Five minutes later, the big door port of the Venture ground open. Out through the air-lock moved the company of forty men, all in suits and helmets, with John Thorn in the lead.
Thorn noted that they stepped out onto a rough jagged surface of black metal. The whole mountain, it seemed, was of black metal, pocked here and there with deposits of glistening ores. The top of the dome-shaped mass loomed starkly against the dusky, starry sky.
Thorn could not repress a tautening of his nerves. This was Erebus, the forbidden world that had claimed so many explorers’ lives since nine centuries ago. From the curving side of the mountain on which the Venture lay, he could look out westward across the barren deserts, wrapped in mysterious, shimmering blue radiance.
The little party was armed with several of the cylindrical dampers that could put atom-guns out of commission, and with atom-pistols belted outside their space-suits. They started up the side of the metal mountain, trudging against a gravitation that was surprisingly strong for so small a world. The Planeteers and old Stilicho led, and beside them ran the space dog, Ool, his green eyes blazing as though he sensed they were on the same world as Lana Cain.
They reached the top of the domed mountain, and Thorn crouched down with his comrades to reconnoiter. Cheerly’ s ship, a long, many-gunned Saturnian naval cruiser with the name Gargol on its bows, lay only a few hundred yards down the curved rough metal slope. They could see a few men in space-suits outside the ship, digging glistening ores from the deposits that packed the metal mountain,
Sual Av's voice reached Thorn by conduction, as the Planeteers crouched with the old pirate and the space dog.
"They're digging fuel-ores for the return trip,” the Venusian muttered. “They can't have sighted our ship."
Thorn nodded his glassite helmet tensely. “Here we go,’ he said, rising to his feet and signaling the pirates behind them. “Whatever you do, be careful you don't injure Lana!"
The space-suited attackers swept down the rough curve of the mountain in a silent run toward the Saturnian ship. They were half-way to it before one of the diggers there glimpsed them,
Instantly, the man fired his atom-pistol at them. The little shell struck a man behind Thorn, a pirate who fell as the blinding flare of energy enveloped him. Thorn swung the damper he carried toward the Saturnian who had fired, and killed his weapon. “Quick, men!” Thorn yelled, then remembered that their audios were off, and signaled with his arm.