Larry Eisenberg

Amos Handworthy's grandfather was quick on the draw: as a U.S marshal, it was a job requirement if you wanted to stay alive. But now Amos has built a gun-slinging robot, programmed to be a split second slower than him in a gunfight, so that he can perpetuate the myth and glory of his grandfather's frontier past. But will Amos bet his life on a duel with real bullets?

Dr Andrew Cook, inventor of a process for making living replicas of human beings, has unwittingly duplicated himself and becomes a secret weapon in the Solar System's struggle for economic survival against a powerful alien culture, the Sentients.