Veil, a moon beneath the ember-coloured rings of Oru. Elin Vasse, cartographer of the colony ship Meridian, has spent forty-one days mapping a world whose people hold drawn maps close to sacrilege. In orbit, 6,112 sleepers wait on a failing reactor, and forty-one died this month. Today the Speaker of Tides has summoned her, and she will ask for the one plain no Veili will tread. A grave science-fiction adventure of first contact, where every border has a cost.