In a smoky Martian tavern called Starhouse, Captain Roal Hartford of the Solar Bureau of Investigation hears Alayna, the "Queen of the Silver Stars," sing a haunting song that stirs a dangerous longing for Earth, home, and ordinary peace. But beneath the music lies a harder world of narcotics, alienation, and fear, and Roal soon suspects that the tavern is tied to harmeena, a deadly drug spreading madness through the starways. Disguised as a miner, he follows the trail of the elusive Starhouse through the System, only to find that its glamour is a trap. Alayna seems both performer and prisoner, and when a drugged vapor nearly overwhelms him, Roal is forced to fight hallucinated "silver demons" with a secret SBI antidote before collapsing. Dumped in the Martian desert, he survives with uneasy help from strange natives, then returns to report his findings—only to be told the whole ordeal was an illusion. Fingerprint evidence and a photograph prove otherwise: Alayna is Mariana Sebours, a famous singer who has vanished from public life. As Roal digs deeper, he uncovers a hidden family secret, a missing father, and a towering stranger whose image becomes the key to a system-wide manhunt. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.