A new-cover reissue of the fourth book in the bestselling five-volume sf series created by the world-famous author of the Thomas Covenant chronicles -- and acclaimed as the 'best work of his career'. Events were not moving as the Amnion had intended. Once again humans had been false in their dealings with the aliens. As the planetoid Thanatos Minor exploded into atoms, the Trumpet hurtled into space only one step ahead of hostile pursuers. On board were Morn Hyland and her force-grown son Davies, cyborg Angus Thermopyle and Captain Nick Succorso -- old enemies thrown together in a desperate bid for survival. For both the Amnion and the UMCP, the immediate capture of the fleeing ship and the secrets it contained was imperative. But for Trumpet's exhausted crew the only hope lay in an illegal lab in the distant binary solar system of Valdor Industrial. It would be a journey of unpredictable danger -- from which not all would return...