The novel “Rogue in Space” by Fredric Brown was published for the first time in 1957. It’s the result of the union and the expansion of two stories published separately, “Gateway to Darkness” (1949) and “Gateway to Glory” (1950).

Crag is a former astronaut who ended up becoming a criminal. When he gets arrested for possession of a lethal drug, his prospects are very grim. Judge Olliver sentences him to a memory wipe but secretly offers him an escape route. Olliver has big ambitions but needs something that will ensure the power and thinks he can impose his will if Crag can steal a disintegrator.

A sentient asteroid wanders the cosmos. In the course of its long life, it never found creatures like him and has learned to feel his way around the universe without the need for common perception senses. After many travels, it enters a solar system in which there are life forms very different from it born on the third planet who have expanded on other planets.