Jewel's ability to broadcast calm made her no fun at parties but perfect for a life in peacekeeping. She volunteers and goes to the Nyal Imperium for duty as the forerunner of the peacekeeping force on a mining colony.

Taken by an unmanned ship, Jewel finds herself on an arena station, cruising through space. The medics use her skills for calm to keep a patient calm who cannot be sedated, and when their eyes meet across the crowded med bay, she finds herself pulled into a state of confusion. She has finally met a man who shakes her calm, and his slow smile says that he knows it.