When a portal to other planets explodes on Samarkand, thousands are killed and a terraforming project is obliterated. Earth Central Security suspects sabotage – and assigns a legendary investigator. But Agent Ian Cormac has his own problems. Years spent mentally linked to the Polity’s AI network have eroded his humanity, and this gridlink has to be severed or he’ll die. Without it, he has only his wits (and Shuriken, a throwing star with a mind of its own) to rely on.

At the frontiers of human-occupied space, the Miranda space station has been utterly destroyed. Earth Central assigns Agent Ian Cormac to discover the truth, because the alien bioconstruct Dragon seems the most likely culprit.

On the primitive, insectile monster-filled world of Cull, a knight errant called Anderson is hunting a dragon, unaware that, far away, someone else has resurrected a near-indestructible brass killing machine called Mr. Crane to assist in a similar hunt.

Refugees arrive in the Polity from eight hundred years in Agent Cormac’s future. And once they are through, the gate they use is dumped into the sun, as something dangerous and non-human is in pursuit. Cormac soon learns that the Maker civilization they have come from has been destroyed – by alien Jain technology.

When one of Erebus's wormships kills millions on the world of Klurhammon for no tactical reason and the AI entity controlling the lethal Jain technology attacks the Polity, it falls to Agent Cormac to figure out why.

Following the human vs prador war, Ian Cormac signs up with Earth Central Security. He's sent out to restore order on worlds devastated by alien bombardment. But he learns humanity can be far more dangerous - even those closest to him.