The Lakoi were the lifeblood of the civilized universe. They were the inventors, the artists, and the dreamers.

Now they are gone. They have been destroyed by interplanetary war, leaving only their inventions, their music, and reportedly the scattered, hidden pieces of a machine with the power to destroy all sentient life.

A Mirentian scientist thinks he has found the pieces of this machine, on a planet that he erroneously believes to be uninhabited. Unwilling to travel the universe to find it himself, he has hired someone to find it for him- a fugitive and her con man partner.

Some things are better left hidden.