The 18th novel in Cherryh's Foreigner space opera series, a
groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences.
Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard 5,000
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
brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran
government. For the Alpha Station refugees represent a political faction
that the people of Mospheira broke from two centuries ago, and these
Mospheirans are not enthusiastic about welcoming these immigrants from
space.
In the decades Bren has served Tabini, he has become enmeshed in the
atevi world in a way no human ever has before. Bren is now an atevi
lord, with his own estate on the mainland, his own household, and his
own Assassin's Guild bodyguards. He is a treasured resource to Tabini
and has become close to Tabini's young son and heir, Cajieri, the first
atevi child ever to grow up in the presence of a human. Tabini,
impatient with human politics, has ordered Bren to return to the island
of his birth in his official capacity as an atevi lord, with his full
atevi retinue. Bren is to inform the president of Mospheira that he is
no longer his diplomat, that Mospheira must take in the refugees from
Alpha, and that there is no other acceptable solution. And among the
refugees are three children requiring special protection because Cajieri
has made them his "associates" - a bond of atevi loyalty that is
unbreakable and lifelong.
While Bren travels to Mospheira, Tabini sends Cajieri to the country to
visit his uncle Tatiseigi - a political gesture to shore up an old man
and give the boy a well-earned vacation, a cherished opportunity to
escape the formality of the atevi court. Tatiseigi's neighbors, however,
are determined to end an old feud to their own satisfaction....and
Cajieri's presence is just the excuse they need.
