Dr. Cherijo Torin is not herself. With no memory of her past-or even of the man she loved-she sees herself as a different person and has no desire to remember who she once was. But Cherijo must remember if she's to develop a cure for the Hsktskt plague before their race becomes extinct....

NINTH IN THE "CONTINUOUSLY SURPRISING AND DEVIOUSLY WRITEN" SERIES

Genetically engineered interstellar surgeon Dr. Cherijo Torin, her husband Duncan Reever, and a handpicked crew journey to the planet oKia to locate a strange black mineral that is the source of an intergalactic epidemic. When one of the crew members becomes infected, his body slowly begins to crystallize. While Cherijo races to save the crew member, mercenaries arrive in the oKia system, wanting Cherijo's genes-and her near immortality. It will take all of her abilities to elude the mercenaries and discover the black crystal's secrets before it's too late....

Dr. Cherijo Torin faces a different kind of epidemic—a mysterious black crystal spreading like cancer throughout the galaxy. The hunt for information leads Cherijo to the planet Trellus, whose inhabitants exhibit excessive paranoia and anger, taking out their frustrations in the Omega Dome in simulated combat against battle drones. But someone is killing victims outside the arena, and Cherijo believes the black crystal infection is responsible for this horror…...

Lieutenant Dair mu T'resa heads a squadron of SEAL (surgically enhanced/altered lifeform) pilots responsible for the security of the quadrant containing her home world of Kevarzangia Two. She finds a new calling in life as an interstellar paramedic leading the first Bio Rescue team. But the entire project faces opposition from a lupine species with a hatred for native 'Zangians like Dair......