The bones of time

Early in the next century, the Interspace company, in charge of humanity's first-generation starship, has been given extraordinary powers. Cen, a descendant of Hawaiian shaman-priests and a mathematical genius, finds out as an adolescent how ruthless they are in their preparedness to exploit human weakness and brilliance, yet he sells his work to them to gain the leisure to pursue his own plans—the conquest of time and the saving of the long-dead princess whom he meets and loves in moments of vision. A decade later, Lynn, a geneticist renegade from Interspace's ruling dynasty, rescues from assassination Akamu, a clone of Hawaii's legendary unifier, and finds herself, like Cen before her, manipulated by Interspace's Hawaiian nationalist foes. She and Akamu are pursued from Hawaii to Hong Kong and into the uplands of Tibet.