Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship
Phoenix--the same ship which brought humans to the world of alien
atevi nearly 200 years ago, leaving a small and vulnerable colony to
struggle for survival in a hostile environment. During these six months,
the alien atevi have striven to reconfigure their fledgling space
program in a breakneck bid to take their place in the heavens alongside
humans. But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful
third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing political
factions in both human and atevi societies, and making the possibility
of all-out planetary war an even more likely threat.
On the atevi mainland, human ambassador Bren Cameron, in a desperate
attempt to maintain the peace, has risked alienation from his own people
by communicating with the staff of the Phoenix as spokesman for the
atevi, and has arranged for one human representative from the Phoenix to
take up residence with him in his apartments, and for another to be
stationed on Mosphiera, humanity's island enclave.
Now, Bren has the difficult task of indoctrinating Jason Graham, a young
man who has never before set foot on a planet, in the intricate,
delicate, and potentially lethal maneuverings of the human-atevi
interface. And this at a time when, thanks to the assassination of an
atevi lord who had been one of Bren's primary adversaries, and the
near-collision of Bren's personal plane with a jet manned by an unknown
pilot, the relationship between atevi factions is becoming more strained
by the minute.
