There is a dream called Moonbase, nurtured by ex-astronaut Paul Stavenger and his wife, Joanna Masterson Stavenger, head of the powerful Masterson Corporation. There is a future of astonishing possibilities and vital technological development waiting on a lifeless world of astonishing contrasts, where sub-frigid darkness abuts the blood-boiling light—a future threatened by greed and jealousy, insanity and murder. The Moon and its mysteries have captivated the Stavenger family, and it will continue to exert its pull upon subsequent generations. For all those who experience its magnificent desolation are haunted by it eternally. Some will be doomed by its pitiless aversion to human life. And some can never leave.

Ben Bova's extraordinary Moonbase Saga continues with a breathtaking near-future adventure rich in character and incident. Seven years after the indomitable Doug Stavenger has realized his cherished dream of establishing a colony on the inhospitable lunar surface, Moonbase is a thriving community, a marvel of scientific achievement created and supported by nanotechnology: virus-sized machines that can build, cure, and destroy. But nanotechnology has been declared illegal by the home planet's leaders, and a powerful despot is determined to lay claim to Stavenger's peaceful city—or obliterate it, if necessary. The people of Moonbase, a colony with no arms or military, must now defend themselves from earthborn aggression with the only weapon at their disposal: the astonishing technology that sustains their endangered home.