[1] The first-person narrator, Charley, is a young man who, like all humans, is used as a riding mount (e.g. horses) for an alien race known as Hoots.

Humans in Charley's world, a pastoral Earth, have existed in a master-slave relationship with the Hoots for centuries.

When Charley (mount name Smiley) meets his father for the first time (Heron and Merry Mary were mated and separated by the Hoots soon after Charley was born), he resists betraying either his Master, the Hoot heir apparent, or anything that might help the resisting humans because his life as a mount is the only one he's ever known.

The need for mounts is due to the fact that Hoots have very weak leg muscles, which prevents them from moving about efficiently.

Peter Cannon praised the novel in his review for the magazine Publishers Weekly, saying that it was "Brilliantly conceived and painfully acute in its delineation of the complex relationships between masters and slaves, pets and owners, the served and the serving, this poetic, funny and above all humane novel deserves to be read and cherished as a fundamental fable for our material-minded times.