Ron Carver returns from a long interstellar absence expecting a homecoming, but instead wakes to the nightmare of a thirty-year-old mind trapped in a twelve-year-old body. Hunted by authorities, dismissed by the woman he once loved, and warned by Dr. Wilfred Minton to "play the game," he is forced to survive in a world where everyone assumes he is just a child. The only clue to his condition points toward a terrifying scientific experiment and a prodigy known as the Scholar, a boy-genius whose power has turned identity itself into a weapon. As Ron moves through Roverwood Home for Boys, joins an airball game, and learns to use his small body's advantages, he begins to see that escape will require more than obedience. He escapes the home, allies himself with a rough gang, steals a copter, and pushes into the government medical center to confront the truth. There he discovers his own adult body under the Scholar's control, and the conflict explodes into a battle over memory, power, and the right to exist. In the end, Ron faces a brutal bargain: live free, or risk everything to stop the genius who stole his life. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.