It is 4034 AD.Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Courtof the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the endof the year.The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on theoutskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection tothe rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed asdecadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding datawithout order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formalwars.Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of -part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactichegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He isin search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each daythat passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelmeverything and everyone he's ever known.