Written by Ray Jay Perreault

Alien battles confront Earth’s survivors as they meet their galactic neighbors and quickly learn the difficulty of dealing with two alien civilizations.

Sixth, book in the Virus/Earth II series.

The evil computer Julius has kidnapped Tom Herl and his wife Joan doesn’t know his fate. Now that Earth’s survivors have been given thousands of robots and spaceships, they realize two things: first, they must prepare for Julius’ return, and second, they must find a way to exist with their celestial neighbors.

There is conflict around those around them, and Earth can’t afford to be caught in the middle. They find themselves in a balancing act in dealing with the Terest and Izod, two civilizations that have been battling and now both want Earth’s survivors to be on their side.

Earth’s survivors know that Julius will return, but they don’t know what the evil computer is doing. They can only suspect that he is on a mission to gather resources so that he can return and deal with the two threats to his existence: the surviving humans, and SIMPOC the only other intelligent computer.

Having a ‘first contact,’ followed quickly by a second one shows how dealing with an alien race can be difficult. Their actions and social norms can be dramatically different than Earth’s and may even be threatening.

Their society may be so different that their conduct might be construed as aggressive and surprising.

Earth quickly learns that alien battles will be the norm.