The High Quest

The middle volume of the Lunar Alpine trilogy. Centuries after the Plague, terraformed Luna is an illiterate world whose only library burned, and Charles Fasail — raised a scholar, orphaned by the Great Burn and sold into dock work — has come into possession of the most powerful weapon on the moon and rather more enemies than friends. Melton spends the book on what that power is for: the books that could restore literacy to Luna are still out in the abandoned L5 colonies, Charles owns the only ship left that can reach them, and the ship is exactly what everyone else wants destroyed.