Lar has one week until the authorities take him away and charge him with treason. Aline's only hope for survival is to stay with Lar's brother, Jeraud, but it's a fruitless hope. The loving family of Lar's youth has disappeared, replaced by animosity, prejudice, and betrayal. If Lar and Aline thought surviving on a Mwalgi spaceship was impossible, now they face a planet deemed uninhabitable to humans whose authorities would see Lar dead, and a populace who would drain Aline's CSF without mercy.