The ability to read minds isn't an unmixed blessing, so learns George Hanlon, Secret Operative of the Inter-Stellar Corps. His unique gift helps him with his assignments, of course -- except that he has a lot of trouble with alien minds. He encounters a whole planet full of alien minds on Estrella when the semi-human inhabitants of this Earth-like world of another sun decide that they want nothing to do with the Federation Planets.
It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on my side"--but the emotional moron is on no one's side, not even his own. Once, such an emotional moron could, at worst, hurt a few. But with the mighty, leashed forces Man employs now....
The rock in space was not quite a sphere, being far too tiny a bit of cosmic debris to have sufficient gravity to round off its ragged corners. One side was rough -- like a ragged mountain top that was broken off at the peak and hurled into space by an all-powerful hand. Slowly the Scout Ship edged closer, braking with forward jets. Was this it, at last -- the missing asteroid?
I smelled the trouble the moment I stepped on the lift and took the long ride up the side of the "Lachesis." There was something wrong. I couldn't put my finger on it but
Lurton Zimbardo and his pirates threaten Mars with destruction from outer space and he makes good on his threat. Next he puts Earth in his sights. He operates from deep within the asteroid belt; his headquarters housed in a massive asteroid fashioned into a spacecraft by aliens from ages past. It is invisible to detection.
Joe had helped launch the first Space Platform--that initial rung in man's ladder to the stars. But the enemies who had ruthlessly tried to destroy the space station before it left Earth were still at work. They were plotting to stop Joe's mission!