Dark Piper

Returning to his home planet after ten years, Griss Lugard found Beltane relatively untouched by the annihilating war of the Four Sectors, her inhabitants still immersed in their experiments in mutation. Lugard's warnings of imminent danger from off-world meant nothing to them. Only Vere Collis and his friends believed in Lugard and, drawn by his magnetism to explore unknown desert caves, they were safe underground when a series of explosions rocked Beltane, killing Lugard and sealing them in. After a fearful battle they won their way to the surface, there to receive a shattering blow: All other human inhabitants on Beltane had perished - and only strange and ppssibly hostile mutant creatures awaited them.