Fred Saberhagen continues his Berserker Series?， a chronicle of a war between humanity and the terrifying race of sentient machines bent on death and destruction. Pilot Harry Silver s name is know throughout the galaxy. While he has defeated his share of Berserkers， he has also stolen a powerful weapon from the Space Force， making him a fugitive from the life he once knew. Looking for an adventure Harry agrees to bring a passenger aboard his ship: Lily， a woman who is on a quest to retrieve her husband.It won t be easy， as Lily s husband has joined a secretive religious cult on Maracanda， an almost-planet lodged between a shifting black hole and a neutron star. While the landscape of Maracanda is treacherous， so too， may be the people around Harry Silver. For as the search for Lily s husband deepens， Harry finds himself investigating a larger mystery and looking for missing persons， almost ending up one himself.And， as always， there is the threat of death from above， in the path of a machine whose only intent is to kill.