Their destination is a so-called "plague star," known to inflict disease and pestilence on every third generation of a small, remote world. It turns out to be an enormous, abandoned seedship of the long-defunct Federal Empire's Ecological Engineering Corps, developed by the Corps to rewrite genetic coding for entire planets, for good or for ill. Tuf's ship, the "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices", is damaged by the seedship's automated defenses, and three of the occupants, Nevis, Anittas, and Dawnstar, board the seedship by means of pressure suits, leaving the others to await eventual death through asphyxiation. However, Tuf locates a microchip allowing him, Waan, and Lion to land the "Cornucopia" safely on the seedship.