"We heard them give up the chase after you ducked into that meteor swarm. So I gave order to lay a course near the swarm, hoping we might meet you-and then we sighted your wreck. It looks like you'll have to go on to Turkoon with us now."
The old pirate continued admiringly, “I've heard a lot of you lads and the fine things you've done. The time you raided the governor's office at Titan and stole all that platinum, and the time you three alone held up that big Martian liner and robbed all the passengers of their valuables."
The old pirate could not know, Thorn thought grimly, that that raid on Titan had been really to secure League naval secrets and the platinum a mere blind, or that the hold-up of the Martian liner had had as its real objective the securing of a valuable new atom-gun drawing among the effects of a Jovian engineer.
"So when we get to Turkoon,” old Stilicho Keene was continuing eagerly, “maybe you Planeteers would think of joining up with us Companions, eh? It would be good to have some real men with us again, men such as I used to rocket with when I was young."
John Thorn's pulses leaped at the offer. But he kept his excitement hidden, and frowned a little.
"The Three Planeteers join an outfit led by a girl?” he returned a little disdainfully.,
"You wait till you meet this girl,” the old Martian told him. “You'll find she's a real leader, is Lana Cain."
"We'll talk of it when we get to Turkoon,” Thorn told him. “Anyway, we're damned grateful to you for picking us up."
"Aye, you bit off a little more than even you could chew, didn't you, on Earth?” cackled the hoary old sinner. “It warmed my heart to think of it. Kidnapping the Chairman of Earth! Only the Planeteers would have thought of trying that!"
Old Stilicho Keene led the way up through the dusky corridors and catwalks of the ship. The Planeteers shouldered past members of the crew who stared admiringly at them.