Mission: travel to a nebula called Starmaker. Find what is threatening not just the star nursery, but every world within a thousand light-years. John Bandicut and his companions are tired. Would it be too much to ask for a little rest? Apparently so. They reach an interstellar waystation, only to find that it's being hammered by shock waves from the nearby Starmaker, known to Bandicut as the Great Orion Nebula. What's the cause? No one knows. But they need to find out, not only because their present shelter is threatened with destruction, but because sentient stars in the nebula are dying. And the danger could cascade across thousands of light-years, threatening uncounted worlds—including Earth. Aboard a ship called The Long View, Bandicut and his band of exiles journey not just into the perils of a star-forming nebula, but into confrontation with a billion-year-old adversary of life as they know it. Whatever chance they have of stopping the terrifying Mindaru may be found only in the fiery heart of an intelligent sun.