The last enemy was the toughest of all--and conquering him was in itself almost as dangerous as not conquering. For a strange pattern of beliefs can make assassination an honorable profession!
"Kor was... is. God. Knowledge." He had tried to convey this to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but they did not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely to comprehend the ancient race memory of his people. Now they would attempt further to discover the forbidden directives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in the fossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped! If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called "humans."
At 4 a. m., a ray of light had been observed on the disc of the planet Mars in or near the "terminator"; that is to say, the zone of twilight separating day from night. The news was doubly interesting to me, because a singular dream of "Sunrise in the Moon" had quickened my imagination as to the wonders of the universe beyond our little globe, and because of a never-to-be-forgotten experience of mine with an aged astronomer several years ago.
Not long after the colonists landed on the uninhabited planet, every human-made artifact -- ship, communicators, tools -- disappeared! Even their clothes!
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.
On the day that the theft of the solar system's light begins, Burl Denning is with an archaeological expedition in the Andes. Within hours the U.S. Air Force has ordered the expedition to investigate the strange phenomenon that is causing a dimness and a drop in temperature throughout the world. This is the start of a fantastic adventure that takes Burl on the first circumnavigation of the solar system on the Magellan. Each planet-fall brings unexpected hazards, as the ship draws closer.
There are lots of things that are considered perfectly acceptable. provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows they really don't, which is why they're acceptable....
It's seldom that the fate of a shipful of men literally hangs by a thread--but it's also seldom that a device, every part of which has been thoroughly tested, won't work....