Dreadful Sanctuary

When the seventeenth rocket to Mars, like its sixteen predecessors, unaccountably explodes before reaching its destination, at least one man decides to try and find out what caused the explosion. That man is John H. Armstrong, an inquisitive and skeptical scientist who is directly concerned with the eighteenth rocket, one that is going to have a human pilot. At first sabotage seems incredible - who would gain from the failures? But when another scientist dies while talking to Armstrong and several influential senators seem dedicated to preventing the rocket's completion, he begins to smell a rat and hires a private investigator to dig further. The results of their search are surprising, to say the least. Is there a sinister conspiracy to throw the world into another global war? Are there really people living on Earth who were born on other planets? Is there anything that Armstrong can do about it? * First version: Astounding Science Fiction, sr3, June-August 1948 Second version: Fantasy Press 1951 First revision: Lancer Books 1963 Second revision: Four Square 1967