At a crucial conference uniting the Spacers, the Settlers, and representatives of Earth, Senator Clar Eliton of Earth and Senior Space Ambassador Galiel Humadros of Aurora are advocating the restoration of positronic robots on Earth, repudiating years of fear and resentment. It is a dangerous stance to take.
As the Spacer delegates arrive on Earth, conspirators assassinate Sentor Eliton. Ambassador Humadros is cut down, too. Both are failed by their robot protectors.
Special Agent Mia Daventri?part of the security force assigned to protect Eliton?is the only member of her team to survive the attack, and is rushed to the hospital.
Derec Avery?a survivor of the Robot City epic?is called in to investigate what may have caused the robot bodyguards to fail at the most critical hour. But his inquiries are stone-walled, and an attempt is made on Mia's life. Derec and Mia join forces with Calvin Instititute attache Ariel Burgess to penetrate a vast conspiracy that sprawls across Terran, Spacer, and Settler worlds and threatens to bring all three to the brink of war.
]]>To the humans opposed to embracing the new future offered, Fargo is representative of everything they reject, a threat to everything they hold important and fear to lose. He is an outsider, unwanted, unwelcome, in many ways a barbarian, yet indispensable to both sides.
For himself, Fargo has his own reasons for going all the way to Sol, to Earth, into the heart of power.
Fargo has touched an alien mind.
]]>America in 2050 is a very different place. In the wake of a triumphant isolationist movement and a massive depression, state's rights supersede federal authority on all levels, and in the subsequent balkanization of economy, class, and politics, getting anything done in the "national interest" is a tortuous, nearly impossible task.
For Grant Voczek and Reva Cassonare, working for different, normally uncooperative agencies, overcoming these barriers takes on a personal edge when a Treasury agent is found murdered in St. Louis. They must work together to find the killers -- and the reason behind the killing. What they discover leads them through a maze of political and corporate collusion involving currency fraud, graft, and the systematic harvesting of people who cannot defend themselves because they do not legally exist. For Grant and Reva, failure would not be simply unacceptable -- failure would be a felony of conscience.
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