The groundbreaking novel that launched Cherryh's epic series on first contact and its consequences is back in this special anniversary edition featuring a brand-new introduction by the author.

Cajeiri, the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association, has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first "ateva" youth to have lived in a human environment and the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar--yet so dangerously different--aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.

The civil war among the alien atevi is over-- but peace and tranquility are not in the cards for Bren. Cajeiri, the young son of Tabini-aiai, the ruler, slips away from his bodyguards for an adventure. When rebel clans attack, Bren's pastoral retreat becomes a locked-down fortress.

"The 22nd book in the beloved Foreigner saga continues the adventures of diplomat Bren Cameron as he navigates the tenuous peace he has struck between human refugees and the alien atevi"-- "In the east, outright warfare has tied down the Assassins' Guild, and that region is in confusion. Ready to hand is an age-old feud in the west, where the Master of Ashidama Bay has long hated the Edi people of the north shore and equally hated the Aishidi'tat for bringing the Edi to his shores--and hatred is a resource the Shadow Guild knows how to use to its advantage. Bren Cameron is tasked with getting Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, back to the capital alive, on an urgent basis. But events are cascading down on the south, the Guild is stretched thin in the east, and the Shadow Guild is within striking distance of critical targets that could bring war to the entire south. Two lives stand in the breach, two lives the aishidi'tat would not willingly risk--Ilisidi and Bren--and the Shadow Guild will spend anything and everything to take them out." --

"The overthrow of the Atevi head of state, Tabini-aiji, and the several moves of enemies even since his restoration, have prompted major changes in the Assassins' Guild, which has since worked to root out its seditious elements - a clandestine group they call the Shadow Guild. With the Assassins now rid of internal corruption, with the birth of Tabini's second child, and with the appointment of an heir, stability seems to have returned to the Atevi world. Humans and Atevi share the space station in peaceful cooperation, humans and Atevi share the planet as they have for centuries, and the humans' island enclave is preparing to welcome 5000 human refugees from a remote station now dismantled, and to do that in unprecedented cooperation with the Atevi mainland. In General Bren Cameron, Tabini-aiji's personal representative, returning home to the Atevi capital after securing that critical agreement, was ready to take a well-earned rest - until Tabini's grandmother claimed his services on a train trip to the smallest, most remote and least significant of the provinces, snowy Hasjuran - a move concerning which Tabini-aiji gave Bren a private instruction: protect her. Advise her. Advise her - perhaps. As for protection, she has a trainload of high-level Guild. But since the Aiji-dowager has also invited a dangerously independent young warlord, Machigi, and a young man who may be the heir to Ajuri, a key northern province - the natural question is why the dowager is taking this ill-assorted pair to Hasjuran and what on this earth she may be up to. With a Shadow Guild attack on the train station, it has become clear that others have questions, too. Hasjuran, on its mountain height, overlooks the Marid, a district that is part of the Atevi nation only in name - a district in which Machigi is one major player, and where the Shadow Guild retains a major stronghold. Protect her? Ilisidi is hellbent on settling scores with the Shadow Guild, and her reasons for this trip and this company now become clear. One human diplomat and his own bodyguard suddenly seem a very small force to defend her from what she is setting in motion."--Publisher.

"The overthrow of the Atevi head of state, Tabini-aiji, and the several moves of enemies even since his restoration, have prompted major changes in the Assassins' Guild, which has since worked to root out its seditious elements - a clandestine group they call the Shadow Guild. With the Assassins now rid of internal corruption, with the birth of Tabini's second child, and with the appointment of an heir, stability seems to have returned to the Atevi world. Humans and Atevi share the space station in peaceful cooperation, humans and Atevi share the planet as they have for centuries, and the humans' island enclave is preparing to welcome 5000 human refugees from a remote station now dismantled, and to do that in unprecedented cooperation with the Atevi mainland. In General Bren Cameron, Tabini-aiji's personal representative, returning home to the Atevi capital after securing that critical agreement, was ready to take a well-earned rest - until Tabini's grandmother claimed his services on a train trip to the smallest, most remote and least significant of the provinces, snowy Hasjuran - a move concerning which Tabini-aiji gave Bren a private instruction: protect her. Advise her. Advise her - perhaps. As for protection, she has a trainload of high-level Guild. But since the Aiji-dowager has also invited a dangerously independent young warlord, Machigi, and a young man who may be the heir to Ajuri, a key northern province - the natural question is why the dowager is taking this ill-assorted pair to Hasjuran and what on this earth she may be up to. With a Shadow Guild attack on the train station, it has become clear that others have questions, too. Hasjuran, on its mountain height, overlooks the Marid, a district that is part of the Atevi nation only in name - a district in which Machigi is one major player, and where the Shadow Guild retains a major stronghold. Protect her? Ilisidi is hellbent on settling scores with the Shadow Guild, and her reasons for this trip and this company now become clear. One human diplomat and his own bodyguard suddenly seem a very small force to defend her from what she is setting in motion."--Publisher.

"Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard five thousand human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space. With supplies and housing stretched to the breaking point, it is clear that the refugees must be relocated down to the planet, and soon. But not to the atevi mainland: rather to the territory reserved for humans, the island of Mospheira. Tabini-aiji, the powerful political head of the atevi, tasks his brilliant human diplomat, Bren Cameron, to negotiate with the Mospheiran government. For the Alpha Station refugees represent a political faction that the people of Mospheira broke from two centuries ago, and these Mospheirans are not enthusiastic about welcoming these immigrants from space. In the decades Bren has served Tabini, he has become enmeshed in the atevi world in a way no human ever has before. Bren is now an atevi lord, with his own estate on the mainland, his own household, and his own Assassin's Guild bodyguards. He is a treasured resource to Tabini and has become close to Tabini's young son and heir, Cajieri, the first atevi child ever to grow up in the presence of a human. Tabini, impatient with human politics, has ordered Bren to return to the island of his birth in his official capacity as an atevi lord, with his full atevi retinue. Bren is to inform the president of Mospheira that he is no longer his diplomat, that Mospheira must take in the refugees from Alpha, and that there is no other acceptable solution. And among the refugees are three children requiring special protection because Cajieri has made them his "associates, " a bond of atevi loyalty that is unbreakable and lifelong. While Bren travels to Mospheira, Tabini sends Cajieri to the country to visit his uncle Tatiseigi--a political gesture to shore up an old man and give the boy a well-earned vacation, a cherished opportunity to escape the formality of the atevi court. Tatiseigi's neighbors, however, are determined to end an old feud to their own satisfaction, and Cajieri's presence is just the excuse they need"--Jacket.

"At last--Cajeiri has his young guests from the starship, three young folk entranced by weather and trees and creatures with minds of their own. It's all he dreamed of...But now safety is foremost: Cajeiri's grandfather has been assassinated, hostile Assassins Guild invaded Great-uncle's house, and now Bren Cameron, paidhi-aiji, who was sent to keep the aiji's son safe, has more than the young guests on his mind. The aiji-dowager knows who's to blame for the attacks, and they're going after him. The fact that the person responsible is in the heart of Assassins' Guild Headquarters, the most closely guarded fortress on the continent, is not going to stop her."--Publisher's website.

Bren Cameron, diplomat in residence, usually represents the ruler of the atevi state. But Ilisidi, the dowager, has been known to borrow his services from time to time - and she has her own notions how to solve the simmering hostilities in the south of the atevi continent, playing one problem against another. This time, she is betting the hard-won northern peace - and the lives of the people - on being right. She has commandeered the Red Train, taken aboard what passengers she chooses, and headed for the snowy roof of the world, where a hard-scrabble town and its minor lord are the first pieces she intends to use.."--Publisher description.