About the Book
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
It has been nearly ten years since the
starship Phoenix returned to the abandoned station orbiting the world
of the alien atevi. This station, called Alpha, had been deserted for
centuries following a rift between a faction of the station's
inhabitants and the spacers' autocratic Pilot's Guild. For two hundred
years this splinter faction had shared a fragile coexistence with the
ate vi, living in isolation on the island of Mosphiera, communicating
with the brilliant but volatile atevi by the use of a single highly
trained diplomat, the paidhi, and trading technological information for
continued peace and safety.
The unexpected return of the Phoenix has forever changed
the lives of both atevi and Mosphierans, for over the ensuing decade,
the captains of the Phoenix have brought both the atevi and their human
counterparts 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, including family and friends of the Phoenix
crew may have survived. At this disclosure, the crew rebels and forces
the Phoenix to undertake a rescue mission to Reunion.
But the crew and captains do not go alone, for on board
are Bren Cameron, brilliant human paidhi, now representing Tabini-aiji,
the atevi ruler, and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, a
fearsome, wily, and ambitious atevi leader with an agenda of her own.
Trapped in a distant star system with very little fuel
left, facing a potentially bellicose alien ship, how can Bren help to
avoid inter-species war when the notoriously secretive Pilot's Guild
aboard Reunion Station won't even cooperate with their own ship, and
may have kept the inhabitants of their own station ignorant of their
true situation?
