In a world where human and humanoid settlements exist side by side, peace is shattered by the arrival of a human spaceship, the new arrivals being far less tolerant of humanoids. As rumor of war spreads, the planet's fate is once again in the hands of Ben Cameron, the official go-between for humans and humanoids. By the author of Foreigner.

This is the second book in Cherryh's second trilogy set in her Foreigner Universe.

After making planetfall on the world of Mosphiera, Bren and Ilisidi meet Lord Tatiseigi, an old ally, and, while protecting Tibini's son and heir, find themselves in the middle of a civil war led by Lord Murini.

Cajeiri, the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association, has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first "ateva" youth to have lived in a human environment and the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar--yet so dangerously different--aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.

The civil war among the alien atevi is over-- but peace and tranquility are not in the cards for Bren. Cajeiri, the young son of Tabini-aiai, the ruler, slips away from his bodyguards for an adventure. When rebel clans attack, Bren's pastoral retreat becomes a locked-down fortress.

Bren and Illisidi must protect young prince Cajeiri and the human children who have come to visit for his birthday from the dangerous split compromising the Assassin's Guild.

"Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard five thousand human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space. With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, it is clear that the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon. But not to the atevi mainland: rather to the territory reserved for humans, the island of Mospheira. Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his...

"For years, the stations of the Hinder Stars, those old stations closest to Sol, have lagged behind the great megastations of the Beyond, like Pell and Cyteen. But new opportunities and fears arise when Alpha station receives news of an incoming ship with no identification. The denizens of Alpha wait anxiously for news about the outsiders, each with their own suspicions about the ship and its origins. Ross and Fallon, crew members of the Galway, believe...

Bren Cameron, diplomat in residence, usually represents the ruler of the atevi state. But Ilisidi, the dowager, has been known to borrow his services from time to time--and she has her own notions how to solve the simmering hostilities in the south of the atevi continent, playing one problem against another.