Táto epická sci-fi sága skúma budúcnosť ľudstva, ktoré opustilo zničenú Zem a našlo nový domov na planéte Harmony. Tu ich chráni umelá inteligencia známa ako Oversoul, ktorá potláča konflikty a nebezpečné technológie. Po nespočetných tisícročiach však Oversoul začína zlyhávať, čo si vynúti nebezpečnú cestu späť na Zem. Cieľom je nájsť legendárneho Strážcu Zeme, bytosť, ktorá inšpirovala samotnú Oversoul, a zachrániť tak ľudstvo pred zabudnutím.
The planet called Harmony had been settled by humans nearly 40 million years before. The colony had been placed under the care of an artificial intelligence, the Oversoul, high in orbit. But now the Oversoul itself is in danger - its systems are failing. By the author of Xenocide.
As Harmony's Oversoul grows weaker, a great warrior has arisen to challenge its bans. His name is Moozh, and he has won control of an army using forbidden technology. Now he is aiming his soldiers at the city of Basilica, that strong fortress above the Plain. Basilica remains in turmoil. Wetchik and his sons are not strong enough to stop a army. Can Rasa and her allies defeat him through intrigue, or will Moozh take the city and all who are in it?
Above the planet Harmony, the computer Oversoul watches. But its systems are failing and the only hope of repair lies a thousand light-years away on the planet Earth, which was left forty million years ago ... Nafai and his family have been chosen to make the great journey home, but most of them do so grudgingly. Their anger and hatred will make the trek across the desert wastes to the long-abandoned spaceport both harder and more deadly.
The Oversoul of the colony planet Harmony selected the family of Wetchik to carry it back to long-lost Earth. Now grown a tribe in the years of their journey to Harmony's hidden starport, they are ready at last to take a ship to the stars. But from the beginning there has been bitter dispute between Wetchik's sons. The voyage will take decades, during which time the tribe will be held in cold-sleep capsules. But the two factions have different plans, while only the Oversoul holds the key to all their futures.
High above the earth orbits the starship Basilica . On board the huge vessel is a sleeping woman. Of those who made the journey, Shedemai alone has survived the hundred of years since the Children of Wetchik returned to Earth. She now wears the Cloak of the Starmaster, and the Oversoul wakes her sometimes to watch over her descendants on the planet below. The population has grown rapidly--there are cities and nations now, whole peoples descended from the who followed Nafai or Elemak. But in all the long years of watching and searching, the Oversoul has not found the thing it sought. It has not found the Keeper of the Earth, the central intelligence that also can repair the Oversoul's damaged programming.