His name is Pharaoh Farrow, and he lives a thousand years after human life has spread to the stars and joined non-human life in the rowdy commerce of the galaxy. Maybe someday he'll retire to that sheep farm he's always talking about, but until then he works as a private investigator, earning just enough to keep his old ship repaired, food in his belly, and beer in the cooler. When a wealthy and secretive man hires him to find his daughter, Pharaoh assumes it's just another missing persons case, no different from jobs he's handled a hundred times before. The pay will be good, but only if he lives to collect it, because he soon finds himself trapped between worlds at war, negotiating with pirates and spies, waylaid by the ruthless Lethian rebels, and arrested by the galaxy's equally ruthless Delian League of Spacefaring Systems. Could things get worse? Oh, yes. He could find the woman all of them are looking for.