Their ancestors were exiled. Their crimes have not been forgotten.

Palia and Ferrash are under arrest. Fresh from causing a galaxy-wide catastrophe, all they want to do is go home and put things right. But they're stuck in a whole new galaxy, and their jailors won't let them leave. Worse, they want to punish them for crimes committed millennia ago.

Surrounded by new alien species, the two of them must discover who they can call friend and foe if they want to survive. But an ancient hive mind is set against them. Its parasites could be anywhere, control anyone. Every moment carries the threat that their jailors use one to wrest their freedom from them forever.

They are not without hope. Tension has always followed in the hive mind's wake, and the new arrivals have only stoked the fire. When that fire erupts, Ferrash is caught in the middle, his very identity at risk of being subsumed. In Palia's attempts to help, she may have to commit the same crime that got their ancestors exiled. If they don't stop the hive mind, it won't just absorb Ferrash, but everyone back home as well. Will anyone be able to save them?