Lou Buck, ex-cop and recovering opioid addict, searches for his kidnapped adult daughter, Lacey. In Reno he meets a muscular bald man, Phane, who claims to be an extraterrestrial. Lou thinks he is a nut until the man transforms into a large green tennis ball with arms, legs, and eyestalks. Lou recovers from his astonishment and learns that Phane was left to die on Earth when Lou was confined in Folsom Prison. They team up to find Lou's daughter.Phane and Lou rescue Lacey and another alien, Flooma, from an alien encampment in the desert from where the tyrannical alien commander plans to colonize Earth. Phane has a complex history with the commander and knows that despite the small number of aliens, they have weapons of enormous power. Despite inter-species weirdness, Lou and Lacey become friends with Phane and Flooma while they scheme to thwart the invasion. Trust develops among the friends, but how far should humans go to help a dying alien species on Earth when their commander wants to take over the planet? Bill Adams (writing as William X. Adams and William A. Adams) is a cognitive psychologist who left the academic life for the information technology industry to find out if the mind is like a computer. He writes nonfiction in philosophical psychology, and psychological science fiction to dramatize what he discovered. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
