For my father--who I lost this past year, I wish I had been as good to you as you were to me. Twenty-twenty hindsight can be a horrible and haunting thing. I can only hope and pray that you could see beyond my youth, see the man, and know in your heart I tried to be the best I could be.

For Roxie--a cousin, now a sister, for enduring the unendurable, the loss of a child, it should happen to no one in the entire world. My heart is broken for you.

For Maribeth--to the ghosts of youth, may we forever be haunted and happier for it.

To the United States Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Army; for the assistance in the writing of this novel, you have my deepest thanks.

To the United States Geological Service and the help that was given on theory and science. The assistance rendered was far beyond anything and I am grateful.

For Pete Wolverton, who always reminds me I can be better than the first draft (and sometimes better than even the second).

The council elder sat alone in the darkened chamber. His mind focused on the empire's dire situation and the harsh judgment that history would render upon his great civilization. The cruelty they had shown against the lesser peoples of the world was now coming back a thousandfold to haunt the ringed continent. This judgment, this disaster, had begun three years earlier, with the rebellion of the barbarian nations in the outer empire, north and south.