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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... feeling that some connection existed between the missing thorium and the awful crime in distant Eden. The PM, on the other hand, held fast to a preconceived assumption, his virtual certainty that radical elements within the Kaolin ...
... feeling that one or more nobles of the “loyal opposition” were either directly or tangentially responsible for the despicable crime. Unable to clearly differentiate the emotional tenor of one segment of the congregation from another, he ...
... feel' for the place, especially for the people in charge, before beginning a search for specifics. My team and I went over the transmitted data exhaustively, and chased down every minor inconsistency here at home. With zero success, I'm ...
... feel the way you do. But with the situation as it is here at home can you even think of letting go the reins for an appreciable length of time? I don't anticipate a short stay. I could be in Eden for some time before turning up —” “We ...
... Feel free to have your say whenever you firmly believe you're in the right. As for going in with combat-ready guardsmen, we shall see. Tell me, have you adequately researched the hellhole?” On firmer ground, Klavik tempered his response ...