Synopsis: From the back cover of the DAW first edition: "Mind prober - A research biochemist receives a package from a fellow scientist containing profiles on six people suffering from an unknown disease, plus tissue samples for study. Both scientists are found dead shortly thereafter, and all traces of the files and samples have vanished... A space mission to study an unusual comet passing through our solar system brings back something far more deadly than the usual samples of space debris... And Michael Raines, who in the past was part of a government study about the use of telepathy in space research and communications, finds his powers becoming unreliable just as he stumbles across traces of an unbelievable conspiracy of extraterrestrial proportions that reaches from the heart of a comet all the way to the Oval Office..."