The Gaian Devolution is saving the planet. By exterminating the people. But global warming is only getting worse and technothrope Chairperson Flora B. Harper is out of solutions. Onder Swart is the last Khoisan in the Southern Africa Exclusion Zone. He wants to return to his homeland and live a natural life with the ragtag gang of children survivors he's collected. But the Gaians have declared it a human-free animal preserve. Their robots patrol its borders with deadly force. Onder meets Astrix, an ailing visitor from the forlorn genius gulag that is Space Station Independence. They work up a scheme to seize control of the Gaian System and free both their peoples. But the Gaians are using Onder's epidemic-resistant DNA to complete their master plan and wipe out all humans with their worst plague yet. There are no guarantees and anything can happen.