Distant future. Somewhere in the deep jungles of a far-off planet, divided by the people living on it into a number of states, a miracle occurs: in front of astonished observers, one of the local forms of life acquires intelligence. Almost nobody cares about it, however, and in the ruthless competition for the planet’s natural resources the alien mind is easily condemned to destruction.
The novel’s hero, a simple geologic prospector, tries to accomplish the impossible: to save a foreign intelligence, to turn a slave android into a human, to help friends who have fled a totalitarian state, to prevent a mafia coup. Unaware that he is “human scrap,” rejected and cast out by a powerful eugenic sect of people-half-gods, the hero lives by the best human principle: “Do what you must, and whatever happens…”