* * * *
The long hours of that day were a torture infinitely prolonged to Joan Thorn. Pacing the little room, peering tensely from the window, she waited in terrible suspense.
They were not brought any food or water. They had been completely forgotten for the time being in the greater catastrophe. They could see the street of Turkoon Town thronged with excited pirate men and women who had been left behind by the hasty expedition that had thundered forth in chase of Jen Cheerly.
Night came, and more hours dragged past. Then from the distance came the thudding thunder of many ships landing.
'They're back!' Thorn cried tautly. 'But did they rescue Lann?'
'We'll soon know,' muttered Sua Av.
They heard the pirate crews and captains trooping back into town, heard a loud uproar of voices. They waited tensely.
Then a thin, snow-haired figure approached their window in the starlight. It was old Stilicha, Keene, moving slowly.
'Did you bring Lann back?' Thorn cried.
The old woman's cracked voice was unsteady and choking with emotion as, she answered.
'No, we didn't.' Her accents became shrill and wild. 'We were only a few hours behind Cheerly's ship. We could see it in our ‘scopes and were sure to overtake her. And then she was joined by a force of fifty League cruisers, as an escort.
'She must have had secret arrangements with them cruisers to be waiting for her, damn her!' Stilicha continued. 'We only had twenty ships. I wanted to keep after them anyway, and fight it out, but Brun Abo and the rest said it would be suicide.'
Stilicha's old voice broke. 'I guess they were right, maybe. Getting ourselves all killed wouldn't have saved Lann. Nothing can save his now—and I don't want to live any more, with the lad gone.'
Tremulous tears were glistening on the old Martian's starlit face. She wiped them with a quivering hand.
Thorn felt a cold, ghastly shock from what she had heard. Blind emotion surged in her. And then the instinct to fight back, to persevere, rose to dominate her.
'Are you going to give up Lann for dead?' she demanded fiercely of the old woman outside. 'Are you just going weep like a man for him, or are you going to do something?'
'What can I do?' Stilicha quavered. 'I'd give my life for the lad, but there's nobody can save his now. She's in Hasna Trask's dungeons on Saturn, by now, and a thousand women couldn't get him out of there.'
'A thousand women. Might not, but three women could!' Thorn flashed fiercely. 'We three—we Planeteers!'
Stilicha stared hopelessly. 'How could even you Planeteers hope to snatch his from the claws of Hasna Trask?'
'We've done things as seemingly impossible as that in the past, haven't we?' Thorn demanded. 'Give us the chance, Stilicha, and we'll get him out of there or die trying!'
The old Martian's eyes widened. 'If anybody could do it, you Planeteers could,' she muttered. She stared doubtfully at Thorn's starlit face. 'But you Planeteers are only after the secret Lann knows, the same as Cheerly.'
'We want that secret, yes,' Thorn said tensely. 'But the only way we can hope to get it is by rescuing Lann! Can't you see that? I'm hoping that if we save him, he'll tell us the secret. But whether he does or not, he'll have been saved, and that's all that you care for!'
And as Stilicha still hesitated, Thorn hissed a grim reminder.
'Think what Cheerly will do to Lann to wring the secret from him! Hasna Trask isn't above torture!'
The old woman's figure quivered at that.
'He'll never tell them,' she muttered, 'even though they kill him. I know Lann.'
Then the old pirate stiffened with decision, and she spoke rapidly to the tensely waiting three.
'I'm going to take the chance you Planeteers can save him. It looks like the only chance the lad has got. I'm going to release you, and we'll head out in my ship for Saturn, before Brun Abo and the rest find out what I've done.'
'Will the crew of your ship follow you?' Thorn asked quickly, her pulses pounding with excitement and hope.
'Hell, they'd sail straight into the sun if I laid the course!' exclaimed the old pirate. Her cracked voice throbbed with eagerness as she continued. 'I'll have to steal the wave key of this brig from the Council House to let you out. And I'll pass a whisper to my crew to gather in the Venture at once.'
The old Martian hastened away through the starlight. Joan Thorn swung round to her comrades.
'It's a fighting chance we've got now, at least!' she exclaimed.
'A pretty slim one,' said Gunda Welk somberly. 'How in hell's name are we to get that boy away from Saturn in the teeth of all the League forces? An army couldn't do it.'
'We'll have to do what an army couldn't, then,' Thorn said grimly. 'There must be some way.'
Presently they glimpsed Stilicha Keene hastening back to their prison. At the old Martian's heels followed a great, gray shape with blazing green eyes, Lann's space dog, Ool.
Stilicha turned the wave-key's beam on the lock. The frequencies actuated the delicate mechanism, and the door opened.
'I had a time stealing the wave-key!' panted the old woman as Thorn and her comrades emerged. 'Brun Abo and the rest are up in the Council House. As soon as they remember you three, they'll be here to have you executed.'
'Why did you bring the space dog?' Gunda asked.
'I didn't bring her—he followed me,' Stilicha said. 'She's been wild since Lann was kidnapped, and I think she senses we're going after him. The critters are a little telepathic, you know.'
'Let her come along. We don't want to arouse any commotion,' Thorn said swiftly. 'Is your crew waiting at the ship?'
'All ready, by now,' the old pirate replied. 'Follow me. We'll have to slip out to the field without being seen.'
She led the Planeteers through the starlight, close against the towering, dark wall of fern-jungle that encircled Turkoon Town. By that circuitous route they reached the field where the massed pirate ships lay glinting under the meteor-blazoned sky, The big space dog padded beside them as they approached the Venture.
They climbed hastily into the long black ship, the animal following them. Stilicha's motley crew were waiting. The doors were already grinding shut as the Planeteers followed the old pirate up to the control-room.
A few moments later, with a thunderous blast of fire, the Venture shot skyward on its desperate mission.
The Three Planeteers For All Page 15
