In a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure. A mountain-climbing vacation may wind up in deep Space. Or loyalty may prove to be high treason. But it has its rewards.
On the jungle world of Jumala, a wanted man is in hiding -- a man whose mind has been imprinted with the brain pattern of another. As a deadly game of hide-and-seek begins to unwind, a man who does not know his own powers faces an interstellar safari determined to run him to ground -- dead or alive! "Nobody can top Andre Norton when it comes to swashbuckling science-fiction adventure."
So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and a seemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands in the governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks" have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialist Terran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war is everywhere.
The hero of the novel is Ed Doukas, who is the nephew of the scientist whom everyone blames for the destruction of the Moon (though it's never clear if the scientist is actually guilty); this uncle survived, because he had left the Moon the day before the experiment. Soon, the government learns of the survival of the uncle, and he goes underground. Ed soon finds himself a pariah due to his relation to his uncle.
Alan Green was not exactly a hero. In fact he liked peace just as well as the next man. Not that he was really afraid of that crazy, hot-blooded hound-dog Alzo, or even of the hound's gorgeous owner, the Duchess Zuni--who was also hot-blooded (to say nothing of the Duke). After all, these things were understood on this backward, violent planet, and a man could manage, provided he was alert twenty-four hours a day.
Freshly graduated and commissioned Planeteer Lt. Rip Foster is tasked with retrieving an asteroid made of pure thorium from the asteroid belt and bringing it to Earth for use as fissionable material. But the totalitarian Connies have their own plans for the asteroid...
