cclaimed author Fred Saberhagen continues his widely popular and influential Berserker Series, a chronicle of war between humanity and the terrifying race of sentient machines bent on death and destruction. Pilot Harry Silver's name is known throughout the galaxy and that notoriety does not always work in his favor. While he has defeated his share of Berserkers, he has also stolen a powerful weapon from the Space Force, making him a fugitive from the life he once knew. Looking for an adventure, and not one to turn down a lot of cash, Harry agrees to bring a passenger aboard his ship. That passenger is Lily, a woman on a quest to rescue her husband. It won't be easy, as Lily's husband has joined a secretive religious cult on Maracanda, an almost-planet lodged between a shifting black hole and a neutron star. The landscape of Maracanda is treacherous, so too may be the people around Harry Silver. For as the search for Lily's husband widens, Harry finds himself investigating a deeper mystery. And as always, there is the threat of death from above, in the path of a machine whose only intent is to kill.