Lory Gato enjoys the privileged life, of an interstellar gourmet He gets
sent to T'negi 36 where humans have a small presence. As new kids on the
galactic block, humanity get the scraps - T'negi 36 is nearly airless
and it'll be a long time before it's fit to live on. The few bars on
T'negi 36 are closed because of problems with humans. He arranges,
anyway, to meet a t'negi xeno-archaeologist, Liasse, who is researching
a long dead civilisation. She believes whatever destroyed it is still a
threat. Lory has a run in with Earthers - humans who believe their
manifest destiny is to (somehow) overthrow alien civilisations, steal
alien terraforming technology, and colonize. The technology that powers
interstellar civilisation suddenly fails... then it turns out that the
Earthers have powerful allies. Lory and Liasse are thrown together in a
desperate bid to survive.