Synopsis: In a universe where robots of the type designed by Isaac Asimov are ubiquitous among the humans living in space and Earth's extrasolar planetary colonies, but illegal on Earth itself, a former police detective investigating the deaths of a shipment of illegal emigrants outbound from Earth finds himself in the gray area where the robot and anti-robot cultures meet; in the process he discovers that the existence of both are threatened by a previously unsuspected third group with its own agenda.