All of his life Flinx had lived in the marketplace on Drallar with his foster mother, an ageing shopkeeper. But Flinx did not belong there and although he knew nothing of his true parents he was determined to find out about himself and the strange mental abilities that he had been endowed with. His search was to lead him into the clutches of Challis, one of the most depraved and powerful men in the Commonwealth … on to Terra where the records of his birth were kept … and finally to Ulru-Ujurr where the priceless and mysterious Janus jewels came from and where a new civilisation was about to be born.