Destroyer is the latest in Cherryh’s Foreigner series, the tale of Bren ameron’s tempestuous relationship with the alien atevi. As the paidhi, Bren is the sole human permitted to enter atevi society, and on his head rests the task of translating not only language and culture, but also the instinctual behaviors that can seem deceptively similar … with sometimes deadly results.
As Destroyer opens, Bren returns to his adopted planet following the 2-year space mission to retrieve human colonists from a remote space station. That mission had been concluded successfully (though not without difficulty). He is accompanied by his atevi staff, the dowager Illisidi, and the heir-apparant to atevi society. But the situation he finds upon his return is not at all what he left.
The government, run by his close atevi associate Tabini, has collapsed. Tabini himself is missing. The shuttles are no longer flying, leaving the orbiting station without supplies and desperately struggling to become self-sufficient. Bren must confront the possibility that his own mistakes are responsible for the disaster, and rescue Tabini’s Western Association from its dire straits if he can. For if he fails, the present atevi government will want nothing to do with him, and the alien kyo are likely close behind, looking for reliable allies against an alien menace that threatens human, atevi, and kyo alike.
