- 2105, September: Intelligence Analyst Caine Riordan uncovers a conspiracy on
Earth’s Moon — a history-changing clandestine project — and
ends up involuntarily cryocelled for his troubles. Twelve years later, Riordan
awakens to a changed world. Humanity has achieved faster-than-light travel and
is pioneering nearby star systems. And now, Riordan is compelled to become an
inadvertent agent of conspiracy himself. Riordan’s mission: travel to a
newly settled world and investigate whether a primitive local species was once
sentient — enough so to have built a lost civilization. However, arriving
on site in the Delta Pavonis system, Caine discovers that the job he’s
been given is anything but secret or safe. With assassins and saboteurs dogging
his every step, it's clear that someone doesn't want his mission to succeed. In
the end, it takes the broad-based insights of an intelligence analyst and a
matching instinct for intrigue to ferret out the truth: that humanity is neither
alone in the cosmos, nor safe. Discovering new dangers at every turn, Riordan
must now convince the powers-that-be that the only way for humanity to survive
as a free species is to face the perils directly — and to fight fire with
fire.
- ISBN10 1476736324
- ISBN13 9781476736327
- Publish Date 17 March 2014 (first published 29 April 2013)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 11 March 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Baen Books
- Format Paperback
- Pages 432
- Language English