Cloudcry Author:Sydney J. Van Scyoc Verrons, the interstellar explorer, is infected with the dread bloodblossom disease & exiled to a quarantine planet. But Verrons isn't the kind of man to stay quietly in a depressing little colony of dying humanoids. Together with Wells, a human from the ice-planet Talberon, & Tiehl, a bird-man alien, he strikes out across the surveyed-but-unexp... more »lored wilderness of the planet. All of them are cynical about the prospects of a cure & determine to live or die on their own.
They discover a decadent tribe of alien humanoids &, further on, the ruins of a marvelous, once-great city, where they must escape the possessive spirits of the now-dead ancients, which take hold of them thru the medium of flutelike instruments. Tiehl, meantime, reverts to the primitive instincts of his ancestors & claims the highest tower in the city as a perch.
Aleida, one of the primitive survivors of the race, has followed the party to the city & there learns of her heritage. She's within herself the potential to wield enormous mental energies that will allow her to control solar waves by will.
Aleida learns the secret location of the power crystals that she must have to allow her to focus her natural powers, but Verrons, Wells & Tiehl learn too. There follows a race across the wilderness to the source of the crystals & a deadly struggle for the ultimate power the crystals represent.« less