Life can be tough, and it makes the survivors, like Estelle Mason, tougher. But even after surviving starvation, rape, alien poison stings and drowning ...did I forget anything? ... is she tough enough to best the alpha male hierarchy, take over a whole planet, and change its people into something a little less, or more, than human? This is a tale of two worlds. Phastillan, home of the alien psatla, is going to survive the coming collapse of interstellar civilization, but Cannon's Orb, a human colony planet, may not be so lucky. Unless Estelle's plan works. But whether it does or not, the humans who must endure it aren't going to be the least bit happy--and they will no longer be exactly human.