"We're going to use radioactive matter for fuel in our power-chambers!” Thorn explained. “It will yield several times as much power as ordinary metallic fuel. We can get up to a speed no ship has ever attained before!"
"But no one's ever dared use radioactive fuel before,” Lana whispered, stunned. “It would crumble any power-chamber it was used in."
"You forget we've got asterium power-chambers in the Venture now!"
Thorn cried. “And asterium is proof against radioactivity. The daring originality of Thorn's plan burst upon the others, taking their breath away.
"By heaven, it may work!” Gunner exclaimed excitedly. “If the power doesn't make our rocket-tubes back-blast."
"We'll have to take that chance;” John Thorn said harshly. He turned. “Here come Clymer Nison and Chan Gray now. They volunteered to bring the radioactive fuel we'll need."
The two glowing figures of the radioactive men were coming up onto the top of the metal mountain, dragging after them the asterium sledge. Upon the sledge, in a rudely forged asterium box, was a great mass of shining mineral.
Thorn's quick orders superintended the pirate engineers as they carried the asterium box of minerals into the Venture, and prepared it for use, then Thorn turned to the two radiant radioactive men.
"We're ready to start,” he told Clymer Nison haggardly. “We want you to come back with us, to Earth,"
Nison shook his shining head, sadly. “That cannot be. We would be death to you. The radiation from our bodies would slay you, in time, and would disintegrate your ship."