The Foundation lies in ruins--destroyed by a mutant mind bent on humanity's annihilation. But it's rumored that there's a Second Foundation hidden somewhere at the end of the Galaxy, established as insurance to preserve the knowledge of mankind. Now a desperate race has begun between the survivors of the First Foundation and an alien entity to find this last flicker of humanity's shining past--and future hope. Yet the key to it all might be a fourteen-year-old girl burdened with a terrible secret. Is she the Foundation's savior--or its deadliest enemy?