This note contains spoilers for the book.

By Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor. Second book in a series. There is a third book on the way, not sure how grand the total plan is.

We've got about a decade jump, and manned space travel (even into the outer system) to explore Bemmius bases has become important. We're starting to benefit from their technology.

Various countries get into it. The Europeans build a ship, and the Americans have theirs, and Ares corporation builds their own. The Indians are concentrating on a beanstalk, to get most lift-to-orbit capability; this will no doubt be important soon.

In this book, we've got an actual human villain onstage—the Irish security expert imposed on the captain of the European ship. His bosses off-stage also have to be viewed as villains; they plan to actively steal information and perhaps artifacts, and they have equipped the ship with a weapon and the security team with weapons, the first strictly against the rules.

So we have actual attacks against the Ares base. Ares responds by resurrecting an ancient Bemmius ship and chasing after them out to Jupiter. In the end the security chief is disposed of, with unfortunate amounts of collateral damage.