Sacorra 6 is a conundrum, and Renata Colby loves puzzles. The top-ranking environmental scientist for the Council of Worlds seldom goes on project evaluations, but Sacorra 6 is intriguing enough to deserve her personal attention. Not even the most sophisticated scanner technology can track life-forms there. The cause of this so-called dissimulation effect has to be natural, since the Harimi who want to alter Sacorra 6 to their environmental liking are new arrivals and the planet has no native sentients.
Colby and her coxswain are traveling as guests when the Harimi-piloted shuttle crashes. With their hosts dead, the humans are rescued by descendants of Terran colonists who landed secretly several hundred years earlier. Only then does Colby learn that the Harimi’s plan to “improve” this world will soon destroy it—and she has no way to escape, or let her own people know she’s still alive, before that happens.
Author’s note: This novel contains some scenes that may be inappropriate for youthful readers, and its main character’s sexual orientation is unconventional. But it’s all part of the tale…because if Ren Colby can’t find a way to fit herself into their society, she is just as likely to die at the hands of her rescuers as in the demise of Sacorra 6.
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