A record of the training of two children and the effects brought about through the use of Froebel's "Mother-play-book."--p. 10.

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct, leaving only androids behind to fulfill humanity’s dreams. And, having learned well from their long-dead masters, they’ve established a hierarchical society—one with humanoid aristo rulers at the top and slave-chipped workers at the bottom, performing the lowly tasks all androids were originally created to do. Designed as a concubine for a species that hasn’t existed for two hundred years, femmebot Freya Nakamichi-47—one of the last of her kind still functioning—accepts a job from a stranger to deliver a package from mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, she’s just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids desperate to retrieve the package’s contents…

Members of a Nepalese family are embroiled in a blood feud that is decades old. The feud involves the legitimate property rights to land which members of the family have shared for over a century. China, to the east, gets involved when she sends an emissary (agent) to mediate the dispute over the land in question. The emissary is not forthright when he portrays the ownership of the land to be that of one of the two individuals involved in the dispute. He has lied to the man. The emissary had reasons of his own for the dispute to devolve into a bloody battle. A massacre results, with the deaths of all but the youngest son of one of the men involved in the dispute. Years pass, and China has found out that the Himalayan Plateau has an immense pocket of geothermal energy deep below the surface. She desperately needs to gain access and control of this energy source for her to become a major world power in the next century. China sees this one particular family's blood feud as an opportunity to tap this energy source with whatever means necessary, and focus the blame on someone else. China's plot is successful, but it doesn't go exactly as planned.