Synopsis: Scorpio - a world never meant for humans, a hellhole of a planet where Eli Pike had no intention of stopping. Then he met a lovely and persuasive young woman named Caia who offered him a job calculated to appeal to a free-lancer low on credits, and assignment which required someone with those rarest of commodities in this age of government control, a valid Communications Equipment license and his own vid cameras. Pike soon had cause to regret his decision as his involvement with Caia pitched him into the midst of a deadly struggle over a missing invention which could change the nature of time itself. And when Pike found out that his old SpaceNav buddy, con artist and computer expert Harry Judd was the man behind the "discovery", he began to wonder whether he'd been set up as a decoy in the most dangerous scam the galaxy had ever seen. The only way to find out for sure was to ferret out the truth for himself before someone saw to it that both Pike and the secret of Harry's invention were lost forever beneath Scorpio's shifting sands... (from the back cover of the DAW Books first edition)