The solar system has a new god, and his name is Gantry Hilton. As President of the Federation of Worlds, Hilton has perfected the Psycho-Adjuster, a device that grants him absolute dominion over human minds. Free thought is now treason. The will to resist is a disease to be cured. Eric Falken has spent years running from the Hiltonist Black Guards, ferrying the last remnants of humanity's stubborn independence from asteroid to outer planet, from derelict hulk to hidden moon. But the net is tightening. Cornered near Mercury with hostile ships closing on every vector, Falken faces an impossible choice: submission to the Psycho-Adjuster's blissful tyranny, or death. Yet even as the trap snaps shut, a question burns in his exhausted mind. How did they find him? Someone betrayed the cause, and the cost of that betrayal will be measured in the souls of everyone he's sworn to protect. Brackett writes with the fierce energy of someone who knew authoritarianism firsthand, crafting a space opera that doubles as a furious argument for the right to think, to choose, to resist.
