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.