Ethelberd Maader, nicknamed Marten, is not the most pleasant person on Pasipha, a tiny moon of Jupiter that has survived a devastating war and turned into a sewer for the entire solar system. He is a mercenary - a “person for special assignments”, playing the role of a private detective, security guard, courier and industrial spy. He is a mercenary, ready to fulfill the contract, no matter who it comes from. He is also a war criminal, a deserter, a drug addict, a murderer, a fraudster and a traitor. In a word, he has all the necessary qualities to survive on Pasipha, a world that has long turned into a kind of aquarium inhabited by predatory fish, where it is not so much toothy species that survive as dexterous, cunning and insidious biological species. He is also possessed by an alien parasitic life form that is gradually eating his brain from the inside. In order to survive on Pasipha and survive the intricacies of a complex game that is being played out between trans-planetary corporations, military counterintelligence, drug dealers and mercenaries