Daniel Leary is Cinnabar's most successful space captain; his friend, Lady Adele Mundy, is its most efficient spy—but they've got their hands full this time as they face:

 

• A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election—and still powerful enough to make her anger deadly.
• The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he's a god—and who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to.
• A world of slaves and escaped slaves, where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human.
• An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets—but which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive.