Description:
There was Joachim, captain of the Nomad star ship Peregrine, and ruler of the Peregrine clan—the ship’s officers and crew and their entire families. Bound to no world, the better part of their lives spent on the great ships, the Nomads were something like the gypsies who once roamed the lands of Earth, and something like the vikings who once fared Earth’s seas—but different from any human society known before.
Once a year, the captains of the Nomad ships met at their secret planet, Rendezvous, where the bylaws and intricate agreements of Nomad society were made and enforced. And this year, Peregrine Joachim had a bombsh
There was Joachim, captain of the Nomad star ship Peregrine, and ruler of the Peregrine clan—the ship’s officers and crew and their entire families. Bound to no world, the better part of their lives spent on the great ships, the Nomads were something like the gypsies who once roamed the lands of Earth, and something like the vikings who once fared Earth’s seas—but different from any human society known before.
Once a year, the captains of the Nomad ships met at their secret planet, Rendezvous, where the bylaws and intricate agreements of Nomad society were made and enforced. And this year, Peregrine Joachim had a bombshell to toss into the midst of his colleagues. Five Nomad ships had disappeared—vanished completely—in an area of space which was supposed to be uninhabited. It couldn’t be an accident.
There was Trevelyan Micah of Earth’s coordinating service, the integrating core of galactic civilization, that vast federation of planets. To Micah, the Nomads were an irresponsible, disruptive influence which had to be brought into line.
From all over the galaxy, information poured into civilization’s overloaded computers, already years behind in coordinating data. But now a directive had been given to Micah: investigate the fact that similar flora arid fauna have been found on numerous planets within an area where such life-forms could not have arisen by themselves. Contact the Nomads, who have lost ships in the same area.
There was Sean of the Peregrines, young in years, but old in the bitterness of losing a wife who could not endure Nomad life. And on Rendezvous, he met the strange and lovely Ilaloa, who was either not quite human or a little more than human.
Thus began the quest, part of the answer to which both Trevelyan Micah and Joachim suspected—an unknown, intelligent, hereto-fore-unsuspected life-form was moving purposefully toward the galaxy, expanding toward human civilization.
For the Nomads, there was the fear of being caught between civilization and the unknown aliens; for Earth, there was the fear of repeating all the old blunders in history, leading to needless conflict and destruction. Neither wanted war—either with each other or with the unknown culture they sought to uncover.
Here is a tale of a tomorrow distant in time, where the outreach of humanity has only made men realize how vast is space and how small the area of their knowledge and control. For though technology had reached undreamed-of heights, men and women loved, hoped, feared, and hated even as their ancestors of the twentieth century.
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Manufacturer: Ace Books
Release date: 3 October 1961
ISBN-10 : 0441045685 |
ISBN-13: 9780441045686
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