Mossa has returned to Valdegeld on a missing person's case, for which she'll once again need Pleiti's insight. Seventeen students and staff members have disappeared from Valdegeld University-yet no one has noticed. The answers to this case may lie on the moon of Io-Mossa's home-and the history of Jupiter's original settlements during humanity's exodus from Earth.
But Pleiti's faith in her life's work as a scholar of the past has grown precarious, and this new case threatens to further destabilize her dreams for humanity's future, as well as her own.