Beast Master's Planet: Omnibus of Beast Master and Lord of Thunder (Beastmaster)

BEAST MASTER’S PLANET

TOR BOOKS BY ANDRE NORTON

The Crystal Gryphon
Dare to Go A-Hunting
Flight in Yiktor
Forerunner
Forerunner: The Second Venture
Here Abide Monsters
Moon Called
Moon Mirror
The Prince Commands
Ralestone Luck
Stand and Deliver
Wheel of Stars
Wizards’ Worlds
Wraiths of Time

Beast Master’s Planet

(omnibus comprising
The Beast Master and Lord of Thunder
)

The Solar Queen

(omnibus comprising
Sargasso of Space
and
Plague Ship
)

The Gates to Witch World

(omnibus comprising
Witch World
,
Web of the Witch World
,
and
Year of the Unicorn
)

Lost Lands of Witch World

(omnibus comprising
Three Against the Witch World,
Warlock of the Witch World
, and
Sorceress of the Witch World
)

Grandmasters’ Choice
(Editor)
The Jekyll Legacy
(with Robert Bloch)
Gryphon’s Eyrie
(with A. C. Crispin)
Songsmith
(with A. C. Crispin)
Caroline
(with Enid Gushing)
Firehand
(with P. M. Griffin)
Redline the Stars
(with P. M. Griffin)
Sneeze on Sunday
(with Grace Allen
Hogarth)
The Duke’s Ballad
(with Lyn McConchie)
House of Shadows
(with Phyllis Miller)
Empire of the Eagle
(with Susan Shwartz)
Imperial Lady
(with Susan Shwartz)

BEAST MASTER

(with Lyn McConchie)
Beast Master’s Ark
Beast Master’s Circus

CAROLUS REX

(with Rosemary Edghill)
The Shadow of Albion
Leopard in Exile

THE HALFBLOOD CHRONICLES

(with Mercedes Lackey)
The Elvenbane
Elvenblood
Elvenborn

MAGIC IN ITHKAR

(Editor, with Robert Adams)
Magic in Ithkar 1
Magic in Ithkar 2
Magic in Ithkar 3
Magic in Ithkar 4

THE OAK, YEW, ASH, AND
ROWAN CYCLE

(with Sasha Miller)
To the King a Daughter
Knight or Knave
A Crown Disowned

THE SOLAR QUEEN

(with Sherwood Smith)
Derelict for Trade
A Mind for Trade

THE TIME TRADERS

(with Sherwood Smith)
Echoes in Time
Atlantis Endgame

THE WITCH WORLD

(Editor)
Four from the Witch World
Tales from the Witch World 1
Tales from the Witch World 2
Tales from the Witch World 3

WITCH WORLD: THE TURNING
I
Storms of Victory
(with P. M. Griffin)
II
Flight of Vengeance

(with P. M. Griffin & Mary H. Schaub)
III
On Wings of Magic

(with Patricia Mathews & Sasha Miller)

BEAST

MASTER’S

PLANET

 

A Beast Master Omnibus

Andre Norton

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in these novels are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

BEAST MASTER’S PLANET

Omnibus copyright © 2005 by Andre Norton

The Beast Master
copyright © 1959 by Andre Norton
Lord of Thunder
copyright © 1962 by Andre Norton

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Edited by James Frenkel

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor
^®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Norton, Andre.

[Beast master]

Beast master’s planet : an omnibus of Beast master and Lord of Thunder / Andre Norton.—1st ed.

p.   cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

Contents: The beast master—Lord of Thunder.

ISBN 0-765-31327-8

EAN 978-0765-31327-0

1. Storm, Hosteen (Fictitious character)—Fiction.   2. Human-animal communication—Fiction.   3. Life on other planets—fiction.   4. Circus performers—Fiction.   5. Space colonies—Fiction.   I. Norton, Andre. Lord of Thunder. II. Title.

PS3527.O632B4   2005
813'.52—dc22

2004065930

First Edition: May 2005

Printed in the United States of America

0   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

For

OTIS LOUIS ERNST

Soldier

Engineer

Collector of Indian Lore

1914–1958

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

The Beast Master

Lord of Thunder

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The Beast Master was
first published in 1959. Miss Norton, having already established a reputation for exciting science fiction adventure in dozens of novels, was known to readers of all ages as one of the most dependably entertaining authors in the field.

Hosteen Storm, the Navajo hero of
The Beast Master
, was immediately a popular hero. The combination of military experience and Native American traditions gave him a background virtually unique in the annals of SF. Combined with Storm’s special ability to communicate telepathically with the animals of his beast master team, he remains, more than forty years later, a most appealing and intriguing character.

Living on the colonized but still largely untamed and mysterious planet Arzor, Storm has his hands full with issues that most adventure novels don’t often treat. He brings with him the pain and anguish of having experienced a war that ultimately destroyed his home—Terra, the longtime science-fictional name for Earth. And he bears the emotional scars of personal tragedy, a burden passed down from his family. His adventure and his emotional baggage are inextricably entwined, their mutual resolution essential to the successful conclusion of the story. He also has plenty of flat-out action—on horseback, like a range-rider in the American West, but also involving more sophisticated vehicles and equipment appropriate to a frontier light-years from Earth.

This is vintage Andre Norton—straightforward on the surface, but with hidden layers of meaning and theme that enrich the novel without slowing it down.

Lord of Thunder
, first published in 1962, continues Storm’s story, allowing readers to learn more about the mysteries of Arzor and the
aliens who, uncounted ages before, created mysterious machineries that confound both the human colonists and their native aboriginal allies.

New adventures have, in the past few years, been written by Miss Norton and Lyn McConchie, about Hosteen Storm and his unique animal cohort. These two original novels are the rock on which those newer novels are based. Rich in alien color and the sense of wonder of all good science fiction, these first two novels of Hosteen Storm are published together for the first time in this omnibus edition.

They have stood the test of time, and remain as exciting and fresh as when first published. Welcome to the excitement of the future!

THE BEAST MASTER

CHAPTER ONE

S

ir, there is a transport leaving for that sector tomorrow. My papers are in order, are they not? I think I have all the necessary permits and endorsements—”

The young man who wore the green of a Galactic Commando, with the striking addition of a snarling lion’s mask on the breast of his tunic, smiled with gentle detachment at the Commander.

That officer sighed inwardly. Why did they always dump these cases on
his
desk? He was a conscientious man, and now he was a troubled one. A fourth-generation Sirian colonist and a cosmopolite of mixed races by birth, he secretly believed that no one had fathomed this youngster—not even the psych-medics who had given the boy clearance. The Commander shuffled the papers and glanced down again at the top one, though he did not have to read the information on it, knowing it all by heart.

“Hosteen Storm. Rank: Beast Master. Race: Amerindian. Native planet: Terra of Sol—”

It was that concluding entry that made all the difference. The last desperate thrust of the Xik invaders had left Terra, the mother planet of the Confederacy, a deadly blue, radioactive cinder, and those here at the Separation Center had to deal with veterans of the forces now homeless—

All the land grants on other worlds, the assistance of every other planet in the Confederacy, would not wipe from the minds of these men the memory of a murdered people, the reality of their own broken lives. Some had gone mad here at the Center, turning in frantic rage on their allies from the colonial worlds. Or they had used their own deadly weapons on themselves and their fellows. Finally every
Terran outfit had been forcibly disarmed. The Commander had witnessed some terrible and some heartbreaking sights here during the past months.

Of course Storm was a special case—as if they weren’t
all
special cases. There had been only a handful of his kind. Less than fifty, the Commander understood, had qualified for the duty this young man had performed. And of that fifty very few had survived. That combination of unusual traits of mind that produced a true Beast Master was rare, and they had been expendable men in the last frenzied months before the spectacular collapse of the Xik invaders.

“My papers, sir.” Again that reminder, delivered in the same gentle voice.

But the Commander dared not let himself be rushed. Storm had never shown any signs of violence—even when they had taken the chance, as a test, of giving him the package from Terra that had been delivered too late at his base after he had departed for his last mission. In fact, the youngster had cooperated in every way with the personnel of the Center, helping with others the medics believed could be saved. He had insisted upon retaining his animals. But that had caused no difficulty. The staff had watched him closely for months, prepared for some paralyzing stroke of delayed shock—for the outburst they were sure
must
come. But now the medics had reluctantly agreed they could not deny Storm’s release.

Amerindian, pure blood. Maybe they
were
different, better able to stand up to such a blow. But in the Commander’s mind a nagging little doubt festered. The boy was too controlled. Suppose they did let him go and there was a bad smash, involving others, later? Suppose—suppose—