For the golden-eyed Elspind, membership in the Cooperative League of Systems could bring many benefits... including a drug that would greatly increase their brief life spans.

Mark Kenner, on the brink of abandoning his StarBridge career, is forced into one last assignment -- to speak on Elseemar for the CLS.

But some of the Elspind are opposed to any such alliance. -Violently- opposed. They call themselves Wospind. And they are waiting for Mark and his companions...