The culture of steam, wood, and glass on the planet Terra Beata seemed backward compared to the electricity, steel, and plastic of Earth. Computer-based life, the Intelligences, brought people to this planet and remained in their midst, rarely intervening in their lives.

Humanity endured on Terra Beata, despite not being well suited for it. Hundreds of years passed before the people living there realized that the black stuff they walked across was intelligent life very different from themselves.

Pierrot Wa Dignac describes his life along a river on a planet far in time and distance from the Earth of his ancestors. Terra Beata can be hard and conspires to kill people in all sorts of ways. But the greatest challenge for Pierrot comes not from the hostile planet, but from a problem that has bedeviled civilizations for millennia.