Robots were suddenly everywhere. Gell of Sleya was still a boy when they became just another aspect of modern life. The world was changing, and it seemed to coincide with the discovery of a strange entity that appeared one day over a farmer's field. The government sent people in to study it, trying to understand what it was, but if they had known the connection it would make to their world, they would have sought to destroy it. Gell and his friend Lemp knew something about it. They had touched it, and that began a series of adventures they never wanted, treading a road with only sorrows to greet them in a world running out of time, but it was only the robots who knew how much time they had.