The planet of Prokaryon is harsh and alien, uninhabitable for normal humans - accessible only to those willing to be genetically altered, a long and painful process. This marks it as the perfect site for a colony of orphans. Founded by Brother Rod and his fellow Spirit Brethren, the colony offers them a chance to forge a new home in relative peace.But all is not as it seems on Prokaryon. Sudden, fortuitous rainstorms quench forest fires and then rapidly dissipate. The entire planet's ecosystem is highly structured - too structured to have been formed by the randomness of nature. But decades of research have turned up no real evidence of any "hidden masters" of Prokaryon.So when Proteus Unlimited, a greedy interstellar corporation, plans to terraform Prokaryon, first mining it and then making it habitable by normal humans, thereby netting huge profits, the search for native intelligent life becomes a frantic race against time. Lost in this shuffle of bureaucracy and greed is this simple colony of orphans, whose settlement will be wiped out if the entire surface of the planet is boiled off. Read Less