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Rod Garvin just made too many waves for the Thought Control Board that controlled the Plastic Society of the 21st century. Throwing him in an insane asylum didn't restrain him, nor -- when that didn't work -- did sentencing him to a suicide job on Mars. Garvin was bright, driven, and stubborn, so the only thing Thought Control could was was get rid of him -- quietly and permanently.

And that was fine with Garvin, since it meant he could make his dreamed-of voyage into deep space. But even beyond Saturn, Garvin couldn't avoid his talent for trouble. When his exploration ship stumbled onto an asteroid peopled by remnants of a starfaring race and possessed of incredible mineral wealth, it opened the possibility of unlimited loot for Earth and Thought Control -- if only Rod Garvin hadn't been the man to make the find...

In the twenty-first century, Avery Jarvis "Doc" Brandon lived in luxurious seclusion on subtropical Nameless Island. An immensely wealthy gene-engineer who dabbled in illegal baby-making, Doc was 186 years of age and looked thirty-five.

But a storm loomed on his horizon: Bureaucrats had blundered across Doc's real age. They wanted his "secret discovery" and would undertake anything -- including blackmail, kidnapping, and murder -- to get it.

Alexander Heflin, Imperator of North America, had his hands full: a war was brewing that could destroy the Imperium. Seeking to protect his wife, Lani, from their increasingly powerful enemies, Alex called on the one person he could trust: ex-war hero Rod Garvin.

Babysitting an Imperatrix seemed too easy a job for an adventurer of Garvin's caliber. After all, it kept him on Mars, while the action was happening on Earth. Little did he know that Alex was embarking upon a desperate ploy to save his nation by destroying it -- and it would be up to Garvin to pick up the pieces.

Rod Garvin, governor of North America and Mars, was supposed to be on vacation, spending time in France with his Number One wife, Flora, and Felix, the son he had never met. But where Garvin went, trouble followed. Alerted by a spy in Flora's household, his enemies awaited his arrival. And the war leaders of North America had a new assignment for Garvin: find Lani, Imperatrix of North America, and convince her to come out of hiding.

So, trailed by assassins, Garvin set out for the Egypt colony, where the incognito Lani was worshipped as the incarnation of Isis. But Rod Garvin was no longer on his own. Son Felix, a chip off the old block, insisted on accompanying his dad on this mission. Can this new father-son team complete their mission -- or will guards, assassins, and Lani herself prove their undoing?