The Scavenger species are circling It is truly the End Days for the Gzilt civilisation An ancient people organised on military principles & yet almost perversely peaceful the Gzilt helped set up the Culture ten thousand years earlier & were very nearly one of its founding societies deciding not to join only at the last moment Now they've made the collective decision to follow the well-trodden path of millions of other civilisations they are going to Sublime elevating themselves to a new & almost infinitely more rich & complex existence Amid preparations though the Regimental High Command is destroyed Lieutenant Commander (reserve) Vyr Cossont appears to have been involved & she is now wanted
- dead not alive Aided only by an ancient reconditioned android & a suspicious Culture avatar Cossont must complete her last mission given to her by the High Command She must find the oldest person in the Culture a man over nine thousand years old who might have some idea what really happened all that time ago It seems that the final days of the Gzilt civilisation are likely to prove its most perilous