"The Planeteers!” exclaimed the Chairman, rising to his feet. “Thank God, you're here!"
CHAPTER II
Cold-World Menace
The career of the Three Planeteers had begun four years previously, in 2952.
That year had seen the splitting of the eight independent inhabited worlds of the Solar System into two hostile alliances. The great and powerful League of Cold Worlds had been formed by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, under a ruthless, ambitious dictator. Feeling themselves menaced, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars had formed the Inner Alliance. The Alliance had sent out many spies to gain information of the League's threatening plans, but nearly all of them had rapidly been detected and executed.
Then John Thorn, captain in the Earth Navy, had conceived his patriotic plan. He and two friends, Sual Av, Venusian engineer, and Gunner Welk, Mercurian adventurer, would go forth into the underworld of the system as outlaws. And as fugitives from the law, they would never be suspected of being agents of the Alliance.
The three friends had deliberately established criminal records. Thorn had deserted from the Earth Navy. Sual Av had fled after supposedly embezzling a great sum — a sum which was being secretly held in trust for its rightful owners. Gunner Welk had broken jail after a brawl on Mercury.
The three fugitive friends had foregathered, and thus had been born the three Planeteers. They had performed one daring exploit after another. Each time, their exploits seemed mere criminal raids or robberies. Yet each time, their real purpose had been the securing of information as to the purposes and plans of the hostile, threatening League of Cold Worlds.
Now, the Three Planeteers were the most famous outlaws in the system. Three lone wolves of the void, extravagantly admired by all criminals and pirates, bitterly condemned by all law-abiding men. Only one man — the Chairman of the Earth Government — knew that the notorious Planeteers were really undercover spies.
Now that man, Richard Hoskins, faced the three comrades with gladness in his eyes. His powerful face, deeply lined by strain of responsibility, quivered with emotion.