Killashandra and thirty others accept the personal risks and make the commitment. The story follows her and her classmates in a general education program, awaiting infection. When her own adaptation is unusually rapid and easy, she advances alone to rapid acquaintance with the rules and customs, transport and cutting equipment, emergency procedures, commercial values, and some of the planet-bound specialists. She is especially sensitive to "black crystal", the rarest and most valuable variety. Partly for that talent, the Guild Master Lanzecki becomes her mentor (but soon her lover as well). Before any of her classmates learns to fly or to cut, she is in the field. She is first to find the unknown claim of a black crystal miner recently destroyed in a crash, and she cuts some of it adequately.