Synopsis: From the back cover of the Del Rey Books first edition: The Plaintiff, Universal Patents, Inc, was heartless. The judge, Rex "Spider" Speyer was merciless. Ellen Welles' case seemed hopeless. Unless her lawyer could locate the mad creator of FAUST - the robot-inventor who'd given Universal Patents its stranglehold on the world economy - she was sure to die for patent infringement, a capital crime in the twenty-first century. Quentin Thomas, Ellen's lawyer, already knew that the judge was a psychopath, and he quickly learned just how dirty Universal could play...