In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring, descendants of the crew of the Discipline no longer remembered their Earth roots or the existence of Sharls Davis Kendy, the despot of the ship. Only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree Scientist, knew that Kendy was still watching and waiting. Then, when the Citizens Tree people rescued a family of loggers, they learned for the first time of the Admiralty, a large society living in free fall amid the floating debris called the Clump. It was likely that the Admiralty had maintained, intact, Discipline's original computer library. Exploration was a temptation neither Jeffer nor Kendy could resist, and neither Citizens Tree nor Sharls Davis Kendy would ever be the same again.