Pretender (Third Foreigner Series #2)

The eighth novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences…

Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission in space, the crew of the starship Phoenix return home to find disaster: civil war has broken out, the powerful Western Association has been overthrown, and Tabini-aiji, its forceful leader, is missing. In a desperate move, paidhi Bren Cameron and Tabini's grandmother Ilisidi, the aiji-dowager, along…