In some quarter of a future galaxy, Esmay Suiza is up for a court-martial, for reasons I won't go into. The result means she goes to her home planet Altiplano for a while, to interact with the large clan and social strictures she thought she had escaped a long time ago. What with a large family gathering, and her alone-time at the end of a long horse ride, the reader may forget he or she is reading science fiction, were it not for the ugly front cover of a soldier with her hi-tech helmet.