
A joyous wedding between Peer and Channok unfolds in a dazzling oxygen‑bubble banquet hall carved into a moon crater, its walls alive with colorful solidographs and priceless Gaifornaab tapestries. The celebration is abruptly cut short when a squadron of Irrek police‑boats appears on the horizon, forcing the newlyweds and their eclectic guests—a tribe of space‑rat voyageurs—to scramble for a hasty departure.
As they race back to the modest trader ship Asteroid, Peer’s father Santis, the pint‑sized chieftain, slips a cryptic assignment into their cargo: a bulky, mysterious freight to be hidden near the foot of an ancient mound. He warns them that the Irrek forces are hunting for the missing Crown Jewels, and that any inspection could turn their escape into a perilous ordeal. With a sudden sighting of a massive fleet on the starboard screen, the couple senses that their fledgling union may soon be caught in a larger, interstellar conflict.
Caught between love, duty, and a looming chase, they must decide how far they’re willing to go to protect each other—and the secret they now carry.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (67K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2021-01-02
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1981
Best known for lively space opera and unusually capable heroines, this German-born American writer helped broaden what mid-century science fiction could look like. His stories move fast, think big, and still feel fresh.
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