Winner of the Compton Crook Award. Includes three previously uncollected novelettes from the Drylands universe.

We failed to check global warming. In this dry future water is the most valuable resource. It is power. And in the US, the Army Corps of Engineers has become the guardian and keeper of water. Life is metered by water – by it’s lack and its location. And who controls it.

Major Carter Voltaire, newly in charge of The Pipeline, the enormous water project that keeps much of the western US alive, finds himself standing between thirsty locals and the need to provide water to the many. He has seen devastating water riots and must find a way to prevent that from happening here, while protecting precious water.

There are no good answers.