From award-winning science fiction writer S.P. Somtow comes Captain Picard's mos challenging dilemma: should he kill an innocent child to save a billion others? The inhabitants of Thanet believe that once every five thousand years the Death-Bringer destroys their world in a torrent of fire in order to herald a new cycle of creation -- and the eve of destruction is almost upon them. Billions will die. To Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise, the Death-Bringer appears to be nothing more than a rogue comet, and one that could easily be destroyed. But Picard's position is challenged when his Counsellor, the empath Deanna Troi, discovers that the comet is alive...