The Ecliptor — Allen L. Wold

Jeanette has learned how to go from one reality to another, under her own power. She goes, even before a call, to worlds which the Arkenome is attempting to destroy. There is never any explanation for why he does this. Sometimes she prevents the destruction, sometimes she rescues only survivors, and sometimes she fails.



Her companions travel with her, and some die. She has learned super-human skills, which don't always work. She has destroyed a powerful Arkenome, only to see him replaced by another, who is stronger, more dangerous, more powerful, and more ruthless. She has learned that Arkenomes, and those who want to be, are guided by a super-cosmic intelligence, which will always find another agent if one is lost.



This is the Ecliptor, and she decides to go after it directly, to stop the creation of new enemies, and must somehow get the Arkenome to lead her to it. She and her companions do everything they can to drive him to seek his masters help. She taunts him, evades him, disrupts his perverse pleasure places, turns his slave world against him, pursues him to target worlds and interrupts him before he gets started.



And then, at last, when it seems that she has succeeded, she learns that even the Ecliptor has a master of a higher order. Must she dominate the Ecliptor first? Or can she go directly to his master?