[1] It is the follow-up to Ports of Call and continues to follow the character Myron Tany on his picaresque journey through the Gaean Reach region of space.

In Ports of Call, Myron is a young man who turned away from his family's safe middle class lifestyle to seek adventure in space.

With no money, he gets passage as crew member on a tramp freighter-spaceship, which enables him to travel further across the Gaean Reach region of space and see exotic planets.

As the story opens, the freighter is in the beautiful planet Fluter, settled by colonists only a thousand years ago who came from crowded concrete-built cities that they vowed not to recreate in their new home.

Finally, in a crowded concrete hospice, he finds his great aunt lying gaunt and weak in a cot.