I sat down in the single chair before the dusty control console, and watched a red blip creep across the screen.

"That blip is either a mighty slow airplane—or it's at one hell of an altitude." I sat upright, eyes on the screen. "Look at this, Foster," I snapped. A pattern of dots flashed across the screen, faded, flashed again....

"I don't like that thing blinking at us," I said. "It makes me feel conspicuous." I looked at the big red button beside the screen. "Maybe if I pushed that...." Without waiting to think it over, I jabbed at it.

"I'm not sure you should have done that," Foster said.

"There is room for doubt," I said in a strained voice. "It looks like I've launched a bomb from the ship overhead."

A TRACE OF MEMORY

Look for these other TOR books by Keith Laumer:

THE BREAKING EARTH THE GLORY GAME THE INFINITE CAGE KNIGHT OF DELUSIONS THE MONITORS THE HOUSE IN NOVEMBER AND THE OTHER SKY ONCE THERE WAS A GIANT PLANET RUN WORLDS OF THE IMPERIUM

Contents

A TRACE OF MEMORY

 PROLOGUE

He awoke and lay for a moment looking up at a low ceiling, dimly visible in a faint red glow, feeling the hard mat under his back. He turned his head, saw a wall and a panel on which a red indicator light glared.

He swung his legs over the side of the narrow couch and sat up. The room was small, grey-painted, unadorned. Pain throbbed in his forearm. He shook back the loose sleeve of the strange purple garment, saw a pattern of tiny punctures in the skin. He recognized the mark of a feeding Hunter.... Who would have dared?

A dark shape on the floor caught his eye. He slid from the couch, knelt by the still body of a man in a purple tunic stained black with blood. Gently he rolled the body onto its back.

Ammaerln!

He seized the limp wrist. There was a faint pulse. He rose—and saw a second body and, near the door, two more. Quickly he went to each....

All three were dead, hideously slashed. Only Ammaerln still breathed, faintly.

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