Shayla Gainrad is a young woman raised in a splinter community of reactionary would-be settlers who abandon interplanetary society for newly discovered planets. Shayla has achieved the settler dream-a home on the frontier world Erde, surrounded by rich and fertile lands-but she is increasingly lonely, homesick, and alienated from her husband. Although Shayla has told herself to endure, events on Erde begin to push her new life into disarray. The arrival of spacers from outside the settler community, a freak accident, and the persistence of Erde's wild flora and fauna all add to Shayla's growing realisation. The teachings she accepted as a child cannot explain reality's complexities, and webs of action and reaction will have far-reaching consequences, both in her own life and across the strange landscape of Erde's ecosystem.