Halma...where humans were ruled by a race of effete and arrogant Lords...where a neo-feudal system banned all work by machines...where a mock welfare state rewarded painful hand labor with a pitiful dole...Young Ghyl Tarvok was a rebel. In a pirated space ship, he began his search through the civilizations of the galaxy, hunting the elusive key to the time-shrouded secret that could free his people. And inexorably he moved toward his last desperate hope: the place his ancestors had left many thousands of years before - the mysterious and terrifying planet called Earth....