The fifth installment of David Wingrove's colossal series

The year is 2206 and peace has returned. After five years of war, the Seven are weak. They have lost three of their members, and the new T'ang are young and inexperienced. Once it was considered inconceivable but now, down in the lowest levels of the immense city of Chung Kuo, new currents of unrest have awoken that threaten to tear it apart. The fight endures, but the demand for change is not the only threat to the Seven. Major Howard DeVore will use any means available to destroy them and their world-spanning city, and, from their own ranks, Wang Sau-leyan, appointed T'ang after the suspicious deaths of his father and elder brothers, plots to destroy them from within. The Seven are vulnerable and the forces against them continue to grow.