Hello, I'm trying to find a book. I don't know the name or the author. I only know a small part of the plot, if someone recognize something and thinks that he can help me I will be very grateful.
The story is about a group of astronauts traveling trough space. In their journey discover a strange planet that look uninhabited in fact is covert by a vast flat desert. They send a probe to the planet and they put a mouse (rat or laboratory hamster) on it, when the mouse touches the soil it loses consciousness. The captain decide to go to the planet but as soon as it touches the ground it to lose his consciousness. In hope that he can save his captain one of the crew decide to go after him but the same thing happens to him, soon after the final member of the spaceship go to the planet and he manages to rescue them. Arriving on the spaceship they recover consciousness, the captain shut himself in the cabin and the other two begin their journey back to Earth. Strange things starts to happen to them, they play a game of chess and discover that their cognitive functions increased drastically being able to move the pieces with their mind. The captain exits his cabin and he is no longer human as a transformation took place while he was in his cabin. He threatens to kill all invoking that nobody should find out about the planet. Then a sphere of energy materializes on the spaceship. After a long discussion with the sphere one of them asks 'who are you' in reply the sphere says "I, I'm the mouse!'
Well this is vague (I think) but someone told me this story long time ago and he himself heard it from someone
Please help me, I've started for this book about ten years ago
The story is about a group of astronauts traveling trough space. In their journey discover a strange planet that look uninhabited in fact is covert by a vast flat desert. They send a probe to the planet and they put a mouse (rat or laboratory hamster) on it, when the mouse touches the soil it loses consciousness. The captain decide to go to the planet but as soon as it touches the ground it to lose his consciousness. In hope that he can save his captain one of the crew decide to go after him but the same thing happens to him, soon after the final member of the spaceship go to the planet and he manages to rescue them. Arriving on the spaceship they recover consciousness, the captain shut himself in the cabin and the other two begin their journey back to Earth. Strange things starts to happen to them, they play a game of chess and discover that their cognitive functions increased drastically being able to move the pieces with their mind. The captain exits his cabin and he is no longer human as a transformation took place while he was in his cabin. He threatens to kill all invoking that nobody should find out about the planet. Then a sphere of energy materializes on the spaceship. After a long discussion with the sphere one of them asks 'who are you' in reply the sphere says "I, I'm the mouse!'
Well this is vague (I think) but someone told me this story long time ago and he himself heard it from someone
Please help me, I've started for this book about ten years ago
