The recent civil war has been tentatively settled in favor of the faction of atevi natives that favors humanity and their technology. Our hero, Bren Cameron, official intermediary between the humans and the atevi ruler Tabini, is ensconced once more in his office at the Bu-javid, the giant palace-cum-government-center. He begins to pick up the reins of his post, hoping to return to a life of rigorous, challenging but essentially safe diplomacy, while acknowledging that deadly rivalries still lurk below the surface. (Bren also needs to reintegrate himself into his personal life. He's been away on an interstellar voyage for two years and doesn't even know, for instance, whether his brother Toby is alive and well.)

But there's a monkey wrench in Bren's plans. Cajeiri, Tabini's son and heir, has "gone human." The young boy went along on the interstellar trip—under the tutelage of his great-grandmother, Ilisidi—and learned to like human friends and cultural modes and conveniences. Now back in the relatively primitive environment of the Bu-javid, Cajeiri is resentful—hardly proper behavior amidst the rigid codes of his people. Bren has to serve as a mentor and advisor to the boy, an uncomfortable position.

And then, when Cajeiri becomes a pawn of the anti-Tabini forces, Bren must mount a hazardous rescue mission.

A long, slow march toward a climax

I'm afraid my feelings toward this series, last recorded in my review of Pretender, have not been altered by the appearance and contents of this latest installment, in which nothing has changed. (Make that "almost nothing," as I specify below.) I wish matters were different, as I believe Cherryh has immense talent. Perhaps I am just constitutionally unfitted to enjoy this type of fiction. But all I am reminded of while reading it is the great Star Wars parody from the episode of The Simpsons titled "Co-Dependent's Day." The Simpson family went to view a film called Cosmic Wars, which consisted entirely of a debate in the galactic parliament about tariffs. Even when a giant robot broke through the walls, it too promptly sat down to participate in the tedious talk of protocol.

Admittedly, there's a bit more action than that in the Cherryh book. When, midway through, Bren and company leave the Bu-javid in search of a missing Cajeiri, new details of alien landscape, culture and history become mildly interesting. But the whole damn storyline is so decompressed, it just drags and drags. Additionally, we have to suffer through such "Well, duh!" asides as this: "... composing on the keyboard, where erasure did not mean throwing away a piece of tangible paper that could fall into the wrong hands—and where he had an automatic copy of his exact words." And such nervous-nellyisms from Bren as this: "God, he wished he'd tucked that last breakfast roll into his pocket, but he'd been afraid it would shed crumbs on his gun."

The one improvement in this volume are the passages from Cajeiri's point of view, where we get to inhabit the consciousness of a rebellious, ingenious 10-year-old. But even then, it's hardly "Heinlein juvenile" territory.