The X Factor
By: by Andre Norton; illustrated by Jack Gaughan.
Contributors: Jack Gaughan (Illustrator)
Series: Game of Stars and Comets #1
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 1965
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 158
ISBN-13: 9780441076468
Copyright date: 1965
Subjects: Life on other planets -- Fiction.; Human-animal communication -- Fiction.
Genres: Science Fiction.
Description: Diskan Fentress was rejected as mentally unsuitable for Scout training; his size and great strength mark him as a throwback.  Since his mother's death in childbirth and his father's disappearance in space left him in state custody, he wound up assigned to manual labor -- until the day Renfry Fentress reappeared.  Renfry had found a new civilization, and even a wife among his adopted people -- but knowing that they could not have children, he sought out his son.  But Diskan, despite -- or because of -- the endless patience, charm, and tact of his father's adopted people, is utterly alone among strangers, marked by clumsiness, his great size and strength, and inability to express himself.  Fleeing from an embarrassing scene of (accidentally) shattered artwork, Diskan hides in Renfry's study -- and steals a voyage tape for Mimir, a world marked as only partially explored and having some mystery about it.  His journey in a stolen spaceship brings him into contact with a Zacathan archeologist, the Guild, and the ruins of an alien civilization.  Or are they really ruins -- could Mimir still be inhabited?
Notes: Ace #G-646.
Cover art by Jack Gaughan.