* * * *
She went rigid in her bonds. She had been awakened by the entrance of Jen Cheerly into their cell.
The Uranian spymaster's puffy green face showed suppressed excitement. Her little eyes were gleaming triumphantly.
'You Planeteers may as well give up and tell why the Alliance wants the radite, now,' she said exultantly.
Thorn made no vocal answer, but her raging thoughts blared from the psychophone.
'If I could just close my hands on that fat throat—just once—'
The psychophones of Sua Av and Gunda were voicing similar thoughts as they gazed with blazing eyes at Cheerly.
The fat Uranian sneered. 'It's too bad you lasses still feel that way. For the Alliance will never get the radite now, anyway. The League is going to get it. Lann Cain has just given up the secret of Erebus at last!'
'That's a lie!' Joan Thorn shouted. 'A trap to make us talk!'
'It's the truth.' Cheerly taunted triumphantly. 'Did you think the boy could go on forever without thinking of the secret? The more he tried not to think of it, the more his mind turned toward it. You'll find out the same thing will happen to you.'
There was such visible triumph and excitement in the Uranian's fat face that Thorn felt a pang of fear.
At that moment there was a clang of opening doors, and a tramp of feet. Hasna Trask strode into the cell, her bony face and deep eyes ablaze with excitement.
'You reported that the boy has finally told what he knows about Erebus, Cheerly?' the dictator exclaimed.
'Yes, sir,' answered the obese spymaster triumphantly. 'His mental control finally weakened, and he thought of what his mother had told him. The psychophone put it all into the record.
'With what he told to guide us, we can land safely on Erebus and get the radite, sir!' the Uranian continued exultantly. 'We wouldn't have had a chance without his secret. For it seems that there's only one spot on Erebus where women can land without meeting a ghastly fate.'
Hasna Trask's pale green, bony face twitched with visible emotion. The dictator's gloomy eyes flashed.
'You'll sail at once for Erebus and get the radite!' she ordered Cheerly. 'A naval cruiser is waiting in the court now. As soon as you get the radite and start back with it, flash word to me by audio. When I get your message, I'll order our fleets to blast sunward at once for the attack on the Alliance.'
Her fists clenched. 'Then at last our day will have come! Even while our fleets are crushing the Alliance navies, we will be making that radite into bombs that will break the resistance of the inner worlds utterly.'
'I'll take the boy and a psychophone with me to Erebus, sir,' Cheerly said shrewdly. 'He may know a little more about Erebus than his conscious thoughts have revealed. If that is so, I'll get it out of him.'
Trask, recalled from her oratorical flight, nodded her head indifferently.
'Take him, then. But make all speed to Erebus and back. Remember, the mightiest armada in the system's history will be waiting for your message as a signal for it to sail sunward!'
Joan Thorn had listened in gathering horror. This was the end of all hope, surely! Cheerly would get the radite and there would be no chance for the Alliance ever to operate Philippa Blaine's great secret weapon in the lunar caverns—' Philippa Blaine's great secret weapon in the lunar caverns,' the psychophone attached to Thorn was blaring.
Too late, Thorn suppressed her thoughts! In her momentary horror, she had let her thoughts stray, and the psychophone over her head had been speaking them.
'Did you hear that, sir?' cried Jen Cheerly to the dictator. 'A secret weapon of the Alliance, built by the physicist Philippa Blaine in the caverns of Earth's moon! That's why the Alliance wanted the radite—to operate that weapon!'
Hasna Trask's eyes snapped. The dictator strode to where Thorn sat cursing her own loss of mental control that gave the secret away.
'What is the weapon that the Alliance has hidden in the lunar caves?' she demanded of Thorn. 'Speak, Earthwoman!'
Thorn remained rigidly silent. With a violent burst of anger, the dictator struck her across the face.
'We've got to find out what that secret Alliance weapon is!' Trask snapped to her spymaster. 'There's just a chance they might be able to operate it without the radite.'
'She'll give it away to the psychophone, in time,' Cheerly assured her mistress. 'She can't help but give it away—the psychophone pulls out all their secrets, sooner or later.'
'You're wrong this time,' Joan Thorn said bitterly. 'I don't know the nature of the Alliance weapon. None of us know it—and I'm damned glad now we don't!'
'She's lying, of course,' Jen Cheerly said calmly. 'But she'll have to think the truth, sooner or later.'
'We'll keep these Planeteers; under the psychophones until they do tell what that weapon is,' Trask declared harshly. 'Meanwhile, don't delay, Cheerly. Get started now for Erebus!'
Joan Thorn writhed as Lann was brought out of his cell by two of Cheerly's women, and carried down the corridor. She could just glimpse his white, worn face through the grating in the door, and heard his despairing, sobbing cry.
'Joan, I gave up the secret to them. I couldn't keep from thinking of it longer! And now they're taking me with them to Erebus. Everything is lost, and it's all my fault!'
'Lann, it's not your fault!' Thorn cried hoarsely. 'Lann,'
But he was gone. For a moment Jen Cheerly's fat, green face grinned in at them through the grating. Her eyes were sinister and hateful.
'Goodbye, Planeteers,' the Uranian squeaked mockingly. 'Wish me a pleasant voyage to Erebus—for by the time I get back with the radite, you three will be dead!'