Coren Lanra is the head of security for DyNan Manuel Industries. A former Special Service agent he’s never cared for bureaucracy, piracy, or deception. And he hates mysteries. Lanra’s troubles begin with the death of Nyron Looms, daughter of DyNan president Rega Looms, during an ill-fated mission to smuggle illegal immigrants from Earth to the colony Nova Levis—all were apparently murdered, but why? The only clue might be contained within the postironic brain of a robot that had accompanied the victims, but it has been deactivated, and Lanra is denied access to its memories. To make matters even worse, he is soon confronted with a puzzling complication: a possible connection between the murders and twenty babies who were snatched from an orphanage over two decades ago. With the help of roboticist Derec Avery and Auroran ambassador Ariel Burgess— whom the security chief had aided in exposing an anti-robot conspiracy on Earth a year before—Lanra searches for answers to a twenty-five-year-old mystery . . . and for the identity of a killer, before more lives are lost.