When Murdoc was a youngster, his father, Hywel, came to possess a strange ring found on the body of an alien floating in space. The ring was unusually large and contained a dull, unappealing crystal. But Hywel, a expert gemologist, had a feeling that the ring was more than its less than attractive appearance suggested. So he hid it in a secret place known only to himself and his son, Murdoc.
Unfortunately, someone came looking for that ring. They did not find it even though they beat Hywel to death trying to force its location from him. Murdoc took the ring and left his home, to become a traveling gemologist like Hywel had been in his younger days.
The ring brought the same bad luck to Murdoc as it had done to his father. Employed by another gem trader, Murdoc alone managed to escape a trap set to murder them both. Using the slim resources remaining to him, gemstones, he managed to book passage on a spaceship. Things turned sour very quickly when, while making a brief stop on a frontier planet, the ship's cat got loose and ate a black, fuzzy rock or seed and the crew blamed Murdoc. However the cat seemed to suffer no ill consequences. Until they realized it was pregnant. It chose Murdoc's bunk on which to give birth to a strange little creature that was half cat and half something else.
Murdoc awoke to discover he was extremely ill and locked in his cabin with the alien baby. As he recovered from his illness, still locked inside, he overheard the crew discussing their plans to weld the door of his cabin shut and leave him to die in fear of the plague that had infected him. At this point the alien creature began to speak to him telepathically. It told him what to do to save himself. Murdoc, following its instructions, went to the ship's bay and put on a spacesuit and exited the ship. What the plan was after doing so is unclear. While outside, though, the mysterious ring came to life and began to pull Murdoc away from the spaceship and its dubious safety and Murdoc was unable to withstand its pull, taking Murdoc and the little alien, stashed in an airtight box strapped to Murdoc's side, along for a ride to the unknown.
Murdoc is one unlucky but lucky SOB. Everywhere he goes, there is someone or something out to murder him. Even when rescued, his rescuers want to murder him. His daddy's alien ring was a curse to his father and it is a curse to Murdoc too. He never has the good sense to throw it away, the attraction it exerts on those who hold it is too strong. The connection between Murdoc, the ring and the catlike alien is never made clear, how the three came together in that unlikely way. Other than that unanswered and annoying question, this was a pretty good story. Although Norton can never resist having her characters suffer from lack of food, water and various painful injuries. They always have their asses handed to them but still manage to survive and win in the end.
This book does have a sequel, The Uncharted Stars, in which Murdoc and the alien, Eet, have their own spaceship and are on the hunt for the origin of the powerful crystals like the one in the ancient ring, the Zero Stone.
Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.
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