Finally, New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster returns to his acclaimed Humanx universe, where a young orphan named Flinx attempts to unravel the dangerous secrets of his past and the uncertain prospects of his future with the help of the menacing minidrag known as Pip. This is Pip and Flinx's most exhilarating adventure yet - a rollercoaster ride into the unknown, full of wonder and humor, and a host of deadly foes.

Using his enhanced empathic abilities, Flinx makes his way to a top-secret security installation on Earth. Once there, he tricks a sophisticated artificial intelligence program into releasing secret information about the Meliorara Society, a sect of renegade eugenicists whose human experiments horrified the civilized universe more than twenty years ago. After all, as one of the few survivors of Meliorare's experiments, Flinx has a right to know about his past. Moreover, his telepathic abilities seem to be developing. The question is, evolve into what? Flinx's increasingly painful headaches make him wonder if he will live to find out. . . .