" Mankind never learned where the Kel came from. They were, apparently, a remnant of some uncontacted island culture. " The first hint the FedGov had of their existence was the sudden appearance of their strange silver globeships off Cadar. Sweeping down with not even an effort to communicate with the helpless inhabitants, the Kel desolated the entire planet. Other outlying worlds met the same fate. " Then the FedGov rallied. A rigid defense net was set up, and the controversial compulsory condi

Outside the space-warp chamber, Rizal's great green sun had already set. Thick olive dusk eddied through the interplanetary transit center. I swore under my breath and slammed shut the warp-hatch switch. Locking bars whispered back. The hatch revolved on its axis, slow as an asteroid eroding. I threw another quick glance at my chrono. It still read the same as before: six Earth hours more ... six hours to ferret out the truth or be forever reconditioned. —Six hours, that is, if Controller Alfred

I locked the door behind Gaylord. Then, crossing to the rack beside the psychostructor, I began hunting down city charts, transport and communications guides, specifications for the planet's anti-Kel defenses. They added up to a neat pile of reels. Clamping electrodes to my temples, I turned on the psychostructor, slapped the first spool into place, and settled down to the tedium of waiting for the mechanism to hammer data into my brain. In twenty minutes, the streets and alleys were my own. In

There was a musty smell about this place, and it was deathly still. Beyond that— I sighed, a sigh that was almost a groan, and shifted. My groping hand slid over something rough, like a coarse fabric. Dust rose and eddied to my nostrils. It made my head ache even worse. Yet I moved again, and this time caught the faint, half-whispered sounds of friction and of creaking. Another sigh. Slowly, painfully, uncertainly, I opened my eyes. Blackness, utter and complete. The very circumscription of it s

"Sometimes you just don't know." Celeste's voice was strangely flat and lifeless in the black. "Sometimes there's nothing you can do but hope and try." I didn't answer. Celeste again: "What would you have had me do, Mark? Let them kill you? That was their first thought, you know; you really did upset them with those things you said about me on the voco. They were afraid you knew so much more than you do." "Forget it," I muttered. "There's no point to going back over it now." "But there is! For m

This prison room was like the inside of a great, glowing, metal sphere. Light seemed to radiate from its very walls—strange scarlet light that washed over us in pulsing waves. Yet weird as it was, I hardly gave it a second glance, nor my companions either. Too many other things kept preying on my mind—things like the gnawing guilt that was mine for violating Kruze's orders ... the unanswered question of why I, among all men, should seethe with such headstrong hate against the Kel ... the horror

The first three Kel Celeste rooted out were loyal to their species. Unto death. The fourth, it seemed, felt differently about it. Even life in the FedGov's interplanetary zoo, apparently, was acceptable, when weighed against no life at all. Our problems resolved themselves into routine, almost, after that ... a course to set, the ship to steer, messages to send to lure other globes into range of FedGov weapons. Then, finally, the job was done. The last Kel ship save this one had been swept from

It was still as death inside the space-warp chamber. But the indicators showed that I'd now reached the Interplanetary Center. Grimly, I shoved shut the switch that released the heavy warp-hatch ... stood motionless while I waited for the mechanism to grind through its inexorable cycle. A click. A whir. I drew a swift breath; eased the paragun from my waistband. Again, a click. The vault-thick cylinder slid smoothly inward on its guides. Air hissed. The world outside the hatch took form, all dim