Peregrine

"The Peregrine" by Poul Anderson, published by Ace. Five of our worlds are missing.... That was the essence of the report that shocked the galactic Nomads at their annual meeting. For each of the mighty star-ships reported vanished was a world of its own - a man-made, self-sustaining city-state housing thousands of people.  The Nomads themselves were an unplanned by-product of man's conquest of the stars. They were the gypsies of the distant future, the restless rovers of outer space. But to Joachim of the peregrine tey represented a way of life that was to be dearly defended. So it fell to him to make his own world-ship the bait in a cosmic trap set to catch the galaxy's unknown foemen! Out at the edge of the known. They called themselves The Nomads. Unplanned by-products of the chaotic explosion of mankind into space, they had evolved for themselves a way of life similar to that of the gypsies of ancient Earth - except that their gypsy wagons were mighty starships, each a self-contained world that housed a clan of many thousands. It was a hard life, but the only one the nomads knew, or wanted. But someone, or something, did not want them to have it; one by one the nomad starships were disappearing without a trace - and it fell to Joachim, Captain of the Starship Peregrine, to find out why... ''Enjoyable from first to last. Fast-moving and convincing.'' - P. Schuyler Miller in Astounding Science Fiction ''Magnetic writing.'' - SFF Audio Book details: published 1955. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.