End As a Hero

Peter Granthan wakes in a damaged lifeboat, badly burned and half-dead, after a mission against the mysterious enemy known as the Gool goes catastrophically wrong. He may be the first human to survive direct contact with them, but that makes him no safer: Earth's authorities suspect he has been mentally compromised, and Colonel Ausar Kayle orders him held in parking orbit rather than allowed home. Cut off, injured, and condemned by his own side, Granthan turns inward, using psychodynamic training and hypnotic descent to relive the attack and uncover the Gool's subtle psychic intrusion. What he learns changes everything. He not only discovers how the enemy seized him, but also masters their method well enough to reach across impossible distances and seize a Gool spy in return, plunging into an alien civilization bent on expansion. There he uncovers a revolutionary matter-transmission breakthrough that could transform humanity if anyone will believe him. With Kayle closing in and missiles launched against him, Granthan fights back through planetary defenses, rail yards, swamps, and the Delta National Laboratories, using telepathic intrusion, bluff, and stolen identities to survive. Wounded, hunted, and increasingly powerful, he becomes a lone carrier of world-changing knowledge in a war where mind, machine, and loyalty are never certain. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.