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.