Discovery of the mysterious asteroids called Stones had quickly spawned a new breed of artists: "sculptors" who shaped the Stones into vivid collages of sensation and emotion by layering human experiences into them one by one. Although asteroid-belt miners harvested the Stones from deep space and artists with inborn sensitivity sculpted them, no one was sure what made the Stones so strangely receptive—or where they came from. Now Stone sculptors were being brutally murdered, one by one. No one knew why, and no one had more need to know that sculptor Michael Tryon. Famous, burned out, and reclusive, Michael had given up the security of Old Taos to meet Margarita Espinoza, a young artist who claimed to be his daughter—only to find out that someone was killing off his friends and rivals and framing him for murder. The search for the truth led Margarita and Michael below the sea, onto a dangerous orbital platform, and into the far reaches of space. But the answer lay in the Stones themselves . . .