The Secretary of State has died and Tom Shandor discovers that the Secretary requested that he put together his official biography for national consumption.
Psychopathology has offered possible answers to why, from time to time, people in large quantities "e;see"e; strange things in the sky which manage to evade trained scientific observers, or conform to what is known about the behavior of falling or flying bodies.
"e;Normality"e; is a myth; we're all a little neurotic, and the study of neurosis has been able to classify the general types of disturbance which are most common.
Before Earth put a stop to mankind's exploring the galaxy, some rebels managed to escape into space in sleep ships in a desperate attempt to find habitat worlds they could colonize away from the oppressive Pax dictatorship.
Garin Featherstone is a pilot on an Antarctic expedition to investigate strange readings near the South Pole, when he is compelled to fly his plane down into a mysterious crater.
The Solar Queen and her crew have the trading rights to the wealthy planet Sargol, but to take advantage of them and see any return on their investment they must fight the Reptilian Gorp, negotiate with the cat-like Salariki, and find a cure for the sleeping sickness that has caused the Solar Queen to be called a plague ship and which has other ships looking to destroy them on sight.
The story begins when a mysterious sea monster, theorized by some to be a giant narwhal, is sighted by ships of several nations; an ocean liner is also damaged by the creature.
Sent from Terra to probe the past of the deserted planet Hawaika, Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe are startled when murky underwater pictures of ancient races locked in a fierce battle for supremacy suddenly appear on their time-probe.
And the Book of the Knowledge of the gods tells further how the day on which Pompeides found the gods shall be kept for ever as a fast until the evening and called the Fast of the Departing, but in the evening shall a feast be held which is named the Feast of the Relenting, for on that evening Sarnidac pitied the whole world and tarried.
