In the beginning of the novel, the orphaned toddler ’jum G’hana (‘pig urine’) is rescued from pandemic-ravaged Reyo on the world L'li by Brother Rod, who takes her first to a satellite, the Fold Council Station for Xenobiotic Research and Engineering.
Terraforming and mining for rare-earth elements with lanthanide extractors is illegal in the Fold, unless scientists have established the existence on a planet of no intelligent life forms that can lay prior claim.
On the satellite, ’jum is cared for by Reverend Mother Artemis, an electronic being who has won her freedom as a “sentient”–– she has a screen for a face, nanoplastic hands, multiple breasts, and skirts which display holographic bears, lions, and flying fish from the Elysian ocean.
The group move to their Spirit Caller colony on Prokaryon, a world with triple-stranded DNA and a thin ozone layer, and colonists share rumors of “hidden masters”, unknown beings which direct the vegetation and animals to behave in odd ways.
Indigenous life on the planet consists of zoöids, wheelgrass, helicoids (which fly in flocks), hoopsnakes, ring fungus, singing trees, tumblerounds (tire-shaped tumbleweeds), etc.