Synopsis: From the back cover of the DAW Books first edition: America - The day after doomsday... It began with a terrible abuse of the environment and an accident which transformed the land and its people. Now, in a water-poor California in which every day was a first for continued survival, Lord Protectors such as Thomas Blade - men and women gifted with psychic abilities - guarded the safety of the people of the Seven Counties as they struggled to restore civilization and breed the mutated human race back to purer bloodlines. Having joined in an uneasy truce with the mutant tribes dwelling in the Mojave, the Protectors now found their greatest threat coming from the nesters, the wild humans who were banding together to strike out against them under the leadership of an old enemy able to draw on a technology far beyond their own. And as the sides were drawn for what could prove a final devastating conflict, three generational starships suddenly returned from their decades-long journey - to find the Earth they had known gone and themselves forced to decide between seeking a new future for humankind among distant stars or choosing sides in the battle for a world which might be beyond saving...