The Colors of Space

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                     _A Juvenile Science Fiction Novel_

                            THE COLORS OF SPACE

                           Marion Zimmer Bradley




MONARCH BOOKS, INC.
Derby, Connecticut

Published in August, 1963
Copyright 1963 by Marion Zimmer Bradley

[Transcriber's note:  This is a rule 6 clearance. PG has not been able
to find a copyright renewal.]

_Cover Painting by Ralph Brillhart_

Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC., Capital Building,
Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works of outstanding novelists and
writers of non-fiction especially chosen for their literary merit and
reading entertainment.

Printed in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved




To
DAVID STEPHEN




SUDDEN PANIC


It was a week before the Lhari ship went into warp-drive, and all that
time young Bart Steele had stayed in his cabin. He was so bored with his
own company that the Mentorian medic was a welcome sight when he came to
prepare him for _cold-sleep_.

The Mentorian paused, needle in hand. "Do you wish to be wakened for the
time we shall spend in each of the three star systems, sir? You can, of
course, be given enough drug to keep you in cold-sleep until we reach
your destination."

Bart felt tempted--he wanted very much to see the other star systems.
But he couldn't risk meeting other passengers.

The needle went into his arm. In sudden panic, he realized he was
helpless. The ship would touch down on three worlds, and on any of them
the Lhari might have his description, or his alias! He could be taken
off, unconscious, and might never wake up! He tried to move, to protest,
but he couldn't. There was a freezing moment of intense cold and then
nothing....




CHAPTER ONE


The Lhari spaceport didn't belong on Earth.

Bart Steele had thought that, a long time ago, when he first saw it. He
had been just a kid then; twelve years old, and all excited about seeing
Earth for the first time--Earth, the legendary home of mankind before
the Age of Space, the planet of Bart's far-back ancestors. And the first
thing he'd seen on Earth, when he got off the starship, was the Lhari
spaceport.

And he'd thought, right then, _It doesn't belong on Earth._

He'd said so to his father, and his father's face had gone strange,
bitter and remote.

"A lot of people would agree with you, Son," Captain Rupert Steele had
said softly. "The trouble is, if the Lhari spaceport wasn't on Earth, we
wouldn't be on Earth either. Remember that."

Bart remembered it, five years later, as he got off the strip of moving
sidewalk. He turned to wait for Tommy Kendron, who was getting his
baggage off the center strip of the moving roadway. Bart Steele and
Tommy Kendron had graduated together, the day before, from the Space
Academy of Earth. Now Tommy, who had been born on the ninth planet of
the star Capella, was taking the Lhari starship to his faraway home, and
Bart's father was coming back to Earth, on the same starship, to meet
his son.

_Five years,_ Bart thought. _That's a long time. I wonder if Dad will
know me?_

"Let me give you a hand with that stuff, Tommy."

"I can manage," Tommy chuckled, hefting the plastic cases. "They don't
allow you much baggage weight on the Lhari ships. Certainly not more
than I can handle."

The two lads stood in front of the spaceport gate for a minute. Over the
gate, which was high and pointed and made of some clear colorless
material like glass, was a jagged symbol resembling a flash of
lightning; the sign, in Lhari language, for the home world of the Lhari.

They walked through the pointed glass gate, and stood for a moment, by
mutual consent, looking down over the vast expanse of the Lhari
spaceport.

This had once been a great desert. Now it was all floored in with some
strange substance that was neither glass, metal nor concrete; it looked
like gleaming crystal--though it felt soft underfoot--and in the glare
of the noonday sun, it gave back the glare in a million rainbow flashes.
Tommy put his hands up to his eyes to shield them. "The Lhari must have
funny eyes, if they can stand all this glare!"

Inside the glass gate, a man in a guard's uniform gave them each a pair
of dark glasses. "Put them on now, boys. And don't look directly at the
ship when it lands."

Tommy hooked the earpieces of the dark glasses over his ears, and sighed
with relief. Bart frowned, but finally put them on. Bart's mother had
been a Mentorian--from the planet Mentor, of the star Deneb, a hundred
times brighter than the sun. Bart had her eyes. But Mentorians weren't
popular on Earth, and Bart had learned to be quiet about his mother.

Through the dark lenses, the glare was only a pale gleam. Far out in the
very center of the spaceport, a high, clear-glass skyscraper rose,
catching the sunlight in a million colors.