BRIEFING: Nyx is a cold-blooded operative for Blacklight, a section of Amphictyony Security that does not officially exist. Deven, her boss, has dispatched her to the tropical world of Malache, there to kill a courier who is about to transfer classified information. Given minimal information in her briefing, she kills the wrong person. Ordered back to make amends, she finds herself in the middle of an intercorporate conflict where both sides want her dead. An old nemesis, the only person ever to have defeated her, is present on Malache as well. Her only allies are the lemuroid, pacifist, sexually-tilted Malasy, and an anthropologist of questionable loyalties. To win this one, Nyx has to recover her lost femininity, and make the coldest sacrifice of all.