From first page Bantam paperback February 1997: Drifting in space, sabotaged by a crewman tainted with an alien mutagen, the starship *Trumpet* broadcasts to any ship in range the formula of the mutagen's antidote -- a drug the United Mining Company has suppressed for its own sinister purposes. Aboard the crippled ship, the fugitives and survivors -- Morn Hyland, an ex-UMCP cop, Angus Thermopyle, a newly freed cyborg, and unwilling saboteur Ciro Vasaczk -- must make a desperate gamble. Pursued by the UMCP ship *Punisher*, threatened by the return of an Amnion combat vessel, they will hijack the police craft by any means necessary... and take it back to Earth.