Wake has assigned Navee on a mission to investigate the steam-punk world of planet TRI-JJ 68. It is a glacial planet that has been inhabited by a nature-communing, peaceful lot that Wake had simply passed over as unworthy. But in a recent pass, they discover that suddenly, in record time, the whole civilisation has reached its industrial age! Navee becomes even more intrigued when she realises that these new inhabitants closely resembled the race of which, up until now, she had been the only representative: humans! Has she found her own people at last?