He was a stranger to Paldrogi. But someone had marked him for a patsy in an incredibly power game played for galactic stakes . a power game with a Machiavellian twist . a power game in which murder was only the opening gambit.

Pike was after the hottest story of his career - on a hostile desert world where death tracked him as he hunted out the truth...

Pike had come to this frozen world in search of a creature out of legend—only to stumble upon a scoop more deadly than any legend.