Part of Series
And they named the planet Sparta. Long ago the humans had settled this planet - too long ago for anyone to remember. Slowly the civilization had developed, and now it was complete. A civilization of war and violence. A civilization of crude pleasures. A civilization in which human beings were produced by birth machines - and women were unknown. It was a civilization whose terrible secret only the doctor-priests knew - a secret that a desperate man named Brasidus decided to penetrate, even at the risk of something worse than death
Author
Arthur Bertram Chandler (28 March 1912–6 June 1984) was an Australian science fiction author. He also wrote under the pseudonyms George Whitley, George Whitely, Andrew Dunstan, and S.H.M. He was born in Aldershot, England. He was a merchant marine officer, sailing the world in everything from tramp steamers to troopships. He emigrated to Australia in 1956 and became an Australian citizen. He commanded various ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, and was the last master of the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne as the law required that it have an officer on board while it was laid up waiting to be towed to China to be broken up.
