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Fred Cassidy, perpetual student and expert building climber, finds himself hunted by gangs of criminals and government agents. He discovers that a priceless jewel called the Star Stone, on loan to the Earth from an extraterrestrial civilization, has gone missing and he may be the last person to have seen it. He decides to do his own investigating with help from friends and some strange, rogue galactic policemen.
The novel begins with Fred on the roof of a building at the college he attends. Fred then meets his latest advisor, Dennis Wexworth, who is keen on getting him graduated, which Fred does not want. After the meeting with Dennis, the story goes to Fred in his room, where he encounters Paul Byler, a professor who has created replicas of the Star Stone. The two get into a fight, and Fred tells Paul that he does not have the Star Stone replica that Paul claims was stolen. Later, Fred goes to his room and learns on the TV that Paul Byler was robbed and killed.
He then goes on an archaeological dig in Australia, where he is attacked by two men named Zeemeister and Buckler. They appear to be looking for something. Fred is rescued by two aliens disguised as a wombat and a kangaroo whose names are Charv and Ragma. They ask him to come to their planet so they can probe Fred's mind for information on the Star Stone. Fred refuses and says that bringing him would be a violation of Article 7224, Section C, information told him by someone or something while he was asleep. He then goes to his friend Hal's house where he and Hal discuss the current situation and how the Star Stone could be connected to it all.
As Fred falls asleep, he is again contacted in his mind by a mysterious being that claims to be a recording. It tells him to test the inversion program of the Rhennius Machine, an alien gift to humanity, and then get intoxicated with alcohol. It is obvious that this recording is the being who gave Fred the information about Article 7224, Section C. Fred then sends a penny through the Rhennius Machine, and notices that the penny seems to have a reversed image. On his way to getting drunk, Fred meets a man he knows named Doctor Mérimée, who tells him that he might be followed. After getting intoxicated, Fred is contacted again, and the being/recording tells him to this time put himself through the machine. Fred does this, and finds that he sees things in reverse having turned into a mirror image of himself. He later learns that his internal organs have switched as well. It turns out that the Star Stone is the inert, crystalline form of a sentient organic computer known as SPEICUS. It has, somehow, entered Fred's bloodstream through a cut, become activated, and is, in fact the being/recording struggling to communicate with him. However, the Star Stone is currently in its off mode, and needs a molecular reversal to turn it on. Passage through the Rhennius machine has activated SPEICUS, but since Fred was |
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