Star Bridge (Vintage Ace SF, F-241)

It was the greatest empire of them all, spanning light-years, gathering in the stars with a golden net. World after world, star after star, all were snared together in a web of shimmering, golden tracery. Each gleaming strand was a Tube, the communications that turned the harsh, metallic planet of Eron into the Empire, a bridge between the stars, flung across the wide, dark rivers of space. ~ ~~ ~ No planet could successfully revolt against the stranglehold of Eron unless it could discover the secret of the Tubes, the Tubes that enmeshed a galaxy in their shimmering embrace and made a three-hour journey out of 300 light-years. ~ ~~ ~ Alan Horn had nothing to lose but his life, and that wasn't worth very much to him. He was homeless and hunted, one against the universe. That's why he could thumb his nose at fate, and dare to attempt the impossible: the assassination of the ruler of Eron's empire. What Horn didn't know was that he was just a pawn in a plot as vast as the light-years that the Tubes encircled.