The Project Gutenberg EBook of Star Hunter, by Andre Alice Norton

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Title: Star Hunter

Author: Andre Alice Norton

Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #19090]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration]

STAR HUNTER

ANDRE NORTON

ACE BOOKS, INC.

1120 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10036

Copyright, 1961, by Ace Books, Inc.

* * * * *

STAR HUNTER

I

Nahuatl's larger moon pursued the smaller, greenish globe of its
companion across a cloudless sky in which the stars made a speckled
pattern like the scales of a huge serpent coiled around a black bowl.
Ras Hume paused at the border of scented spike-flowers on the top
terrace of the Pleasure House to wonder why he thought of serpents. He
understood. Mankind's age-old hatred, brought from his native planet
to the distant stars, was evil symbolized by a coil in a twisted,
belly-path across the ground. And on Nahuatl, as well as a dozen other
worlds, Wass was the serpent.

A night wind was rising, stirring the exotic, half-dozen other worlds'
foliage planted cunningly on the terrace to simulate the mystery of an
off-world jungle.

"Hume?" The inquiry seemed to come out of thin air over his head.

"Hume," he repeated his own name calmly.

A shaft of light brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes struck through
the massed vegetation, revealing a path. Hume lingered for a moment,
offering a counterstroke of indifference in what he had always known
would be a test of wits. Wass was Veep of a shadowy empire, but that
was apart from the world in which Ras Hume moved.

He strode deliberately down