Over three years have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix -- the same ship which two centuries before disappeared into space, leaving an isolated colony of humans to fend for themselves on the world of the atevi. In the two centuries before Phoenix's reappearance, humanity fought a devastating war with the volatile atevi, and were nearly driven to extinction before devising an interface that allowed these two so-different races to coexist. Since that time, humans have lived in exile on the island of Mospheira, using a single diplomat, the paidhi, to trade bits of advanced technology for the continued peace and safety of its people.
But the unexpected return of the Phoenix has shattered the fragile, carefully maintained political balance of these two nearly incompatible races. For the captains of the Phoenix offer the atevi something the Mospheiran humans never could -- the technological knowledge which can give them access to the stars. But by doing so, they rouse pro- and anti-space factions in both human and atevi societies to near-incendiary levels.
Then the Phoenix reveals its reason for returning to atevi space: flight from an alien attack in another sector. And suddenly, the planetwide space race -- previously a bid to command atevi spaceways and reclaim the abandoned human space station -- becomes something far more desperate: the need to build a space-based defense against possible alien invasion.
For three years the atevi have laboured at a breakneck pace to build a space shuttle which will bear their representatives to the Phoenix, for only if they have a presence in space can they retain control of their world. Guided by technological designs from the Phoenix's Pilots' Guild, and using the paidhi, Bren Cameron, and the Phoenix's own representative to the court of the atevi as communication liaisons, they have finally achieved their aim. But as soon as the shuttle proves spaceworthy, the captains of the Phoenix abruptly recall their delegates from the atevi mainland and the island nation of Mospheira, severing tenuous ties of trust, and initiating a vicious bid for political dominance.
But Tabini-aiji, powerful head of the atevi's Western Association, is not to be outmaneuvered, and with the recall of the diplomats, he sends his most powerful and wily negotiator -- his own paidhi, Bren Cameron -- into space with no advance warning either to Bren or to the Pilots' Guild. And though Bren has been intimately involved in the building of the shuttle and feels enormous pride in the remarkable achievements of the past three years, he never expected to go into space himself.
Thrust into a political maelstrom with almost no preparation, fearful of leaving the planet, Bren cannot even consider the possibility of failure. He is empowered to use any means at his disposal to achieve the aiji's aim, and he has much to bargain with, for the Phoenix is in desperate need of supplies and manpower to rebuild the station and rearm the starship. But can Bren gain control of the station and political supremacy for the atevi without sparking a deadly inter-species war?