Tsia had dreamed all her life of becoming a guide, attuned to her world through a telepathic gate to another lifeform. At last, she took the guide virus that would mutate her body to create the gate she so desperately craved. But the lifeform her body took was the one lifeform forbidden--the felines, who had scouted the planet for the First Droppers and, in exchange, been promised their freedom forever from human domination. By laws of the Guide Guild and the First-Landing Pact, she could never call to the cats, never speak with them, never approach them. But then capture and imprisonment, torture and slavery took the place of an empty future. Suddenly Tsia's only hope lay with her gate--and once she had touched the cats, there would be no turning back...