Tor Hardcover 2006
429 Pages

Book Description
Giraut Leones, special agent for the human Thousand Cultures' shadowy Office of Special Projects, is turning fifty - and someone is trying to kill him.
Giraut has had a long career; the number of entities that might want him dead is effectively limitless. But recently, Giraut was approached by the Lost Legion, an Occitan underground linked to an alliance of illegally human-settled worlds beyond the frontier. Also, it turns out that the Lost Legion colony has a "psypyx" - a consciousness-recording - of Shan, onetime boss of the Office of Special Projects. If they have that, they have literally thousands of devastating secrets.
Now, returning to his native Nou Occitan, Giraut will encounter violence and treachery from human and artificial consciousnesses alike. As bigotry and mob violence erupt throughout the rapidly destabilizing interstellar situation, Giraut will be called on to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of civilization itself...

The book was released in the Columbus Shopping Mall, on the bookshelf inside Fregatti, located near the south end of the Mall.