Space Station Commander Halley has a problem. Her station is badly damaged, and cut off from help, by beseiging Seouras, who are exhausting her with their alien, incomprehensible questioning; a badly damaged ship arrives; an alien trader is murdered in an impossible manner, and the various alien factions aboard the space station are all playing their own deep games; and a person from her own past turns up at the worst possible time.
The great range of aliens, from almost humanoid to frankly bizarre, are well drawn, and their cultures give a richness and depth to the plot. The whole tale is set over a frenetic three days, as the ever more exhausted Halley stumbles from one crisis to the next, desperately trying to fathom out all the various alien motivations before her station is destroyed around her. A good first novel.
