Avenger of Antares — Alan Burt Akers

For a brief but wonderful moment it seemed as if Dray Prescot was on the road to victory, for he was aboard a Vallian ship bound for home with the secret of Vallia's enemies in his possession. But Dray, the Earthman sent to the planet Kregen of the double-star Antares in Scorpio, had not fulfilled the mission of the unseen Star Lords, and until he did there could be no escape from peril!

And peril came, in the form of hideous sea raiders, in the sharp edges of the dueling blades of a swordsman enemy, and in the horrid rites of the underground cult of the Silver Leem.

Dray Prescot's saga has been aclaimed as the best planetary adventure series since Burroughs stopped writing about Barsoom, and a legion of devoted readers will find that Avenger of Antares holds high the standard.