Yan Kuložik is sent into exile to a farming planet, Halvmerk, where tribal peasant families live and work for four years in the twilight zone before the Sun, reaching peak activity, begins to burn all living things. Then the inhabitants of Halvmerk are forced to move to the twilight zone at the other end of the planet’s axis in order to start the four-year cycle all over again.
The grain grown on the planet is taken by space ships by Earthlings and used to feed the starving world of the Galaxy. But this year the ships do not arrive on schedule…