With the Assassins' Guild functioning again after a year of upheaval and rebellion, Bren Cameron takes a position on the court to champion a trade agreement, but tranquility in the atevi world is transient.

"Why is it that, in such a vast cosmos, with hundreds of billions of stars in this galaxy alone, and no doubt billions of Earth-like planets orbiting them, we have found no evident of intelligent alien life? No evidence that alien have ever visited Earth (other than discredited UFO mythology), no detectable signals...? The stories in this anthology offer intriguing explanations for this enigma, looking seriously or comically at solutions..."--P.[4]...

Cajeiri, the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association, has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first "ateva" youth to have lived in a human environment and the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar--yet so dangerously different--aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.