The starstream is beautiful. But beauty turns deadly when an ancient AI bent on destruction uses it to travel uptime, to humanity's future. The Mindaru are dead. Or so exiled-Earthman John Bandicut and his alien companions believe, after their intervention to save the Orion Nebula and surrounding worlds. But now a part of this ancient and malicious AI colony is swarming toward the present from its birthplace deep in the past. Their opening: a temporal disturbance in the starstream, a hyperspatial thoroughfare used by myriad civilizations. The disturbance emanates from the planetary defenses of nearby Karellia, whose people know nothing of the starstream or the galaxy-threatening Mindaru. Only Bandicut and his friends have the knowledge and experience to act. But when several of the company go missing, he and Li-Jared must team with the pandimensional Ruall and her gokat-the oddest aliens Bandicut has met since the shadow-people-and journey to Karellia to find a way to cut off the timestream. Meanwhile, on Shipworld, the "missing" Ik meets another human of Earth-a former lover of Bandicut's-and embarks with her on a perilous mission far back into deep time, seeking a way to stop the Mindaru at their source. The Chaos Chronicles returns at last with part one of a heartstopping, two- part adventure. Concluded in Crucible of Time-coming soon from Nebula- nominated Jeffrey A. Carver!