For two hundred years Earth's power and prestige as the center of galactic government has been increasingly eclipsed by that of her growing colonies in far distant star clusters. Now the weakened mother world, celebrating the anniversary of the first space flight, has become a helpless pawn in a struggle between the scheming Orion cluster and the other clusters it hopes to conquer. Enter Jay Birrel, captain of a squadron of space ships in from the cluster Lyra for the celebration, and his brilliant wife Lyllin, whose exotic looks betray her birth on distant Vega. Jay is of Terrestrial descent, and a visit to the ancient family homestead earns him friends and stirs a sense of belonging to the mother world he never knew he possessed.