Foxfield. Home of the plantlike Commensals, with their bizarre group-mind, the One. Home too for the human colonists who founded a peaceful culture and, with the Commensals' help, adaption to a harsh biosphere. For 100 years, Earth was silent. Now, from the ashes of World War III, rises a new and powerful interstellar government offering Foxfield citizenship and technological marvels - at the cost of freedom and with the thread of destruction if they refuse. (from the cover)