Kees vaan Loo-Macklin is a born killer, the criminal prodigy who seized the reins of an intergalactuc underworld, then sold out to go legit. Even then he could see there was no future on Evenwaith with its poisoned atmosphere and cities sheathed in glass and steel tubes. So he reached out, as no other man ever had, to Evenwaith's natural enemies, the slimy amporphous aliens known as the Nuel. In a truce on vaan Loo-Macklin's own uncompromising terms, the Nuel gained the illusion of peace, while vaan Loo0Macklin won the secrets of the aliens' survival. Now only one of the Nuel dares to question the underlying motive of this extraordinary human. Is it greed, personal power, revenge? Or something far darker, waiting on the fringes of space--where enemy starships mass to begin their raid?