Mind Games

Klavik, the security director of Kraan, a massive world governed by the single remaining hereditary monarch among neohuman interstellar societies, has been conditioned to acutely perceive emotional patterns in other neohumans, Notified of the ruler's assassination in parsecs-distant Eden, a terraformed "pleasure world" owned by a commercial alien syndicate, two companions force themselves upon Klavik during his investigative sojourn in Eden, the prime minister and the adolescent prince, heir apparent to Kraan's ancient throne. Employing his "sixth sense," Klavik fastens on Eden's nervous operations manager as the likeliest prospect for interrogation, but is frustrated at every turn, both because his energies must be directed toward protecting his charges, and because Shatterhand, Eden's planetary director, has ushered the threesome into a "hall of mirrors," where nothing seems as it is. After several feints and ploys designed to distract the investigators, or frighten them away, Klavik begins to sense a sly "nibbling" in his mind." He gradually realizes an exotic is present in Eden, and after several "mind rapes" and artificially induced nightmares causing sleeplessness, his charges are kidnapped and held hostage, forcing him to undergo a mental "evaluation" by the exotic. The final confrontation ends in a rapacious battle of wills.