Roger Tennant is trapped in a sumptuous house that is really an alien-made prison, where every comfort is counterfeit and every feeling may be controlled. Drawn against his will to Dana, he learns that desire itself has been implanted as part of the captors' power, turning intimacy into another form of captivity. Within the bizarre estate, Tennant meets Eudalia, a hard-edged former factory foreman who has borne twins, and Olga, a frightened nineteen-year-old waitress. A hidden radio, one of his few acts of rebellion, briefly restores the captives to ordinary human life through music, commercials, and voices from Manhattan, especially moving Olga with Polish songs and familiar language. But meals, air, and even the nursery of rapidly growing children reveal how thoroughly the aliens have stripped human existence of meaning. As Tennant is drilled by the telepathic Opal and sent through the gateway to Earth, he returns to his old house hoping for Agatha, only to find betrayal, manipulation, and his own role as bait. Forced into a deadly triangle with Agatha and Cass Gordon, he uncovers a murder plot, escapes an ambush, and finally sees a way forward: to outwit his captors, reach the hidden gateway, and free the other prisoners as well. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
