Fugitive of the Stars
New York : Ace Books, 1965
116, 136 p. ; 17 cm. – (Ace Double (Enlarged) ; M-111) pbk. $0.45
Cover: Gaughan NUC: 74-168022
Note: Bound with: Land Beyond the Map (136 p.) / by Kenneth Bulmer
“Doom cruise of the starship Vega Queen” — Cover
Wanted: One outlawed space pilot!
Horne, the spaceship’s pilot , had been warned.”Don’t forget the meteor swarm.” And Horne’s directional calculations for the Vega Queen’s course took that advice into account; the spaceship would go fifteen thousand miles out of its way to avoid those deadly celestial rocks.
But when Horne went off duty, he felt himself numbed by a curious druglike leadenness. And the next thing he knew, he was in a lifeboat, speeding away from the floating wreckage of the Vega Queen.
Eighteen survivors out of one hundred and fifty-three passengers. And each one in the tiny space shell believed Horne responsible … deliberate negligence, calculated destruction …
Someone had drugged Horne, he knew; someone had tampered with the ship to alter its course. But who? And for what cosmic purpose?