The year is 4256. Problems with interstellar drives have been solved and mankind is exploring the universe. There are more than a thousand inhabited planets and many thousands of additional habitable planets await colonization. Through all of this exploration, many independently evolved species have been found and identified, but none are intelligent - at least not until now. David Welch is wrongly convicted of a crime and is sentenced to expulsion on a prison planet where he discovers that a native life form is not simply vicious, as thought, but is fully intelligent and in some ways far advanced. This novel is the story of Dave's life, his discoveries, and what he does with them.