Everybody dies. There's a fresh grave on planetoid KS-159, but only Bernice Summerfield seems to have noticed. Her friends on the Braxiatel Collection are too busy with their own affairs to see how distraught she is, how keenly she feels this loss. There's no time to grieve. Life must carry on, different and strange as it may be. Benny has a son and a bloke to look after, and a feud with Bev Tarrant to keep up. And she's also got dumped with a new assignment, babysitting some daft experiment. Doggles claims his "history machine" will change everything. And the worst thing is that he's right.