A young man on a newly terraformed planet longs to learn of his biologic and cultural heritage. Why had he and the others been saved? Why had this small sample of the human race been spared extinction and brought as infants to the colony world of Orythia to be raised by Raxians? Why had his home world and civilization died? What had been important to his parents? Had they loved him? He yearned to know more. His heart ached with emptiness. He becomes a central figure and a pawn in a planetary war, a war initiated by an alien society based on absolute determinism and the denial of free will. Is he a hero or a traitor, or simply a victim? Are those who raised him the enemy or his greatest friends?