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. |
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... sense,” zvi'k izsrens nn Eden's nervnns o eniinns nnnzger is die likeliesi prospect for inlerrognion, ui is fruslrned ll ever lulu, hot]! because his energies must be amend low" planning _his charges, and because Shatterhnnd, Eden's ...
... sense — after benign, ecologically compatible substitutes were procured, or cloned, and readied for transport. Architects and ecologists, engineers, agronomists, marine biologists, artists, designers, social scientists — legions of ...
... sense” that enabled him to perceive gross emotional patterns in others. Schooled in the psychic discipline, he had previously interviewed a parade of so-called witnesses, and recently resumed questioning arsenal personnel at random ...
... sense of esthesis reconfirmed the technician's innocence. The puzzle had deepened another notch. Ultra-sophisticated surveillance systems had recorded nothing unusual, nor had equally complex alarm systems been triggered, on the night a ...
... sense of esthesis had pulsed the throng's emotional tenor as they rode, and his response was slow in coming. “Sublimated rage, Prime Minister. Simmering outrage, icy fury melded with the deepest imaginable sorrow. For the moment, I ...