Synopsis: Eli Pike, ex-SpaceNav photographer, now a free-lancer low on credits, was always ready to take on a new assignment if the price was right. But what should have been an easy shoot of an interstellar magician's benefit performance suddenly turned into a free-for-all. with laser beams flying and most of the trouble targeted right on Pike. Fleeing for his life, Pike soon found there was no escape - not from the local planetary police, who had him picked as their top candidate either for the role of new assassin in town or as the assassin's next most likely victim ... not from the "master magician" , who had far too many tricks hidden in trunk and a thirst for wealth what was too rich for Pike's blood ... not from the professor who was shadowing Pike all over town, offering Eli a fortune for information he simply didn't have ... and especially not from the treacherous beauty who'd gotten Pike into this mess in the first place. All of them thought that Pike has the answers - answers to unlock the secret behind an invention which could give its possessor control of power beyond imagining - and no one was willing to believe he didn't even know the questions. But one thing was certain. If Pike didn't find some kind of answers soon, one of his many pursuers would surely reduce him to space dust! (from the back cover of the DAW Books first printing)