Opposing parties in the part of the galaxy inhabited by people are accumulating forces, making plans, acquiring allies and losing them. Suddenly it turns out that even the Audubon Ballroom, a militant organization of freed slaves, is not protected from the infiltration of agents of the Mesa slave owners. Berry Zilwicki, Queen of the Torch, a new state on a former slave planet, and her friend, the Manticoran princess Ruth Winton, miraculously survived a villainous assassination attempt in a series of carefully orchestrated murders aimed at Manticore and the Torch. A unit of Beowulf's anti-slavery biological intelligence corps is deployed to protect them. Mutual feelings emerge between the senior officer of the unit and the queen. Haven intelligence resident Victor Kasha and temporary head of Torch intelligence Anton Zilwicki, having united during the liberation of the planet, take on a deadly investigation into the secrets of Mesa right on the planet itself. They manage to obtain vital information about the existence and plans of the hidden Compliance, which is behind all the machinations of Mesa, from Jack McBride, the head of security of one of the main research centers of this secret organization. The Mayan Star Sector, a protectorate of the Solar League, is taking all measures for its future independence and survival in the coming crisis. His disguised fleet repels the Compliance's attempt to destroy life on the Torch at the hands of Havenite renegades from the former state security with huge losses.