The day Gabriel Chrome, a failed book sculptor contemplating suicide on the Thames Embankment, stumbled on the suicide bid of the naked Camilla Greylaw, was a great day of hopeful redemption for a corrupt and violent world. For the lovely form he chanced to preserve was the sole carrier of a contagious venereal disease - a bug which could inhibit the aggressive instinct, creating total placidity in all humans. At once, Gabriel's life has new meaning and purpose: To save mankind via P 939, the greatest venereal disease in the history of mankind, becomes his hardened ambition - but mankind seems far from hope. Cover art by Chris Foss.