The planet Korwar was a glittering jewel of a world, inhabited by the
galaxy's wealthiest, visited by the upper classes of other worlds in
search of diversion. The jewel had a flaw: the Dipple, its name coming
from a contraction of "displaced person," where the misfits, the
hopeless, the penniless eke out a wretched existence on the dole.
Two
young men hoped to escape from the Dipple: Troy Horan was deported from
his own planet after it lost an interstellar war. When he had a chance
to work in an unusual pet shop, offering exotic creatures from other
worlds to the wealthy, he though his luck had changed. But the owner
was playing a dangerous game of intrigue, and when he was murdered Troy
barely escaped with his own life. Aided only by telepathic animals from
old Terra who had befriended him, he had no choice but to hide in ruins
left behind by the now-vanished original inhabitants of Korwar; ruins
which explorers had entered without returning...
Nik Kolherne had a
face so cruelly scared and disfigured that he wore a mask to cover it.
When he was recruited with a promise of being given a new face, a face
which would make a young heir think he was someone else, he was uneasy,
but accepted the offer. Then he found out that he was party to a
kidnapping for more sinister purposes than he had been told, and he was
the only hope of the young heir's survival-if the two of them could
survive on a planet veiled in eternal night, swarming with dangerous
predators.
Publisher's Note: Masks of the Outcasts has previously appeared
separately as Catseye and Night of Masks. This is the first combined
publication of the complete book.
