Added by: susan6th | Karma: 3133.44 | Fiction literature | 25 February 2010
2
Eternitys End
After seven years of captivity at the hands of interstellar pirates, Star Rigger Renwald Legroeder escapes to the Centrist Worlds, thinking himself free to return to rigging. Instead, he finds himself a target of a conspiracy that stretches across light-years—from the Centrist Worlds to the pirate stars beyond—a conspiracy that has survived interstellar war and claimed the lives of millions, both human and alien.
Andre Norton-Grand Mistress of science fiction-presents a grand tapestry of the far-flung interstellar future, in which the first starships from Earth have burst out into the universe . . . only to run straight into the restraining grasp of the stagnant alien federation known as Central Control.
Only as interstellar mercenaries can humans go to the stars; the aliens who already dominate the galaxy allow no other recourse.
The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the well-meaning schemes of ivory tower social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the "Royal Legions" from a distant star kingdom in hot pursuit of an unspeakably evil and nearly all-powerful villain who was hiding somewhere on the planet.
Things went even better than they had hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized . . . and then the
real Royal Flagship showed up. They thought they were doomed, but instead the new arrivals (who also weren't quite what they claimed to be) thought the crew had shown just the sort of initiative and ingenuity that the Interstellar Patrol was looking for. So they were inducted into the Patrol.
