This is a hard SF romantic novel of first contact and non-human intelligence. Guy Bergmann's team wins a moral victory over vicious enemies and leads Humans into new environsAbout the Author: George Pinneo, an army-brat, lived in 4 states and 8 different locations during WWII. He grew up in NW Ohio, graduating from Case Institute of Technology with a B.S.Ch.E. in 1959. His technical career spans 55 years of experience: front-end wafer fab microelectronics, diode laser and hybrid packaging with a focus on fully hermetic package design and manufacture. Along the way he was the fourth founder in a successful article surveillance startup in Hollywood Florida. This entrepreneur loves to the phrase: "you can't do that!" - and then to do it, of course! One of his specialties is fluxless hard soldering, which is hermetic. At the age of 55, he earned a private pilot's license and then built an all-metal 2-seat experimental homebuilt airplane, which he has spent 19 years "refining". He has twice flown cross-country to the annual EAA fly-in in Oshkosh WI. Other hobbies include woodturning, sailing, canoeing, black powder cannons, hiking and jewelry making. A glimpse into his notions of what constitutes "good SF" includes solid engineering principles based on hard scientific fact, extended in a linear manner to anticipate ongoing work not yet published. First contact interaction is especially prized. Although they can be entertaining, magic and fantasy have no place in hard SF; they demonstrably don't "work"! Philosophically, SF should teach not only new words, but also new concepts. "Good SF" should be uplifting, positive; Bujold has shown SF can also be romantic in her "A Civil Campaign".