Four hundred years have passed since the leaders of an ecologically threatened Earth launched a great fleet of asteroid ships toward the stars. Five pristine planets were designated to be colonized by descendants of the first crews. Each new world would be inhabited by a homogenous mix of creators and facilitators, workers and intelligentsia. All would prosper in harmonious equality. But things have changed over the centuries... Hillbrane Harkover belongs to the Jneers, the privileged third of the tripartite class system that evolved during the voyage. Now, with the first world landing mere months away, she finds herself betrayed by one of her own, expelled from her caste, and exiled to the dangerous fringes of the fleet. Abandoned here, where lowly Mechs toil in unsafe, unhealthy conditions, Hillbrane no longer has a place in the cruel hierarchy she has always taken for granted. But a four-century-old dream is suddenly in dire jeopardy, doomed by custom, suspicion, and class hatred. And someone on the outside may be the only one who can save the first colony--and the fleet--from catastrophe.