Harris: was caged in an underwater "zoo" by a pack of blue lobsters.
Maria: drew a five-year sentence on a puritanical planet for trying to
buy a souvenir--and for being excessively feminine.
Taranto & Meyers: had committed the crime of being shipwrecked on a
planet that didn't like strangers.
Gerson: was simply kidnapped--and nobody had any idea why.
Five citizens of Terra were being held on other worlds--and the
ultra-secret _Department 99_ existed only to set them, and others like
them, free.
This tense novel is the story of one evening's work for Department
99--their successes and failures--and of the strange crisis that almost
wrecked