Baen, New York, 1986, 1st pr thus.  ISBN 0-671-65571-X.  Wraps have a bit of edge and light cover wear, faint reading crease on spine; binding sound with a very slight bow.  Prior owner’s stamp on first page, tiny soil spots on outer margins of two pages; remainder of interior clean and unmarked with tanning pages.  ‘… begins Jerry Pournelle’s own Future History, a universe which he shared with Larry Niven in their collaborative novel, The Mote in God’s Eye.  Here we see, with all the vivid detail for which Pournelle is known, the Fall of the West, and how in its death throes it gave birth to a society that would conquer the stars themselves, as real people battle desperate odds, both for their own survival and for something more…’ (from rear wrap)