An early work by David Brin, it was extremely well reviewed when it was published, has remained popular, and served as the seed for three more novels which revolved around the crew of the Earthship Streaker (the Uplift Storm Trilogy).

The novel begins about one month[2] after the discovery in the cluster as Streaker arrives on the planet Kithrup, which has vast oceans, offering an ideal environment for the neodolphin crew to attempt to hide and repair their damaged ship.

The resultant tsunami strands several crew and causes several of the neo-dolphins to panic and revert to an instinctual, pre-uplifted mental state.

Streaker cannot be moved for fear of detection and because of the ongoing repairs, and so the salvage team uses undersea transportation to get to the wreck.

The mutinous crew, led by Takkata-Jim, sabotage equipment, leading to Captain Creideiki becoming brain damaged, although he later recovers somewhat.

In the confusion, Streaker almost escapes without incident hidden in the Thennanin hull, but is confronted by several ships belonging to the Brothers of the Night (Brethren).

Primal and Trinary are represented as haiku-esque poems (two of the human characters quote Yosa Buson), while Anglic is a hypothetical English-derivative (not to be confused with the actual Anglic family of languages containing modern English, its ancestors, and its close relatives like Scots), rendered for the reader as standard English.