"But, lass, you heard what he accused me of!” shrilled the old pirate, outraged. “I tell you, when I saw those tankers as they sailed from Jupiter, they were tankers, nothing else."
"Isn't it likely that real tankers did sail with the freighters,” John Thorn said quietly, “to deceive any spies who might be watching them take off, and that the tankers were replaced by the disguised battle-cruisers at some secret rendezvous in space?"
Kinnel King, the handsome middle-aged Earthman captain, nodded quickly. “That must be the explanation."
"That may be so,” grumbled Jenk Cheerly in his squeaky voice, “but I still say there was something queer about it. We should have got all the cargoes of those freighters, instead of just part of them."
Stilicho Keene stiffened again, but Lana hastily intervened to calm the old pirate.
"You've forgotten to initiate the Planeteers into the Companions, Stilicho,” she reminded. “The Eight Goblets!"
The old man's face slowly cleared, and he turned around to Thorn and Sual Av and Gunner Welk.
"That's right,” he cackled. “You boys ain't real pirates till you've drunk the Eight Goblets. Eli, Companions?"
A roaring shout of laughter rose from the fierce-faced corsairs and their women gathered at the firelit tables.
"Yes, the Goblets! The Eight Goblets for the Planeteers!"