Having escaped the clutches of the Westminster Praesidium, Adam and Eve Smith have settled back in their home in Harrow, hoping their life will return to normality.  It is not to be so.

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Roland Samiat, the CEO of the Slievins Consultancy, is outraged.  The Smiths, with the help of their friends and the goddess of truth, Aletheia, the daughter of Prometheus, have managed to damage the infrastructure of the Praesidium, one of Slievins most valued clients – and this despite the best efforts of Roland’s deputy, David Minofel.  Roland is determined to destroy Adam and Eve, in revenge for the havoc they have caused and as a way of putting an end, once and for all, to any hope they may still harbour of initiating a Fourth Beginning.

 

Confident that he has set in motion a plan that will finally break the relationship between Adam and Eve and eliminate any danger of a Fourth Beginning,  Roland is able to concentrate on a major Slievins’ initiative that he believes will compel man to face the truth about his nature and will enable mankind at last to fulfil its true potential.  This initiative is Project 75241, a cull of three quarters of mankind.

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This tale comes to a climax in Ubar, the city under the sand, in the desert of southern Arabia, where Slievins has installed its new headquarters. It is from there that the Cull is to be initiated; and it is there that the final confrontation between Roland Samiat, the CEO of Slievens, and Kit, the blind man and suspected emergent, takes place.