A tight-knit communal society of Spacers has evolved aboard the generation ship New Hope seven hundred years after its launch from Earth. When a pulsar fries their destination planet, scientists hide the information to prevent panic. They can't hide it from the telepathic aliens who have hitched a ride, however.

They wrench the ship to a new, gorgeous planet: Trye.

Teenaged Opal emerges from an epileptic-like panic attack with a voice in her head, which eventually convinces her that it is one of the powerful aliens and dthat she has been chosen as a Voice, or translator to her people.

Opal comes to rely upon and trust these mysterious benefactors, and most of her people are grateful for their new home.

Danielle is an Earth soldier with secret orders to protect the mission from political sabotage. She wakes from her long hibernation with physical issues and emotional discombobulation. This culture has evolved in ways she can't accept.

Spacers seem focused on the unexplained how of the New Hope's transport and their new neighbors. Danielle wants to know why, and she doesn't believe Opal's naive answers.

Trye is a rich planet. Someone else has to want it.

And in fact, someone very much does.

Found family, cooperative communal culture, multi-lingual population, dysfunctional family, sister issues, small-town culture, tardigrades, sentient fungi, sentient dinosaurs, cuttlefish in space: for fans of Arkady Martine, Becky Chambers, C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher, and Martha Wells.