Description:

"In the sixth book of the Company series, we meet Executive Facilitator General Labienus, last seen presiding over a hearing to determine the fate of the Botanist Mendoza. Millennia of labor for his mortal masters have given him a profound contempt for humanity but failed to take away his evil sense of humor. He has become an arch-schemer, gleefully plotting the extinction of mankind and the overthrow of the Company." In a meditative mood after closing out Mendoza's file, he reviews his interesting career. He muses on his subversion in the Company black project ADONAI. He also considers Aegeus, his despised rival for power, who has discovered a useful race of mortals known as Homo sapiens umbratilis. Their unique talents may enable him to seize power instead of Labienus. So Labienus plans a double cross that will kill two birds with one stone: He will woo away Aegeus's promising protege, the Facilitator Victor, and at the same time dispose of a ghost from his own past that has become inconvenient. Victor is an unwilling protege whose long fall from grace is the book's second story arc. The action ranges from the dawn of time to the far future, as Labienus's shadow trails across history.