Quote:🌞 The sixth novel in Cherryh's Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences.
It has been nearly ten years since the starship Phoenix returned to Alpha, the station orbiting the world of the atevi, which had been abandoned following a rift between a faction of the station's inhabitants and the spacers' Pilot's Guild. The unexpected return of the Phoenix has forever changed the lives of both atevi and Mospheirans, for over the ensuing decade, the captains of the Phoenix have brought both species into space. Their motivation seemed simple: Reunion Station, a human station in another sector of space, had been destroyed by aliens.
But on his deathbed, the senior captain of the Phoenix admits that he lied to the crew-that Reunion was merely damaged, not destroyed, and many people may have survived. At this disclosure, the crew rebels and forces the...