THE WORLD WAS FINISHED—
BUT ISHAM STONE WASN'T . . .

 His name is Isham Stone, and he's the second-best assassin in the world. He is many miles from home, half-dead, his left arm is gangrenous, and he possesses—like everyone else—a sense of smell a thousand times better than a wolf's. Ahead of him, in the stinking ruins of a great city, hides the greatest killer of all time, Wendell Morgan Carlson. All Isham has to do is stay alive long enough to find Carlson and kill him.

But Carlson is guarded by ghosts . . .

They rode the winds when Earth was bubbling rock. They were a mighty civilization before the first amphibians were hatched. They shared the world with men for half a million years before either side became aware of the other—and for centuries thereafter we refused to believe they truly existed.

In our arrogance, we assumed that life was an exclusive property of solids and liquids . . .

Now they have declared war on us, and our race is nearly annihilated. Thanks to the man Isham has come to kill. . . .

Praise for a Hugo- and Nebula-Winning Master Storyteller

"Nobody's perfect, but Spider comes pretty damned close!"  —Ben Bova

 ". . . I'd nominate Spider Robinson as the new Robert Heinlein." —The New York Times

 "Sheer good storytelling . . . imaginative and captivating. . . ." —Publishers Weekly