Casting aside her duty as the heir to the Ambassador of her world, Lady Caissa refuses to marry a man she despises and flees into the Forbidden Zone, where she meets a handsome injured man and sets a world-changing series of events in motion.
When the space liner on which she is traveling is attacked by the infamous planet pirates, Lunzie Mespil escapes to a lifeboat where she plans to sleep in cryogenic stasis until she is rescued, but she is unaware of how long she will wait.
The fate of the galaxy is placed in the hands of Lunzie, who discovers the true nature of a new friend; Fordeliton, who is dying of a mysterious poison; Dupaynil, who is exiled; and Aygar, who tries to prove himself.
In bestsellers McCaffrey and Scarborough's charming first of a new trilogy, Khorii, the adolescent daughter of Acorna ("the unicorn girl"), has her share of problems while at school on an asteroid that serves as a refuge for war orphans after her parents go off to use their Linyaari healing powers against a deadly plague. Khorii's roommate doesn't like her feline companion; a bully doesn't care for her android foster brother, Elviiz; and she learns about human nudity taboos the hard way.
A frontier society outwits a big, uncaring parent company in this appealing joint venture by McCaffrey ( Damia's Children ) and Scarborough ( The Healer's War ), the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning representatives of two generations of science fiction writers. Major Yanaba Maddock, medically retired with severely damaged lungs after military action aboard a space station, is pressured into acting as a spy by her employer, the sinister Intergal corporation.
