Operation Haystack

A veteran intelligence operative is brought near death from injuries sustained while investigating a closed world whose ruling female caste controls the sex of offspring at conception to cultivate a male servile force. His section chief navigates bureaucracy, honors, and next-of-kin notification as the operative survives in a life-support creche and undergoes successive grafts and reconstructive procedures. The plot examines the political repercussions of the discovered program, the strain on colleagues, and the wounded agent’s slow physical and psychological recovery from a catastrophic field assignment.