When Anda com Durrel is offered the chance to access the forbidden gaming tech and gene-engineered creatures of the insular League of Free Spirits, the opportunity to challenge his brother as head of an entertainment empire is one he can't resist. His price? Bankrolling the breakout of the son of an LFS matriarch from the maximum-security prison planet, Ghuraj.
Narovy Sarok is a desperate crime lord, betrayed and hunted across the Confederation. For him, taking a commission to break a prisoner out of Ghuraj is the definition of insanity - but right now he's all out of options. For Dr Irvan Sentain, the chance to visit Ghuraj to interview an LFS inmate as part of a task force addressing the 'Leaguer Question' is a professional dream come true. And for Elian Omdanan, a precocious youth from an Environmentalist world, a conviction for murder means Ghuraj is a destination over which he has no choice. These four and others will come together on Ghuraj on the first step of a path leading to the worlds of the League, where perils await far greater than any to be found on the deadly prison world...