The universe is shrinking as humans spread throughout the stars. But expansion means contact with new worlds and species - and with them, new challenges. As a young boy, Matthew Wallace experienced this as the child of missionaries on the planet Altair, living a rugged existence on the undeveloped world. Undeveloped, but not uninhabited. For Altair was home to a proud race of warriors - the Ananke. The same warriors Matthew watched as they murdered his parents. Now he is the Marshal of the place he swore he'd never return to, and his hatred for the Ananke is only tempered by his desperation to treat his wife's terrible illness. For located on Altair is a clinic performing medical miracles, curing men and women of terminal diseases that even the most advanced technologies can't touch. Yet nothing is without its price, and as Matthew learns more about the world where he's now charged with keeping the peace, he slowly realizes he's going to have to decide what is more important: the life of his wife...or the lives of an entire species.
A sci-fi thriller that calls to mind the grand masters of the genre, The Outer Rims explores the morality of doing whatever is necessary and the question of whether humanity and sentience are one and the same.