Fourteen strangers came to Delmak-O. Thirteen of them were transferred by the usual authorities. One got there by praying. But once they arrived on that planet whose very atmosphere seemed to induce paranoia and psychosis, the newcomers found that even prayer was useless. For on Delmak-O, God is either absent or intent on destroying His creations.
For a million years the bubble had been growing, like a vast abscess, below the root of the mountains. Now the abscess was about to burst. Captain Harris had left the controls on autopilot and was talking to the front row of passengers as the first tremor shook the boat.
In California’s Orange County undercover narcotics agent Bob Arctor is tasked with finding the source of Substance D, a drug that leads to irreversible brain damage, but to do so convincingly he must experience its effects first-hand. As he observes his housemates via a series of holo-scanners it becomes clear that his own neurological state is deteriorating.