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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... asked “for our gracious sovereign to arrange for the theft of costly, weapons grade thorium isotope?” Hoping the off-the-wall query would nudge loose an emotional spike, he was not surprised when it failed to do so. “His Omnipotence ...
... asked himself. It was this potential reason for the emergency summons that worried him deeply. Orbiting high above the forested, night-shrouded reservation extending for kilometers all around the Royal Enclave, he waited impatiently for ...
... asked in a monotone. “What do you make of it?” Tall and rangy, clad in neutral gray rather than the bumt-orange robe signifying the PM's Kamala allegiance, Klavik's dark, hooded eyes lent him an air of looking far beyond what he saw ...
... asking himself the detective's immemorial question: Who stood most to gain by the murder of Kraan's revered sovereign? In each instance, a tentative answer formed in his mind of its own volition, and in each instance was refuted ...
... asked you to hold all calls.” “Mr. Buford's here, sir.” The receptionist, a chic android unit drawn from the Village labor pool, had the makings of an efficient buffer, but slipped up on occasion. “He says it's terribly urgent.” “What ...