Full Description
When an exploration ship from Freehold discovered a planet with intelligent
lifeforms—the first which humans had ever encountered—it should have
been the most important event in history. And it might be—for all the
wrong reasons. Corporations on Freehold were eager to sell
high-tech toys to the Ithkuil, as the inhabitants called themselves, which had
the potential to disrupt their society. Then there was the U.N., which
controlled the planet Earth. Earth and Freehold were not on good terms, to put
it mildly, and the U.N. immediately sent its own ship to make contact with the
Ithkuil. If the authoritarians from Earth started throwing their weight around,
Freehold would have to push back, causing anything from a diplomatic incident to
outright war. And then another ship arrived, full of idealistic do-gooders
determined to keep the Ithkuil in their unspoiled state of nature . . .
The whole thing was turning into a cross between a Marx Brothers farce and a
Kafkaesque nightmare, with a potential for Greek tragedy. Contact with a more
advance civilization might pose a danger to the Ithkuil, but it definitely was
becoming more dangerous to the human factions, and the situation was a powder
keg just waiting for a spark to cause a very deadly explosion. . . .
