Andre Norton eBooks

All Cats Are Gray. E-book. Formato PDF Andre Norton   -  Midwest Journal Press, 2020  - 

Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed—for humans at any rate. The "Empress" was a derelict. It had become legend. A luxury space cruiser that is devoid of life and runs the spaceways with its lights on. All the wealth of its passengers intact. Waiting for salvage. But no one who goes after her ever returns... Excerpt: It was Steena who told Bub Nelson about the Jovan moon-rites—and her warning saved Bub’s life six months later. It was Steena who identified the piece of stone Keene Clark was passing around a table one night, rightly calling it unworked Slitite. That started a rush which made ten fortunes overnight for men who were down to their last jets. And, last of all, she cracked the case of the Empress of Mars. All the boys who had profited by her queer store of knowledge and her photographic memory tried at one time or another to balance the scales. But she wouldn’t take so much as a cup of Canal water at their expense, let alone the credits they tried to push on her. Bub Nelson was the only one who got around her refusal. It was he who brought her Bat. About a year after the Jovan affair he walked into the Free Fall one night and dumped Bat down on her table. Bat looked at Steena and growled. She looked calmly back at him and nodded once. From then on they traveled together—the thin gray woman and the big gray tom-cat. Bat learned to know the inside of more stellar bars than even most spacers visit in their lifetimes. He developed a liking for Vernal juice, drank it neat and quick, right out of a glass. And he was always at home on any table where Steena elected to drop him. This is really the story of Steena, Bat, Cliff Moran and the Empress of Mars, a story which is already a legend of the spaceways. And it’s a damn good story too. I ought to know, having framed the first version of it myself. For I was there, right in the Rigel Royal, when it all began on the night that Cliff Moran blew in, looking lower than an antman’s belly and twice as nasty. He’d had a spell of luck foul enough to twist a man into a slug-snake and we all knew that there was an attachment out for his ship. Cliff had fought his way up from the back courts of Venaport. Lose his ship and he’d slip back there—to rot. He was at the snarling stage that night when he picked out a table for himself and set out to drink away his troubles. However, just as the first bottle arrived, so did a visitor. Steena came out of her corner, Bat curled around her shoulders stole-wise, his favorite mode of travel. She crossed over and dropped down without invitation at Cliff’s side. That shook him out of his sulks. Because Steena never chose company when she could be alone. If one of the man-stones on Ganymede had come stumping in, it wouldn’t have made more of us look out of the corners of our eyes. She stretched out one long-fingered hand and set aside the bottle he had ordered and said only one thing, “It’s about time for the Empress of Mars to appear again..." Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.  

Plague Ship. E-book. Formato PDF Andre Norton   -  Midwest Journal Press, 2020  - 

Space ships are infected much easier than cities. Way easier. Illnesses can spread through an entire ship in just a tiny few hours, with no warning. There are far worse infections out there than can "accidentally" escape some bio-lab that's hidden in a suburb. There's no "social distancing", for example. All the air onboard is shared. It's also too easy for what's a limited pandemic planetside to cripple an entire ship - even if some did survive. When you're out a million miles from anywhere, with no way to get "down", you have to know your options - cold. And a quarantined ship basically isn't wanted in any port... In the distant future, interstellar trade is as vital to survival as were the spice-trading missions of the medieval and early modern periods. In Plague Ship, science fiction author Andre Norton details a series of interstellar trade missions that don't go exactly as planned, leading to unforeseen consequences - that have the potential to imperil the delicate economic balance of the entire galaxy. The tramp-freighter spaceship Solar Queen had exclusive trading rights to Sargol and its fabulous gems. But the crew's bravery and resourcefulness strained to the breaking point as they met Sargol's three challenges: the enigmatic obstinacy of the planet's catlike natives, ruthless incursions of an illegal competitor, and worst of all -- an invisible, undetectable stowaway whose presence branded the Solar Queen a plague ship . . . off limits to the rest of the galaxy! Excerpt: There was a pause before Craig Tau looked out, deep lines of weariness bracketing his mouth, etched between his eyes. “Kosti, sir,” Dane gave his bad news quickly. “He’s collapsed. We got him to his cabin—” Tau showed no sign of surprise. His hand shot out for his kit. “You touched him?” At the other’s nod he added an order. “Stay in your quarters until I have a chance to look you over—understand?” Dane had no chance to answer, the Medic was already on his way. He went to his own cabin, understanding the reason for his imprisonment, but inwardly rebelling against it. Rather than sit idle he snapped on the reader—but, although facts and figures were dunned into his ears—he really heard very little. He couldn’t apply himself—not with a new specter leering at him from the bulkhead. The dangers of the space lanes were not to be numbered, death walked among the stars a familiar companion of all spacemen. And to the Free Trader it was the extra and invisible crewman on every ship that raised. But there were deaths and deaths—And Dane could not forget the gruesome legends Van Rycke collected avidly as his hobby—had recorded in his private library of the folk lore of space. Stories such as that of the ghostly “New Hope” carrying refugees from the first Martian Rebellion—the ship which had lifted for the stars but had never arrived, which wandered for a timeless eternity, a derelict in free fall, its port closed but the warning “dead” lights on at its nose—a ship which through five centuries had been sighted only by a spacer in similar distress. Such stories were numerous. There were other tales of “plague” ships wandering free with their dead crews, or discovered and shot into some sun by a patrol cruiser so that they might not carry their infection farther. Plague—the nebulous “worst” the Traders had to face. Dane screwed his eyes shut, tried to concentrate upon the droning voice in his ears, but he could not control his thoughts nor—his fears... Scroll Up and Get Your Copy Now.