When Soefee Sparrow's roommate and ex-lover, Tayla Block, goes missing aboard a space mining station, Sparrow-a rocket-horse jocky-suddenly finds herself under suspicion of murder. Despite the mining company's main source of income-megatons of industrial minerals and gem stones-no one but Soefee seems to be searching for their leading geologist. Were gemstones being stolen from the mining company? Did it have anything to do with Block's disappearance? Why was everyone being so tight-lipped? What happened to Tayla Block, and why wasn't anything being done to find her? Enter Jicob Elfrendini, an undercover agent for IBCP, a division of Law Enforcement employed to ensure against the theft of valuable gems. But Elfrendini has secrets of his own. And then a woman's dead body is found at the bottom of a mine shaft and, together, Soefee and Jicob must work to find out who killed Tayla Block- --and WHY?