Convergence

Cherryh’s 18th Foreigner space opera, following Visitor, winds down the series’ sixth trilogy gently but not uninterestingly. Bren Cameron, the human paidhi (translator, liaison, and negotiator) between various human factions and the atevi natives of the planet they all live on, has spent most of his adult life among the atevi. Diplomatic complications send him back to his own country, where he faces other humans’ incomprehension of the paidhi’s traditional role of arguing for all sides of a negotiation. Meanwhile, politics among the atevi allow Cajeiri, nine-year-old heir to the ruler of the atevi government, to demonstrate the ways in which he has managed to grow up. The dazzling complexity of motivations, political forces, and alien thought patterns makes this book best suited to readers who are already committed to the series, though Cherryh manages to make things clear enough that neophytes might not be totally lost. Unfortunately, the strength and precise pacing of this volume are somewhat marred by an extremely abrupt ending. (Apr.)