Discovered and settled only 100 years ago, the colony world of Tetrahedra is already in decline. It would remain ignored if not for the shocking ritualistic murders that have plagued the ramshackle town of Rally in recent years. In response to the latest and largest carnage so far, the corporate government of the Cuauhtinchan homeworld can no longer suppress the media furore and dispatch a heavily armed task force of detectives to put a stop to these horrors. Arriving on the impoverished desert planet they are received with hostility by the local settlers who perceive the paramilitary police as a military occupation. With everyone under pressure, only one detective suspects the impossible: that the original natives sealed for 1000 years in their subterranean bunkers are somehow linked to the killings. But no one could dare suspect the grim truths that are to be uncovered nor the depths to which people will go to keep them from coming to light.