Kidnapped! Offyonder, a planet famous for its civic justice and order, has the few who rule and the many who obey the rules. Rules about speech, thought, and behavior keep life calm and prosperous for Offyonder’s finest citizens. Now the Director’s niece, Claire Montaigne, is seized by rebels protesting her uncle’s iron-handed control of the government, but the rebels have made no demands. Yet.

Inexplicably, the Director sends a government librarian and complete nonentity to the rescue. Martin Allgeier, Third Assistant Librarian of the planetary library, is tasked with bringing Claire safely home to the Capital. Martin knows that if he fails, his career is over and possibly his life as well. So he is glad the Director has allocated the funds and instructed him to hire Sol, a celebrated interstellar bounty hunter.

As Martin and Sol follow Claire’s trail, matters become very weird. The more they investigate, the stranger the kidnapping scheme looks. Claire, who insists on being called Princess Claire, had a severe breakdown in her teens and now appears not entirely sane. Cooperation is not her strong suit. The rebels could be either disorganized bums or masters of strategy. Sol has big demons, which she attempts to drown with the planet’s potent mash. And both Martin and Sol are hiding parts of their past from each other and everyone else.

Failure to rescue Claire will cost them their lives and destroy the civic order that keeps Offyonder strong. But as Martin and Sol untangle the truth of the kidnapping, they confront the unthinkable—could the price of success be greater than that of failure? What happens when things are not as they seem?