David is nearly 16, the son of two scientists of the seeding-colony on Hope, orbiting Alpha-Centauri in the Centauri binary-star system. Life is hard; they have little technology except Fred, the ship's computer, who controls the colonists' lives in their secure, moated compound, together with his little sock-eating dusting-robots called 'snufflers'. David has a tentative sexual encounter with his friend Peter, and is shocked when Peter later goes missing. Join David and the Ifshiri in their adventures to save their world from something very nasty (Note: Teen+ gay themes)