GAMMA STATION

Tatara could not possibly have known that accepting an invitation to be a guest on Darvel’s boat for a three day ocean cruise would profoundly change the rest of her life. When the boat is shipwrecked on an uncharted island by a violent storm, Tatara becomes embroiled in a struggle with another guest, Camena, for the love which  Darvel can have for only one of the women. The rivalry between the two ends in victory for Camena and profound loneliness for Tatara.

With merely her own thoughts for companions, Tatara wanders away to a remote part of the island, only to discover a frightful manlike creature with features suggestive of a species unknown to the people on her earth. The creature turns out to be an alien visitor named John Wells who is far from his home in America which orbits a distant star in the night sky. Presently his residence is an orbiting space station, Gamma Station.

Abandoned by her fellow voyagers, Tatara find few options but to coexist on the island with the man from Gamma Station even though they seem to have little in common. When unfriendly invaders threaten Tatara’s life, John is forced to take her to his space station in the sky. There she soon realizes he is someone special, that special man meant for her. Mere acquaintances become ensnarled in the bonds of love. From high above the clouds John reveals to Tatara the truth about himself and the many marvels of his scientifically advanced world.

Tatara then returns to her home on the planet’s surface for a brief stay with family and friends before leaving with John for a distant world. Inadvertently, however, she reveals too much about her visit to outer space. Her knowledge of the universe is now derived from an understanding far more advanced than any of her countrymen. It is knowledge that leaves them with no alternative but to label it as heresy and Tatara as a heretic.

Her subsequent imprisonment finds John with no lack of determination to secure his lover’s freedom. She means more to him than any other woman he has encountered throughout the galaxy. John seeks the help of a gang of outcasts in the vicinity of the prison and eventually gains the respect of their leader, Captain Blunt, who agrees to help free Tatara for a price. Using disguises to assume the identity of the all powerful national clergy, Blunt gets John into Tatara’s prison cell, thus reuniting the couple. But it is the sophisticated weapons from John’s modern world that enables them to overcome the dungeon guards and successfully escape from the towering prison walls. Condemned as a heretic and now a fugitive in her own country, Tatara leaves the planet with John to go to Gamma Station and find a new life among the distant starts.