The great galactic empire lies in blasted ruins now 500 years cold. In its wake rises the new Ferne Federation, picking from the bones of long dead worlds, its mutant salvage workers consigned to the radioactive city planets of the imperial core. Now in an uneasy time of fragile peace when ancient technology is feared and strictly controlled, a new and little known threat grows within, a threat which may at last end the remnants of humanity.
All Michael Green knows is that the meeting with Nole Joam from the corporate office has to be a bad thing. He's running over budget on his latest project, and is still nowhere near meeting the strict approval guidelines covering computational devices. Then there is the suggestion the project may have genetic applications, and that's going to put an end to it all too quickly.
For now he has a comfortable life, based on one of the more civilised systems in the fledgling federation, but another failure could see him out of a job. Somehow he knows all too well that is going to see a downturn in his standard of living, and a move out of a very comfortable apartment. Just how great that move will be is something he would never have dared imagine. A move to the productivity division, someone to monitor a possible threat against the little known mutant worker population salvaging the long dead worlds of a fallen galactic empire. That means a journey to the radioactive core worlds, indeed the seat of the last emperor.
It also means uncovering secrets that are better left long buried, Michael left torn between the needs of a mutant race born of long dead science and perhaps the very survival of his own species.
