Four hundred years after winning secession from the Terran Empire (as chronicled in the earlier omnibus, Empire & Ecolitan), the star system Accord wants to sign a simple trade treaty with the Empire on microchip export tariffs. But if the agreement is so minor, why is Professor Nathaniel Whaler, chief economist at the Ecolitan Institute and his world's top commando killer, chosen as Accord's Envoy? Because the Imperial capital is a maddening bureaucracy of sniveling diplomats, high-profile figureheads, powers behind the throne, and spies--everywhere, spies. So the Envoy has to face red tape, politics, prejudice, as well as and a gauntlet of kidnappers, assassins, snipers, and bombs. And some ministry--but which?--doesn't want the treaty. In fact, some in the Empire still blame Accord for Earth's poisoning and for the defection of fifty star systems after the war between Imperial nuclear might and Ecolitan bio-ecological weaponry. A hidden cabal wants to fight that war again--even if, this time, the entire galaxy dies. And only Nathaniel Whaler, the Ecologic Envoy, has the power to stop the catastrophe.