Espionage and Intrigue in the
Far Reaches of the Galaxy
from the Creator of Telzey Amberdon
and Trigger Argee

The Galaxy was not a nice neighborhood, and most would have laid bets that the Vegan Confederacy was too small and weak to survive, let along prosper. But prosper it did, to the bewilderment of observers, who didn't know about the Vegans' secret weapon.

Once, the Galactic Empire had spanned the stars and when it crumbled and fell, star systems were isolated, some barely surviving, many becoming tyrannical feifdoms, others turning to piracy, and all of them often at war with each other. The Confederacy didn't have huge space armadas, and millions of troops to protect itself and re-civilize its neighbors, but it did have the Zone agents. Few outside the top echelons of the Confederacy even knew that they existed, and even fewer had an inkling of how the agents time and again could appear on the spot just when a push in the right place could stop a war, topple a despot, or thwart an invasion of unfriendly aliens.

Their numbers were pitifully few, and they had to patrol vast stretches of space. They were helped by their ships, bristling with hidden armament and piloted by robot brains of high intelligence. But their main weapon was that the minds of their opponents were open books to them. Not all of the Agents of Vega were human, but they were the most powerful telepaths the Galaxy had ever known . . .

Publisher's Note: Part of Agent of Vega & Other Stories has previously appeared separately. This is the first expanded, unitary publication.

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it to friends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up the observation) once people get their hands on a Schmitz book, they don't let go!" - Janet Kagan, Hugo-Winner and author of Uhura's Song

"Wonderfully fresh imagination." -The Horn Book

Ape Man, Space Man

Earth's colonists have spread throughout the cosmos, and have almost divided into two separate species. One is the Swimmers, who have adapted to living in zero-gravity, and regard themselves as the next step in evolution, and those who prefer to live on the surface of a planet as little better than apes. The latter group, the Walkers, are not about to say farewell to the planets they grew up on, and think the Swimmers are not so much advanced as deranged.

Crowell, born a Swimmer but now a Walker by choice, is caught in the middle as the two sides seem headed for war. Then he discovers the true cause of the altercation: a hidden alien race moving behind the scenes to provoke a war so that they can pick up the pieces after the two sides have obliterated each other. And if Crowell cannot head off the war and convince both sides of the existence of the real enemy, both branches of the human race may be headed for untimely extinction.

This full-length novel and much more, fill a huge volume from the master of science fiction adventure.

"Much has been made of the 'sense of wonder' that science fiction evokes, and believe me, there was nothing to evoke that sense quite like the worlds of James Schmitz. . . . Thank you, James Schmitz, wherever you are. And thank you, Eric Flint and Jim Baen, for bringing his Right Stuff back again."
 —Mercedes Lackey

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it to friends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up the observation) once people get their hands on a Schmitz book, they don't let go!"
— Janet Kagan, Hugo-winner and author of Uhura's Song

by James H. Schmitz

MEET TELZEY AMBERDON 
-SHE'S NOBODY'S TOY

Telzey Amberdon was only in her teens when she discovered that she was a telepath. Not only a telepath, but a xenotelepath, able to communicate mentally not just with humans, but with alien intelligences. And she turned out to be one of the most powerful telepaths in the history of the galactic civilization called the Hub.

First she had to deal with an alien race that humans hadn't realized were intelligent, and who were about to eliminate those troublesome humans who thought they were colonizing an uninhabited world. Then, she had to fend off the secret psi agents of the Psychological Corps who took a dim view of any telepath, let alone one with Telzey's powers, operating outside of their control. Next, she stumbled across a telepathic serial killer, who used an unstoppable predator, under his mental control, to hunt and kill his victims-and Telzey was to be the catch of the day.

It was fortunate for the human race that she survived, since she next found herself in the middle of a secret war between two hidden races of genetically engineered humans. They called it the "Lion Game," and they made the mistake of thinking that in this clash of predators, Telzey was just a harmless kitten. But when the dust settled, Telzey would be the only one purring....

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it to friends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up the observation) once people get their hands on a Schmitz book, they don't let go!"  —Janet Kagan, Hugo-Winner and author of Uhura's Song

THE HUB IS A VERY DANGEROUS PLACE-
BUT SO ARE ITS CITIZENS.

The Federation of the Hub: thousands of rough, ornery and tough-minded human worlds with only the subtlest of interstellar governments holding them all together. Stable at last after centuries of war, the Hub is now prime real estate ... making it a merciless arena for the conflicting schemes of criminals, unscrupulous corporations, and invaders from beyond the edges of Federation space.

But the Hub is well-defended, and not only by professional heroes such as Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee. In Hub Space a citizen is expected to stand up for herself, blaster in hand, as needs must; so when Trouble comes Hubward in large doses, there are an awful lot of armed citizens waiting for it....

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it to friends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up the observation) once people get their hands on a Schmitz book, they don't let go!"
—Janet Kagan, Hugo-winning author of Uhura's Song

"Wonderfully fresh."
 —The Horn Book

"A typical James Schmitz mix of humor, strange mental powers, and mild anarchy. Delightful."
—The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED . . .

Captain Pausert thought his luck had finally turned—but he did not yet realize it was a turn for the worse. On second thought, make that a turn for the disastrous*.

Unlucky in love, unsuccessful in business, he thought he had finally made good with his battered starship Venture, cruising around the fringes of the Empire and successfully selling off odd-ball cargoes which no one else had been able to sell. He was all set to return home, where his true love was faithfully waiting for him ... he hoped.

But then he made the fatal mistake of freeing three slave children from their masters (who were suspiciously eager to part with them). They were just trying to be helpful, but those three adorable little girls quickly made Pausert the mortal enemy of his fiancee, his home planet, the Empire, warlike Sirians, psychopathic Uldanians, the dread pirate chieftain Laes Yango—and even the Worm World, the darkest threat to mankind in all of space.

And all because those harmless-looking little girls were in fact three of the notorious and universally feared Witches of Karres. A rollicking novel from the master of space adventure.

IF BUREAUCRACIES HAD STARSHIPS

Con games Corrupt governors. Deadly rivalries between departments of the same government. And, of course, the long arm of the Mob. Even in our future among the stars, some things never change-except that the governors run (and ruin) planets, the rivalries are fought with spacecraft and energy bolts, and the mobsters smuggle real illegal aliens and make their getaways with subspace portals. It's all just another day in that bastion of galactic peace and democracy, the Federation of the Hub

-and somebody has to clean up this mess!

Join secret agent Trigger Argee, scout adventurer Heslet Quillan and Holati Tate, master of intrigue, as they battle the criminal element on its own interstellar turf ... and make the future a little safer for the rest of us.

"Take my advice and buy TWO copies of this book! You'll want to lend it to friends and (trust me on this: I have years of experience to back up the observation) once people get their hands an a Schmitz book, they don't let go!" - Janet Kagan, Hugo-winning author of Uhura's Song

"Wonderfully fresh." -The Horn Book

'A. typical James Schmitz mix of humor, strange mental powers, and mild anarchy. Delightful."
-The Ultimate guide to Science Fiction