Lee Payne

This is a story of the end of the world. But not our world. Not Earth. We're still working on that. No, this story takes place in the future when we will have spread to lots of worlds and carried our short-sighted tendency to screw things up to the stars.And let's face it, the end of the world, even our world, has happened before. The dinosaurs' Earth ended. So did the Neanderthals'. Rome fell a couple of times. The worlds of Carthage, Byzantium and Moslem Spain are all gone. When the world that nurtured the Library of Alexandria fell it took half of mankind's knowledge with it.Now, with overpopulation, we're working on trashing this planet, possibly before we get to the stars and their worlds. If we're lucky or clever enough, maybe our future does include other planets we can destroy. But rest assured, those of us who willfully trash a world will find little sympathy from our brothers who have taken better care of theirs. And men like Commodore Ardcasl will doubtless be there to profit from the wreckage.

Toward the end of this century, if we don't blow ourselves up along the way, the true age of exploration and colonization will begin. Why not? We've done it all before. The story of the wanderers who challenged North and South America around 20,000 years ago is only now being reconstructed. A mere 500 years ago Columbus, Cortez, Montejo and Pizarro found and conquered the undreamed of worlds those earlier people created. Another of Earth's epic adventures was that of the Lapita people who set out from Taiwan and journeyed on clumsy rafts through Indonesia and the Solomons and finally out to Fiji where they developed true sailing canoes, became thePolynesians and eventually found every island in the vast Pacific. Following the Call of Maui, they visited every scrap of land in that great sea. But what if some of those intrepid wanderers decided to follow Maui's Call to the lands above thehorizon as well--to challenge seas wider yet? And 500 years from now, the dangers and wonders will be no less than they were before. And, just as in the past, some will lose their way. Earth's first colonists will reach the stars aboard immense automated sleepships. And even that era will become history as faster-than-light technology eventually relegates the sleepships to its dusty pages. At least that's what Ellen thought when she selected that ancient era for her master's thesis. But what about the dead body in the Archives? Ellen tries to convince herself that it has nothing to do with her. But some of those great sleepships are still out there. Someone wants them and only Ellen knows where they are. Does her safety truly lie in finding the lost ships before her enemies find her? Who are these unknown assailants and is the fat old spacer really on her side?

What if everyone knows all about you because they can read your mind?Reading other people's minds would suddenly become much less entertaining if everyone on your world could do the same to you--no secrets anywhere. And what if strangers learn of your world's ability? They would use it, and you, for their own profit. Or, with their own secrets to hide, they might consider you a threat? Might they even decide to kill you all?Your world needs help to protect its secret. It can send only a few young women to a nearby pleasure world in search of a savior. They are forced to settle for Commodore Ardcasl. But all this best moves involve trickery and deceit. How can that work where everyone knows his next move before he does?

Commodore Ardcasl and his reptile associates, Elor and Erol, have come to this world high above the galactic plane in search of ancient artifacts. As spacetraders, these three deal in ancient art and ideas. Anything else is too bulky to pay its way across the vast distances between the stars.This remote planet holds promise. Here a long-ago clash may have produced the turmoil and doubt that, expressed in ancient art, still holds great interest for other worlds where questions concerning their own values have never ceased.Once two races fought here for dominance. One, a rare indigenous race of humanoids, the other, more recent colonists from the distant galaxy.The remnants of both races still live here, their pasts largely forgotten except as myth and legend repeated in children's tales. To unravel the secrets of that past and uncover the treasures hidden here, our heros' must become archaeologists and ethnographers. In addition, the twins hope to test a theory that planets do not evolve sentience haphazardly. They may do it on purpose.As a guide they hire Ohan, a native forest dweller who inadvertently purchases Leahn, a bitter young woman descended from the colonists. She was sold into slavery by her uncle. She promises to serve Ohan as bodyguard and demonstrates her prowess by decapitating a former customer.