Four hundred years after winning Secession from the Terran Empire, the star system Accord wants to sign a simple trade treaty on microchip export tariffs. But if the agreement is so minor, why is Professor Nathaniel Whaler--top economist at the Ecolitan Institute, and his world's top commando killer--chosen Accord's Envoy?
Because the Imperial capital is a maddening bureaucracy of sniveling diplomats, high profile figureheads, powers behind...