The room was white, and sterile, and fearsome. It would be the last room he would ever see and he knew it. He knew it all too well.

With his blurry vision and the poor fluorescent light over- head, he could just make out the pain poster on the far wall.

……

Eighteen years after Idlewild and the survivors are adults. Bitter and disillusioned, Halloween has chosen self-imposed exile but his peers intend to repopulate the Earth. Indeed, they are mankind’s last, best and perhaps only hope. But an ideological split has divided them into two opposing visions: one seeks to resurrect the human race, the other to improve it via genetic manipulation.

A new generation of children is born, but as they mature it becomes clear that all is not well. Someone- or something - is moving against them, even as the murderous plague Black Ep returns in search of new victims. The survivors must work together, but to save the future Halloween must first let go of the past...

"The finest book that Fve read this year...Idtewild was impressive but Sagan has beaten it with a work of such depth it positively echoes...an adrenaline shot straight into the heart of SF"

    Sfcrowsnest

"Sagan"s follow up to idlewild is hetter written and even more tightly plotted"

    Jon Courtenav Grimwood. Guardian

prologue

part one :the world

part two :the flesh

part three :the devil

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS