Women are leaders and men are property in the Pentar. A small group survived a nuclear war, hundreds of years before, that virtually destroyed planet earth. Artificial intelligence-the Compute-now controls all, even the women in charge. Men were responsible for this destruction and the Compute declared women the dominant gender. A male child was property-a Promised One-committed by contract to a newborn baby girl for life. Two worlds collide when elite Pentari children, Katha and Tontat, encounter young beasts of the male-dominated Clens of the Forest. The Pentari medically modify some infant Clens to serve them, but contact with those remaining in the forest is forbidden. When curiosity overcomes respect for the law, the four children become lifetime friends and dream of a united society where humans and beasts of the forest are equals. Because their friendship violates the longstanding tabu, they must pain- stakingly guard their secret friendship. As the four question customs and rituals of both societies, they discover shocking secrets at every turn. The more evil they discover underlying the Clen oppression, the more determined the four friends are to achieve their goal. Even risking their own and their children's lives proves worth revealing and destroying the barbaric practices of the Pentar to make way for the birth of a humane and egalitarian society.