When Carver, an amphibious creature called a Lingonee fumigates the Capitol building he is surprised when a rat runs out crying, "Help Me!" No one had known that rats had evolved higher intelligence. Snag, the rat becomes the only survivor of his people. From the knowledge stored on Pocket Robot, an artifact from the colonists, Snag learns about the ill-fated humans who crashed on this planet, Uthon. The six individuals couldn't survive the harsh conditions. A species of logical, emotionless creatures called Trian used the human DNA to create the Lingonee. Snag meets Pangol of the warlike reptilian Hexams and decides to go with him to the Hexam home planet to search for other rat colonies. However, trouble is brewing in the Hexam society., the leader (the Tolox) has declared war against the other species, breaking hundreds of chron of peace and breaking the Hexams sacred code of honor Ixoxo. Pangol gets captured when they land on a space fortress when he tries to resist and Snag flees. Snag finds himself stranded in the bowels of the space fortress. From the data gathered from Pocket Robot, and other clues Snag learns that Trian have other rats caged in their laboratories to use as experiments. He vows that he will free them.In the meantime, he is caught up in a war. He meets an Avian and a strange creature named Copy, who mimics others like a parrot and is a slow changing metamorph. This creature may be a key to learning the reason why the tolox has launched this war.Copy and his new friends escape and land on Septigenia, a peaceful world just in time to see it attacked. Snag and his friends join the resistance.