One thousand seven hundred years after our era, Mars and Earth are space powers of the first order. Even if they hate each other cordially, they are allied in the war that has opposed them for eighty years to an extraterrestrial race: the Xyvists.
Orphaned, Jania Endiscoda must go into exile on a moon of Jupiter. The year of her twentieth birthday, the Xyvists bombard the mining station. The young woman is repatriated to Mars with the other survivors as a wave of particularly bloody murders begins: the victims are stripped of one or more organs.
Yohanna Zolk, a police officer, is charged with discovering what is behind these murders. While she was only thinking of rebuilding her life on Mars, Jania is going to be given a role she was not ready to take on...