Calnor Dale is being reluctantly pushed into a decades-long intrigue planned by the disOrder of Adjustment. He wants no part of it, or any other reminders of his past. Instead, he wants to settle into a quiet life, and make new friends.

But in the face of injustice, a quiet life is a complicit life: he has to help his new friends where he can. When his careful, reasonable plans go wrong and his court-mandated corrective implant is removed out of spite, Calnor's past self, Joreth, regains control.

Joreth is neither careful nor reasonable. He has plans of his own, and very little to lose.