Planet of the Damned

Brion Brandd has just won the Twenties, a month of brutal contests that makes him champion of his world, when a man named Ihjel drags him out of his hospital bed.

Ihjel has a job only Brion can do. On Dis, a scorched desert planet, humans have adapted to the killing heat in ways no one understands, and they hate every offworlder. Now the Disans have cobalt bombs and mean to drop them on Nyjord, their peaceful neighbor. If the bombs are not found within ten days, Nyjord's fleet will wipe all life from Dis. With exobiologist Lea Morees at his side, Brion has to cross the burning sands and walk into the strongholds of the magter, a people who seem to feel nothing at all, to learn what is driving a whole world toward suicide.