Dust: An Egan Universe Novella (The Egan Universe)

In this fast-paced novella, a young Guardian is dropped into Chinese-held Tanzania on a solo mission to find a man he's never met. When he is exposed and captured, it seems that the worst he faces is some low-level proscribed pre-Egan tech of the military kind. Then he finds the man he's never met and his mission pivots to become a race against time to save not only his own life, but that of his entire country.