A diplomat who successfully negotiated with intelligent aliens finds
his loyalty to the human race tested in this novel by a Nebula
Award-winning author.
Richard Muller was an honorable diplomat who braved unimaginable dangers
to make contact with the first-known race of intelligent aliens. But
those aliens left a mark on him: a psychic wound that emanates a
telepathic miasma his fellow humans can neither cure nor endure. Muller
is exiled to the remote planet of Lemnos, where he is left, deeply
embittered, at the heart of a deadly maze . . . until a new alien race
appears, seemingly intent on exterminating humanity. Only Muller can
communicate with them, due to the very condition that has made him an
outcast. But will Muller stick his neck out for the people who so
callously rejected him?