Search Worlds Without End

If it is possible to conquer space, then perhaps it is also possible to conquer time. At least that was the theory American scientists were exploring in an effort to explain the new sources of knowledge the Russians possessed. Perhaps Russian scientists had discovered how to transport themselves back in time in order to learn long-forgotten secrets of the past.

That was why young Ross Murdock, above average in intelligence but a belligerently independent nonconformist, found himself on a "hush-hush" government project at a secret base in the Arctic. The very qualities that made him a menace in civilized society were valuable traits in a man who must successfully act the part of a merchant trader of the Beaker people during the Bronze Age.

For once they were transferred by time machine to the remote Baltic region where the Russian post was located, Ross and his partner Ashe were swept into a fantastic action-filled adventure involving Russians, superstitious prehistoric men, and the aliens of a lost galactic civilization that demanded every ounce of courage the Americans possessed.

Time-travel for archaeologists was a well-guarded secret... but when the remains of an interstellar spaceship are uncovered along with the usual fossils, the time agents must call on a modern Apache Indian, Travis Fox, to guide them in the ways of his ancestors in their trip to the past.

But the explorers become trapped in space as well as time, on a mad journey in an automatic starship; not even Travis Fox can tell whether any of them will ever see Earth again.

In this near future book the US is in a race with the Russians to use alien technology scavenged from crashed spaceships to colonize planets outside our solar system. Because they feel that they are in dange of losing this race, men working for the United States government have decided to use a group of volunteers from the Apache tribe as subjects in an experiment without their knowledge.

By use of the Redax, the volunteers will be made to think and act as Apaches of the 18th and 19th centuries would respond. It is hoped this would help them better adapt to life on a primative planet. However, the spaceship they are traveling in crashes on the planet of Topaz.

Travis Fox escapes with a group of the surviving volunteers. In exploring the planet he learns that they are not the only group on the planet. The Russians using their own version of the Redax have Mongol nomads as their subjects.

In the present day, Time Agents Ross and Gordon come with settlers to the water-dominated planet, Hawaika, to search remains of the alien Baldies from the distant past. Local intelligent dolphins assist them. While investigating, a time gate fails, destroying itself and stranding them widely in the unknown past.

The native dolphins and humans can communicate, and Ross learns Gordon is hostage in a castle through a native, Loketh. Ross and Loketh are captured by seafaring Rovers, then join them. They recover a Rover island captured by the Baldies. Ross convinces a coalition of natives the Baldies are playing them against one another. Ross finds Ashe at last, in a castle the company of the mystic and advanced Foanna, who turn out to be only three, the last of their race. The Foanna set a trap for the Baldies, using their assets as bait, but they cannot win against the whole force without increasing their numbers. Ross and Ashe agree to a process mentally joining them with the Foanna. A second encounter with the Baldies, they win. In a final encounter, Ross is teleported to a Baldy ship like the one familiar to him from Galactic Derelict, and sets its course to a random destination. The main Baldy installation is simultaneously attacked and the Baldies driven off the planet.

Ross Murdoch was a petty criminal when he first time-traveled. Now he is a hero, about to face a time-traveling band of predatory aliens, the same ones who made his hand a charred ruin. With a small but loyal force, they face a much larger foe. They need a hero. They need Firehand. Can Ross live up to the legend he's created?

Having revitalized the classic Solar Queen series to critical acclaim, Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith now turn their storytelling talents to Norton's popular Time Traders series.

Time agents Ross Murdock and Eveleen Riorden are recalled from their honeymoon to take part in a dangerous assignment: find a team of Russian scientists who have vanished without a trace from a research mission in the past of a far-off planet. Along with a team of Russian time Agents with their own mysterious agenda and Saba, a new agent teamed with Gordon Ashe, they leap into the alien world's distant history.

Andre Norton and Sherwood Smith have collaborated on Solar Queen and Time Traders novels, but never before have they created as rousing an adventure as awaits Ross Murdock, Gordon Ashe, and the rest of the Time Patrol in Ancient Atlantis.

In Earth's future, when time travel has become possible, the Time Patrol is the top secret government agency that protects Earth's past, so that our history will not become corrupted by invaders from either our future or from other worlds. For many years, Murdock, Ashe, and other members of the Time Patrol have contended with threats to our time continuum, none more deadly than the alien Baldies, who hate other high-tech civilizations and want to destroy Earth.

Evidence of time travel has been found in ruins dating to the ancient world... in the legendary realm of Atlantis. So Murdock, Ashe, Eveleen Riordan, and other Time Patrollers deck themselves out as foreign traders to discover whether something is amiss in Atlantis. They find that the Baldies are there, as evidenced by sophisticated, high-tech equipment, whose purpose it is impossible to fathom. As they try to derail the Baldies' plot, the Time Patrollers realize that time is running out on their mission, when Atlantis is shaken by tremors that presage a cataclysm that may be the disaster that sank the fabulous island state.

But they must be sure they act to preserve, not destroy, history--and if they're wrong, it'll be too late... for them and for Earth's future.