a tiny metal sphere, only a half-inch in diameter, With a minute aperture in it.

  'An Ear,' exclaimed Sua Av appalledly.

  Thorn dropped the thing like a poisonous snake and ground it under her heel. Her dark face was grim as she looked down at the shattered fragments of the Ear.

  The thing was a super-compact and super-sensitive audio transmitter. It picked up all sound in its immediate vicinity and broadcast it electro-magnetically, for a short range. Both police and criminals of the system used Ears for eavesdropping at a distance.

  'Someone slipped it into my pocket in the Council House!' Thorn rapped. 'See if there are any more.'

  But a swift search of their clothing and of the cabin disclosed no more Ears.

  'Whoever put that Ear in my pocket suspects us!' Thorn
said grimly. 'And whoever it is knows now from our talk that we came here after the secret of Erebus, that we're after the radite!

  'Thank heaven,' she added tightly, 'that we didn't give away the fact that we want the radite for Earth, that we're Earth agents.'

  'This is bad, Joan,' said Sua Av, her ugly face sober. 'Who do you think suspects us? Lann Cain himself?'

  'If it were he, or someone loyal to him,' rumbled Gunda Welk, 'he'd have sent women here to seize us by now!'

  'Gunda's right—it can't be Lann,' muttered Thorn. 'Someone here is playing a deep game of her own. And whoever it is doesn't like us, and knows now just what we're here for.'

  'Joan, our hidden enemy will have a fine chance to gun us tomorrow in the confusion of this attack on the Jovian freighters,' warned Sua Av.

  Thorn's brown face hardened. 'I know. But we have to keep right on playing our part here, until we get the secret. We've got to take our part in the foray, and keep looking out for trouble.'