GRAVE
RESERVATIONS

Long ago, legend had it, the machines revelled, wiping out most of humanity and exiling the survivors in widely scattered reservations where they lived according to their ancient cultures.  Master System ruled unchallenged, since the key to breaking its control - five microships disguised as gold rings - was long forgotten.  And Master System was careful to keep it that way.

The an Amerindian called Hawks stumbled across secret information about the five gold rings and their purpose.  And on the other side of the world, a Chinese girl genius dared to interfere with a computer system to avoid and unhappy future as a humble and obedient Oriental wife.

Suddenly Master System was after them both - and it looked as if their only hope lay in finding the rings themselves...

UNSAFE HAVEN

Hawks had refused to help the ambitious Lazlo Chen in his quest to find the five gold rings that could break Master System's hold over humankind - and that refusal had landed him on the deadly prison planet Melchior.

But when Hawks and some fellow prisoners engineered a bold escape, it seemed almost too easy.  Hawks guessed that Chen was pulling the strings, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was another, greater power involved.  And that scared him.

Now the stakes were rising, and Hawks was more determined than ever to find the gold rings.  But Master System was out to capture him, and Chen was trying to follow him - and the only place his small band of rebels could hide was smack in the middle of pirate territory...

GARDIAN DEVIL

For centuries, Master System ruled mankind unchallenged.  Then a small band of renegades commandeered the spaceship Thunder and fled into pirate territory.  Now they were prepared to seize the fove coded rings that together could shut down Master System - and return human destiny to human control.

With them went the one variable that didn't figure in Master System's equations: Vulture, a shapechanger capable of absorbing the body and memories of any other organic being.  Without the information Vulture could collect, the rebels could never infiltrate the worlds where the rings were hidden.

Each ring was better protected than the last.  And each ring drew the band further into Master System's web, Vulture became aware of a possibly more insidious danger.  An unknown entity with the power to elude Master System seemed to be giving the rebelsan unseen hand.  But the question was - whose side was it on?...

ENIGMATIC
SOLUTION

Even before the renegade pirates of the giant spaceship Thunder had collected all five of the rings that would eliminate the threat of Master System forever, hawks knew that they still faced even greater problems.

The shapechanger, Vulture, was lost on the watery planet of Chanchuk, his fate unknown.  Master System's space fleet dogged the renegades' every step.  Hawks suspected that the group was harboring a traitor, but he was powerless to act.  And, most important, the rebels has not yet figured out how the rings were used - a riddle that seemed to have no solution!

Somewhere back on Earth lay the original computer interface, and somewhere in the distant past lay the secret to Master System's demise.  As a historian, Hawks had the knowledge to solve the riddle, yet he had to be absolutely sure - for one misstep would destroy them all.