Iron Sunrise

by Charles Stross

Martin Springfield and Rachel Mansour return to Earth to recuperate following the events of Singularity Sky. However, Rachel is quickly called upon to explain the administrative expenses she incurred during her previous assignment. Shortly thereafter she finds herself negotiating with a lunatic believing himself to be a reincarnation of Idi Amin and in possession of an armed nuclear device which, in the black humor typical of the series, he has threatened to detonate after receiving an eviction notice from his apartment.

Meanwhile, a young and hopeful planetary civilization is murdered by the apparent use of a causality violation device which causes their sun to explode without warning (the "iron sunrise" of the title), and their defense systems to deploy automatically against the homeworld of the suspected perpetrators of the atrocity.

Rachel and Martin set off to investigate these events and prevent the assassination of the remaining members of the murdered civilization's leaders, who can abort the retaliation strike. In the background the Eschaton continues to play its own game.