One year after Lop Lodeline made the whole world look up, Earth is officially Occupied, very loud and very pleased with itself. Then, at midnight on the anniversary, Chicago's car horns go silent. A tiny clerk from the Court of Quiet Hours arrives with a summons: someone out in the galactic Neighborhood has filed a noise complaint against the entire planet. Earth's sounds are being muted one by one, and at dawn the last ones go: everybody's voices. To save Earth's voice, its most famous voice will have to sail into space and learn the half of the family business nobody ever told him about.