¿Dave Crowell is a hero of the eight worlds of the Union, but he doesn't want fame or fortune. These days he just wants to run his private detective business with his alien partner Tem Forno and forget about the Ultras, the mysterious aliens that attacked the Union, then vanished. But when a client's husband turns up dead under mysterious circumstances, Crowell knows the Ultras have not gone away. With the help of an alien who shows him the concept of shared memory, he uncovers fragments of his past life that might lead to his missing father. When it becomes clear that Crowell's past also contains the information he needs to save the Union, he and his partner are caught up in a conspiracy beyond understanding and pulled into an underworld drug war spanning multiple worlds. With the crisis deepening, Crowell must learn the answer to the biggest question of all: Where are the Ultras?