"What's happened?” exclaimed Sual Av, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
"I don't know!” Thorn cried. “But something's wrong."
He could hear a babel of raging shouts and calls crackling like flame through Turkoon Town, waking everyone. And men were running through the clearing mists toward the field of ships.
"Stilicho!” yelled Thorn through the window as he glimpsed the old Martian pirate running painfully along the street.
The old man hesitated, then hobbled quickly over to the window of the little prison. He was buckling on his atom-pistols with trembling hands, and his wrinkled face was wild.
"What's happened?” Thorn demanded tensely.
"Lana — she's been kidnapped!” hissed the old Martian. “Jenk Cheerly did it some time last night."
"Lana kidnapped?” Thorn yelled wildly, his brown face suddenly haggard. “How do you know Cheerly did?"
"This morning one of our men found our guards at the ship-field lying murdered!” babbled the raging old man. “And one of Cheerly's Uranian crew, too, fatally wounded and left for dead. The Uranian boasted about what Cheerly had done, before he died.
"He said that Cheerly was not any pirate at all, like he pretended, but a League spy — the head of Haskell Trask's secret service! He said Cheerly had planned the trap that nearly captured Lana in the attack on them freighters, and that when that failed, Cheerly had used another plan to kidnap Lana last night. He used you in his plan, John Thorn!"