She killed a man deserving life, and let live a man who deserved to die. Now Sergeant Zeta Verity has until next morning, or 16.7 Earth days, to stop him and bring justice to Callisto. Born to be the best but living in the shadow of her auspicious ancestors, Verity has been posted to the newly terraformed Callisto by the Meritocracy's pseudomilitary research arm to work with specially bred horses. Killing a spy in possession of stolen data is just another day's work. She's not impressed by timid and scholarly Vladimir Bolokhovski, who arrives at the research base with a beautiful stallion he has genetically engineered. But when her superiors start disappearing and an arrest warrant is issued on Verity herself for spying, she discovers the spy was not what he appeared, and that someone is playing games with all of them. She's going to need the help of both Vladimir and the dead spy to find and stop the mastermind behind it all.