High above Earth orbits the starship Basilica. Up to speed the huge vessel are a sleeping woman and an artificial cleverness, the Oversoul of Tranquility. Of these who produced the trip from the earth Harmony, Shedemai alone has survived the hundreds of years since the Kids of Wetchik came back to Earth.

She right now wears the Cloak from the Starmaster, given to her by Nafai when he thought we would live out his life on the planet. The Oversoul sometimes wakes her from her hibernation chamber to view over her about Earthborn descendants on earth below. The population has grown rapidly-there are towns and nations now, whole peoples descended from those who adopted Nafai or Elemak. Shedemei watches with sorrow as the war between those two brothers lives on in the enmity of their descendants.

Shedemei and the Oversoul have recorded much of the history of Earth since they came, but in all the very long years of viewing and searching, the Oversoul hasn’t found finished . it wanted. It has not discovered the Keeper of the Earth, the central intelligence that only can restoration the Oversoul’s damaged programming and invite it to return to Harmony.

But on earth below, among the people there, Shedemei and the Oversoul can easily see the influence from the Keeper. And today, in Shedemei’s dreams, the Keeper speaks to her once again, sending powerful warnings. She actually is required on the surface, with her knowledge and the energy from the Starmaster’s Cloak. Therefore at last she determines to visit. The last living kid of Harmony will return to Earth and seek out the Keeper as she once sought out the Oversoul-by becoming its servant until at last they come in person.