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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... leave the arsenal proper?” “The supe . . . Our, uh, supervisor told us to clear out. We cooled our heels in the lab till His Omnipotence and those with him went back aboveground.” “I see,” said Klavik, who saw nothing revelatory. During ...
... leaving Kraan in the Lord Regent's capable hands. “To be brutally frank,” he pursued in the same vein, “I'd be miserable sitting behind a desk, giving token effort to leading the government while spending sleepless nights fretting about ...
... leave. Although chronologically juvenile, Kewart, the primogenitive inheritor of a centuries-old monarchy and its traditions, was the scion of Kraan' s Royal House; in not many standard months, he would be crowned His Omnipotence XXV ...
... leave, Highness.” He followed the striking android “unit” into the azure twilight reigning outdoors. # Greeted by ... leaves. Without prompting, Ramyn pointed out the director's administrative tower rearing like an admonitory finger ...
... leave.” Flushed, Chatham said, “Well, suggest and be damned!” Looking past Klavik at the landau, where the prince and prime minister sat statue-still opposite Eden's embarrassed operations manager and a truly dazzling young woman, the ...