Unable to escape the enforcers, Sabre sends a distress message, but an Overlord answers. Tassin, Sabre and Kole head for Omega Five with Tarl, an ex-cyber technician turned smuggler they met on Charon Six. Tarl is also on the run from Myon Two, under a sentence of death. He has restored Sabre's memories, but the cyber is no longer the man with whom Tassin fell in love. She hopes he will rediscover the feelings he had for her, and she will do anything to make that happen. When Myon Two enforcers find them in a photon corridor, they are unable to escape in Tarl's old freighter. Sabre hopes the universal distress message will protect Tassin and Kole, but an Overlord answers it. The seven Overlords keep the peace on an interstellar scale, and rarely interfere in minor infractions, but interplanetary law dictates that a universal distress message cannot be ignored. Overlords travel instantaneously between solar systems on giant city ships capable of destroying planets, and the one who answers Sabre's call is the Spider Lord, one of the most feared of all. Upon learning the cause of the altercation, the Spider Lord orders Sabre to step out of an airlock or his companions will die.