In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

James H. Schmitz

Here’s another ominous region of space from which few ships have returned. The two undercover agents were aware of that (one of them painfully so), but their job at hand was getting the goods on a smuggling operation that was stealing valuable items from a scientific repository. Then a ship full of well-armed smugglers showed up. And so did a thing from that deadly region of lost starships, looking for something that had been stolen from its domain . . .

James H. Schmitz (1911-1981) was a master of action-adventure science fiction, notably his stories of the Hub, a loosely-bound confederation of star systems. His most popular characters were Telzey Amberdon, the spunky teenage telepath, and Trigger Argee, a crack shot with a gun and reflexes that made lighting look lethargic. His most popular novel, The Witches of Karres, though not part of the Hub universe, is a classic space opera. Many of his sf adventure tales have scary moments, and this one has them in spades.