Markas, son of an inter-plane diplomat, is obsessed with two things: dance and the image of a girl from Earth. When his sister vanishes and his father fails to return from one of his forays to Earth, Markas decides to traverse the dangerous Time Passage to find them. 'I have been afraid before in my life, but this, I decided, was like that which, in the books of Ezsk, seemed to be like the descent into the Afterlife for the wicked. I seemed to be pulled from the main passage down a narrower tributary which reminded me frighteningly of lungs I had dissected in anatomy classes. My chest felt tight as if a great weight were pressing down on it. The plates were all but pinning me to their very surfaces; the excruciating sensation, hot or cold I could not tell, either freezing or melting me.'