Heavy Time

When free-runners Bird and Ben salvage another free-runner ship adrift, out of control, and inhabited by the half-crazy Dekker, they find themselves caught up in a murder and a cover-up that threatens their livelihood and their lives

Sure-handed Cherryh returns to the award-winning setting of Rimrunners and Cyteen , taking readers to the frontier where independent asteroid miners Morris Bird and Ben Pollard are struggling against the increasing economic domination of the bureaucratic Company. A mysterious distress signal leads them to a wrecked ship spinning out of control, with its sole remaining crew member, Dekker, crazy and near death. Bird and Ben haul him and his ship back to Base, enduring Dekker's mad ravings and debating the ethics of claiming the craft as salvage. Soon, however, the issue becomes far more complicated--Dekker's story suggests a murder and a Company cover-up, and the political crisis he sparks threatens to do more than deprive Bird and Ben of their salvage. Superbly rendered--with believable social, economic and political backdrops, complex characters, and a tense, well-paced plot--Cherryh's novel proves that high-tech science fiction need not sacrifice literary values.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Another adventure set in the medium-future universe of Rimrunners and Cyteen; here, the action takes place in the solar system's asteroid belt, where independent miners are slowly being squeezed out by the predatory mining consortium ASTEX. Prospecting partners Morrie Bird, the old hand who owns the ship, and young, hotheaded pilot Ben Pollard encounter a wrecked, tumbling ship and discover aboard a lone survivor, Dekker, babbling and traumatized by whatever happened to him and by the loss of his partner. Hoping for salvage rights, Ben and Bird tow the hulk back to Base, and turn Dekker over to the medics. But, despite company denials, soon it emerges that at least part of Dekker's wild claims (an unreported collision, claim-jumping, a sinister plot) are true. Then, Dekker's partner's body turns up, bizarrely flung into a recovery orbit along with ores mined from a huge rock the company maintains doesn't exist. Teaming up with influential female miners Meg and Sal, Bird, Ben, and Dekker contrive to blow the lid off a massive coverup that involves ASTEX and public figures as distant as the President of Earth. Taut, gripping, realistic work, with Cherryh taking a stab at character development, and bringing her agreeably complex plot to a satisfying if unsurprising conclusion. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A pair of independent claim-seekers in the asteroid belt answer a distress call, discover the remains of a ship and its half-crazed survivor, and tow their salvage to the nearest way station--where their trouble begins. Sf veteran Cherryh returns to the world of her Merchanter novels ( Downbelow Station , DAW, 1981; Merchanter's Luck , LJ 9/15/82) for a tightly plotted drama of human politics, double dealing, and treachery amid the stars. The author's singular ability to create a believable vision of a spacefaring future is exceeded only by her talent for populating that vision with "real" people. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.