Beyond Heaven's River

The P.O.W. who owned his prison: Fighter pilot, samurai, shogun - Yoshio Kawashita had lived hundreds of years... and thousands. Captured by aliens during WWII, he was held on an empty world and forced to re-enact Japan's past. Suddenly, the aliens were gone, stranding Kawashita 400 years into the future, sole inhabitant and owner of his planet prison. The woman who brokered worlds: Anna Nestor was the roving merchant queen of a space empire where data was cash, planets mere poker chips, and fortunes rose and fell faster than the speed of light. At first Kawashita was an oddity, an investment... then the galaxy's riches woman and oldest man fell in love. But for all their power and experience, they could never be free so long as Anna and Yoshio were trapped by a cosmic mystery: what creatures - or gods - had torn Kawashita from time and space? And why?Greg Bear is the author of 'Beyond Heaven's River', published 1987 under ISBN 9780812531725 and ISBN 0812531728.