Book detail for Life with Lancelot

Cover tagline

He was pieced together from his own remains and returned to Earth a hero — but was he human?

Back cover text

Part of an Ace Double: Hunting on Kunderer

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Interior text

When the twisted and radioactive wreckage screamed down out of space onto their dark planet, the Shogleet were instantly intrigued. To that incredibly ancient race, evolved to the point where energy, matter and form held no more secrets, only curiosity remained. And the wreck was curious. Metals and plastics, physical and chemical combinations, they were familiar enough. By probing and deduction they could reconstruct the original form of it. But probing unearthed something else. Something lived, but only just.

Using their combined talents they caught the delicate fragment, studied it, reconstructed it. From the still visible patterns of intelligence they deduced the whole, and they remade a man. Going further, they discovered his history and, from that, something of the history of the whole species. They were incredulous, unwilling to admit that such a monstrosity could ever have existed. And yet their own probings could not be argued.

So they remade his ship and sent it back whence it had come — but appointed one of their number to go along with the experiment and observe. And there, as a certain noted young lady once had occasion to remark, things got curiouser and curiouser.