Dr. Noyle Iaam, one of our most brilliant authorities in android logic systems, excels in his ability to look at a process and improve on its efficiency or effectiveness. With our home world dying from the overmining of its resources, he feels android mining could be dramatically improved to a higher yield. His successes to make androids learn as they go and increase their knowledge base to independent, sentient thinking is about to expand a workforce to a planetary level. Dr. Uriel Resiw, as his young assistant, brings with her a unique line of problem solving that may be just what he needs, but Dr. Sypher, also one of his colleagues, has his own ideas over those of Dr. Iaam and is determined to show them all. Noyle feels the androids should control their own will to think. Sypher wants to control their will to think. Greed can feed on the need for recognition of one's ability, especially if one feels they have been passed over. As the androids evolve and begin to create unexpected problems, so do the conflicts of Dr. Sypher. The fight to save their home world may become a fight for their very lives.