Astro has managed to talk Tom and Roger into coming to Venus for summer vacation. He's got perfect summer work for the three of them: he's got a little business hunting down tyrannosauri and selling the carcasses to restaurants. But stranger stuff than dinos is on the horizon: before they even leave the station for Venus, they're caught in a bombing, and it'll lead them into the thick of the Venetian resistance... !
Nelson and Ramos sped on toward Mars in their tiny plastic-bubble spacecraft. They were on the alert it didn't pay to take anything for granted in the Big Vacuum The way between the worlds was mostly empty space except for the outlaws of the void who drifted, patiently and vengefully waiting for a victim, then struck! Nelsen and Ramos tensed blips on the radar screen! Maybe meteors.
A MYSTERIOUS "FALL-OUT" PARALYZES CIVILIZATION! Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill. The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt.
Not long after the colonists landed on the uninhabited planet, every human-made artifact -- ship, communicators, tools -- disappeared! Even their clothes!
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.
When a super-robot discovers how to build his own superbombs, it becomes obvious that Earth is by no means the safest place for him to be. Dr. Fitzhugh, his designer, and Leda Crannon, a child psychologist acting as Snookums' nursemaid, agree to set up Operation Brainchild, a plan to transport the robot to a far distant planet. Mike the Angel Gabriel, Power Design has devised the power plant that is to propel the space ship Branchell to its secret destination, complete with its unusual cargo.
"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."
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!