Vidan was again reaching out to the stars: sadder and wiser...and cautious, unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the ancestors. The Commonwealth was born, reaching out to lost colonies and establishing new ones, rediscovering lost technology and how to navigate the star-ways. Many of the lost colonies not only survived but thrived--and they remembered their abandonment and the harsh centuries of the Downfall....
To visit Centralis, home of the Commonwealth Council and University, is the opportunity and adventure of a lifetime. While Lin testifies about Sunsinger's visit to the Mashrami home planet, Bain explores. While there, a researcher is attacked, his laboratory ransacked and deadly cultures stolen. With the possibility of a plague being loosed under the domes of Centralis, Bain knows he has to help...even if it costs him his life.
