Queen of the Martian Catacombs

Eric John Stark can spend twenty years in the Luna cell-blocks, or he can ride into Valkis as a spy for the man who once pulled him out of a cage. Simon Ashton, the lawman who raised him, runs him down in the Martian desert and makes the offer. Stark takes it.

Valkis is a pirate town on a dead sea, and its lord, Delgaun, is gathering the worst renegades in the System, among them Luhar of Venus, who once sold Stark out. Their figurehead is Kynon of Shun, a young barbarian prophet who claims the lost secret of the Ramas: moving a mind into a new body, and with it, endless life. The desert tribes will die for that promise. Stark has to learn who really holds the secret, and what the flame-haired Lady Berild wants with him.