They called themselves The Nomads. Unplanned by-products of the chaotic explosion of humankind into space, they had evolved for themselves a way of life similar to that of the gypsies of ancient Earth -- except that their gypsy wagons were mighty starships, each a self-contained world that housed a clan of many thousands. It was a hard life, but the only one the nomads knew, or wanted. But someone, or something, did not want them to have it; one by one the nomad starships were disappearing without a trace -- and it fell to Joachim, Captain of the Starship Peregrine, to find out why....