Borrowing the rich stranger's identity seemed like a good idea at the time. Maris knew nothing about the woman, only that Johnivans, the boss of her gang, had wanted her investigated - and that when she apparently escaped questioning by spacing herself, Johnivans decided to take advantage of the slight physical similarity between Maris and the stranger by planting Maris' prints and retinal scans in the stranger's ID - and to provide Maris as an apparent victim of accidental death, a dead body who would be a dead end to any investigation by the space station's security.One step ahead of her former protector and would-be assassin, Maris escaped the space station as "Calandra Vissi" - only to discover that as Calandra she was supposed to be one of the Federation's famed Diplos, bionically enhanced with abilities and weapons far beyond the normal human range.She couldn't pass for a Diplo.She didn't dare tell the truth and return to the space station.And somebody on Kalapriya, Calandra's destination world, was trying to kill the Diplo.Gabrel, the young Kalapriyan officer who'd been assigned to escort her, apparently accepted her as a Diplo and was willing to help her escape the assassins. But as they traveled into the unmapped highlands of Kalapriya to unravel the intrigues Calandra had been sent to investigate, how long would her masquerade last - and what would he think of her when he discovered the truth? Read Less