Produced by Gregory D. Weeks, Jason Isbell, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net =THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE= Marion Zimmer Bradley ACE BOOKS A Division of Charter Communications Inc. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 10036 THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE Copyright (c), 1961, by Ace Books, Inc. All Rights Reserved ... _across half a Galaxy, the Terran Empire maintains its sovereignty with the consent of the governed. It is a peaceful reign, held by compact and not by conquest. Again and again, when rebellion threatens the Terran Peace, the natives of the rebellious world have turned against their own people and sided with the men of Terra; not from fear, but from a sense of dedication._ _There has never been open war. The battle for these worlds is fought in the minds of a few men who stand between worlds; bound to one world by interest, loyalties and allegiance; bound to the other by love._ _Such a world is Wolf. Such a man was Race Cargill of the Terran Secret Service._ * * * * * RENDEZVOUS ON A LOST WORLD Copyright (c), 1961, by Ace Books, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. * * * * * =Author's Note:--= I've always wanted to write. But not until I discovered the old pulp science-fantasy magazines, at the age of sixteen, did this general desire become a specific urge to write science-fantasy adventures. I took a lot of detours on the way. I discovered s-f in its golden age: the age of Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, Ed Hamilton and Jack Vance. But while I was still collecting rejection slips for my early efforts, the fashion changed. Adventures on faraway worlds and strange dimensions went out of fashion, and the new look in science-fiction--emphasis on the _science_--came in. So my first stories were straight science-fiction, and I'm not trying to put down that kind of story. It has its place. By and large, the kind of science-fiction which makes tomorrow's headlines as near as this morning's coffee, has enlarged popular awareness of the modern, miraculous world of science we live in. It has helped generations of young people feel at ease with a rapidly changing world. But fashions change, old loves return, and now that Sputniks clutter up the sky with new and unfamiliar moons, the readers of science-fiction are willing to wait for tomorrow to read tomorrow's headlines. Once again, I think, there is a place, a wish, a need and hunger for the wonder and color of the world way out. The world beyond the stars. The world we _won't_ live to see. That is why I wrote THE DOOR THROUGH SPACE. --MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY * * * * * CHAPTER ONE