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Book description

The ambitious Sultan of Alpha Centauri can only claim the illustrious title of Caliph if he makes a ritual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. This journey completed, he will rule the entire population of the greater Islamic universe. But human knowledge has not yet been able to overcome the significant challenges presented by interplanetary travel. However, the Sultan resourcefully enlists the help of Abdul Hamid-Jones, a clever fugitive with a price on his head and the law on his heels. Thrown into the bewildering world of the SultanÀs schemes, Abdul receives a hasty introduction to complex physics and the even more complex political intrigues of the SultanÀs court. Responsible for the successful execution of the SultanÀs plan, Abdul slowly realizes with horror that the fate of the entire Solar system could be resting on his shoulders. Donald Moffitt was born in Boston and now lives in rural Maine. A former public relations executive, industrial filmmaker, and ghostwriter, he has been writing fiction on and off for more than twenty years under his own name and an assortment of pen names. His first full-length science-fiction novel and the first book of any genre to be published under his own name was THE JUPITER THEFT (Del Rey, 1977).