Mind GamesConditioned to enhance an inborn ability to acutely perceive another's emotional state, Klavik, security director of a massive world ruled by the sole monarchy in neohuman interstellar society, investigates the ruler's assassination while on holiday in parsecs-distant Eden, a terraformed pleasure world operated by a distant syndicate peopled by alien exotics. A pair of royal companions force themselves upon Klavik during his sojourn in Eden, where his empathic perception “sixth sense” enables him to fasten on a nervous official as a prime suspect to interrogate, but is frustrated because his energies must be channeled toward protecting his illustrious companions. Eden's planetary director, Shatterhand, ushers the threesome into a “hall of mirrors” where nothing is as it seems. After feints and ploys designed to distract or frighten he and his charges away, Klavik senses “nibblings” at the limbic fringes of his mind, and intuits the the presence of an alien telepath. Sly mental assaults persist until his charges are taken hostage, and the ultimate confrontation erupts in a rapacious battle of wills. |
From inside the book
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... Eden, 1 iernfnrmed “pleasure world” owned by i commercial alien syndiclie, w» cpinplnions inree themselves upon Klnvik ... Eden's plluelny i'lihltlol', his ushered the 'll'illtsoln: "no a final] of mirrors,' where nothing seems I; u lS_ ...
... Eden's raw, pristine state — a frigid, backwater planet smaller than Old Earth, the neohuman ancestral home. Selected from hundreds of candidates because it best fit the prescribed template, the lonely planet featured large, ice-covered ...
... Eden's arbiters of pleasure to effect the loathsome crime, why then so much the worse for Eden. Klavik knew resolving the question of guilt, and bringing the perpetrator before the bar of justice, were endeavors that would occupy his ...
... Eden's purveyors of self-gratification that something dangerous is afoot, something to be greatly feared.” Klavik could not hold back a strenuous objection. “Prime Minister, it would be an egregious error to enter Eden in force.” “An ...
... Eden almost twenty standard cycles ago. In order to prepare for that visit, deep background investigations were conducted on Eden's neohuman administrative and operational executives, in addition to an unsuccessful attempt to learn ...