Synopsis
Tol, a young man of mysterious ancestry, must learn how the human mind functions in order to destroy those who've combined their naked brains with thirty-third century computers. Monsters in their arrogance and lust, these Minds rule the galaxy. They drive humanity to despair. After discovering his heritage, Tol battles with pirates, planetary rulers, a beautiful girl, and, most difficult of all, his own brain, before he can conquer the center of Imperial power.
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About the Author
Dean Warren lives with his wife in Orlando, Florida. Educated at UCLA, the London School of Economics, and Harvard, he sold aircraft in Southwest Asia, worked for the State Department, and was Director of Strategic Planning for a major Defense contractor.
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EXERPT FROM FIRST CHAPTER
The door closed and locked behind Tol, a click loud in the small testing room. He stood still, knew that sensors examined him for magnetic fields caused by memory and logic devices possibly hidden on his body. Also, psychological programs would study for criminal clues the arrangements of his short, black hair hair, the posture of his lanky, gray-tunic-covered frame, and the expressions produced by tiny movements of his fair skin, long nose, and wide mouth.
Cheating here brought death. The terrible Mind who ruled the planet since the advent of the Bosian line of galactic Emperors would have no patience with human trickery.
When Tol knew the small intelligence assigned to the cubicle should be satisfied, he sat down at the console. He sniffed the slightly acrid odor put out by electrical machinery, examined the pale gray walls, and then took a deep breath. "I'm Tol, a trader's son," he said. He lay his palm against the genetic examination pad, spoke his identification matrix of letters and numerals, and made the required formal announcement. "I wish to attend the Achievers' University. Afterward, I would seek a job in the ungoverned, primitive worlds as a representative of the Bosian Empire."
Tol wondered whether the master silicon brain that, with its bound human partner, ruled this planet still had contact with the remains of the old Plastowich imperial palace eighty kilometers north of the city. Such a link might provide access to special genetic records.
He shifted uneasily in his chair as he withdrew his hand, then reprimanded himself. The time for worry had passed. He was committed.
He must study the human half of the Minds to learn how to win freedom for mankind. This university had collected the best neurological models of human brains in the galaxy, according to pre-Bosian sources. Study here should give him access to those models. Then he could try to understand how a brain changed when directly wired to a computer. And how to interfere, somehow.
He must destroy the Minds because they strangled human initiative and, with their micro-management, the very will of the species. They pressed humanity flat. He'd been bred and raised for this task, and must not fail.
The test started with torsiohn mechanics and the simpler engineering subjects, the questions posed by an examiner program that was probably only minimally engaged. As the hours passed, however, the subject matter became more sophisticated and the questions more complex.
Despite the increase in difficulty lever, Tol became progressively more sure of himself. He faced the testing terminal as if it were one of the teaching machines of his youth, in the space yacht his foster parents had owned, on the scattered class I planets they had visited throughout the galaxy.
Noon went by, the scheduled finish of the tests. Each candidate normally learned now of his acceptance or rejection, his school of studies, and the amount of state funding granted. For Tol, however, the questions continued.
Had the examiner program become suspicious of his off-planet identity; started a review of files both here and at the old palace? The continued testing might actually camouflage a search for his history and antecedents.
But that was unlikely. Data retrieval took nanoseconds once the analytical processor formulated a query. Query construction was equally swift; all master programs contained an inference generator that activated when contradictions appeared. Finally, Tol realized that the human interface module had not verbally probed for contradictions.
Then why...
Tol thought of another possibility. The master analyzer might be considering him as a candidate for Mind status!
[And Tol must assume that identity in order to kill the monsters and eventually triumph!]
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Seller: Symbilbooks, Longwood, FL, U.S.A.
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Condition: Collectible; Very Good. Signed and inscribed by author on half-Title page, " To Steve from Dean Warren." Very good, with good covers. Seller Inventory # manmind-SR1