John Bandicut deserves a rest. Rescuing Earth from a wayward comet wasn't accomplishment enough, and neither was saving two other worlds from imminent disaster. Exiled from his homeworld and traveling with an eclectic group of aliens - including a quarx in his head - he has been plucked from one mission to another, and from one end of the galaxy to another, and he and his companions are tired.Would it be too much to ask, when they arrive at an interstellar waystation, that they receive a little R&R, and maybe even some answers? Apparently so. Hyperspatial gravity waves shake the station repeatedly, and they're getting stronger. These shock waves merely hint at the trouble brewing in the nearby Starmaker Nebula, better known to Bandicut as the Great Orion Nebula. What's the cause of the disturbance? No one knows. The company's task is to find out - not just because their R&R center is threatened with destruction, but because sentient stars in the nebula are dying. And the danger could ripple out over thousands of light-years, threatening uncounted worlds - including Earth.Aboard a ship called The Long View, Bandicut and his band of exiles journey not just into the perils of a star-forming nebula, but into a confrontation with the Mindaru, a billion-year-old adversary of life as they know it. Whatever chance they have of stopping the terrifying Mindaru may be found only in the fiery heart of an intelligent sun. Read Less