After years spent struggling to balance her desires with her responsibilities, Elspeth Gordie has fully embraced her role as the Seeker. Battle-scarred and haunted by memories of her beloved Rushton, she must continue her final quest to find and stop the computermachine Sentinel from unleashing the deadly Balance of Terror arsenal. But although she has long prepared for this day, nothing is as she anticipated. Elspeth's search will take her where she never thought to go, and give her stranger companions than any she ever imagined. And it will test her, as she has never been tested before.