While on retreat in a wilderness region of Amargosa, Ellie Nardino stumbles across a man wandering dazed and confused in the forest. Taking him to help, she soon learns he is Baker ibn-Aziz, the former president of the Compact brought down by a mysterious illness. Now Ellie, along with Tishla, will have to smuggle him back into the Compact to learn what really happened to him. Tishla, now a geneticist, takes charge of his case.
However, when their pilot betrays them, they find themselves stranded on a frontier world with barely any law and a dark secret. Plus Baker has wandered off in the confusion.