The Zero Stone Series
by Andre Norton
Zero Stone, The ~ 1968;
Catch a falling star and then put it in your pocket…
Murdoc Zern was on the run.
But then, as a gem trader practicing a dangerous trade, Murdoc had spent most of his life on the run in search of the truth about the mysterious ring stone of phenomenal powers in his pocket, a legacy from his father who’d been murdered for it. Now this stone, born of worlds long extinct, may involve him in the trade of his life as he is hunted through space by an unscrupulous religious order that has chosen him as its unlawful sacrifice.
Marooned on an alien planet with his feline companion, Eeat, Murdoc, faces danger from the predatory “sniffers,” arrest by the Patrol, silencing by the order of the Green Robes, and the crisping laser of the Underground Thieves Guild. Somewhere in this web of intrigue and deceit lies the answer to his only bargaining tool, the source of a power unimaginable know only as… The Zero Stone
Uncharted Stars ~ 1969;
The Zero Stone….
That most priceless of alien artifacts, had been the death of Murdock Jern’s father, and might soon become the ruin of Murdock himself. It was the Zero Stone which had led him into a partnership with the catlike alien, Eet. And it had been the Zero Stone that had seen them caught as pawns between the Thieves’ Guild and the interstellar force of law, the Patrol. And While Murdock and Eet had somehow survived against all odds – had even wrested enough credits from the Patrol to legally buy a spaceship – their troubles were only beginning.
For now they must seek their fortune along the uncharted fringes of inhabited space in a search for the world from which the Zero Stone had originally come. But others, too, sought this place which hid treasure beyond imagination. And these unknown rivals, as well as the Guild and the Patrol, were only too ready to sacrifice one insignificant human and his alien ally if they got in the way…. Uncharted Stars
Search for the Star Stones ~ 2008;
Omnibus featuring The Zero Stone and Uncharted Stars
