The Leonov is beaten to Jupiter by a Chinese mission which lands on Jupiter's moon, Europa, and falls victim to its unknown terrain. The last astronaut to die on the alien surface broadcast a message - there is life on Europa.

'It is to the Vietnam War what Catch-22 was to World War II, the definitive, bleakly comic satire' Thomas M. Disch

Christopher Dicken, virus hunter of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, has joined an emergency taskforce. Around the world, what were thought to be ancient junk genes in human DNA have been stimulated to assemble encoded proteins and RNA into an infectious virus which attacks only women.

Lou is autistic. One of his skills is an ability to find patterns in data: complex patterns that not even the most powerful computers can comprehend. Those he works and has made money for now want him to change, to become normal . He faces his greatest challenge: to understand the speed of dark.

The time is early in the 23rd century. Mars has been terraformed and is now politically independent. Meanwhile on Earth, there is terminal overpopulation, reduced resources and the bitter nationalism that these problems create. The concluding volume in the Mars trilogy.