Time Appointed

Thirty-million miles out on her maiden voyage to Venus, the space liner Cosmic Cloud abruptly encounters a mysterious voice speaking through the void. The language is foreign - in fact completely alien - but one passenger succeeds in understanding enough to realise that danger threatens. Danger there is indeed! Hardly has a recording of the Voice been sent to Earth for expert interpretation before a mysterious gong is heard in the space liner, and it is followed by further nerve-shattering gonging notes at two-minute intervals. Then, without warning, the space liner is utterly destroyed. Such is the beginning of a space novel which develops swiftly into a narrative of a race against time - the story of three men and a girl who pit their intelligence and courage against the baleful power of a race of scientists long extinct, but who have left behind them a dreadful legacy which must, unless stopped in time, destroy the whole Solar System.