At The Goings Down of The Suns

Earth's problem children are coming home, and no-one's killing the fatted calf to welcome them. Bad things are happening back in the Really Old Country. Alastair Drague is getting nervous. Things are going on in his capital city that his own people either can't or won't make head or tail of. What is going on, and is it linked to something murderously efficient out at Barnard's Star that seems to be killing United States of the Zodiac starships? Drague needs fresh minds on the problem. He needs U.S.Z. Intelligence, and its newest special agents, Anthony Stevens and Cleopatra Nefertiti Shakespeare. But Drague's own people are getting nervous about Drague himself...