Once onboard the train, Frank is quickly apprised of the nature of the commission implied by his acceptance of the ticket. It seems the Spiders are concerned about a potential future war among the Twelve Empires: a war that they had hoped to prevent by their strict policy against taking weapons on the trains. Frank acquires a mysterious human companion, a young woman named Bayta who can telepathically communicate with the Spiders.

Frank and Bayta begin a journey along the interstellar railways, looking for the unidentified warmongers the Spiders want to find. Frank quickly realizes they are the objects of interest of a variety of entities, including an alien Frank had known on his previous job, and also his former boss, a man whom he has cause to hate. They survive attempts on their life, and attempts to frame them for murder, and they seem to be herded towards the Sistarrko system, which includes a resort on one of a pair of gas giant moons, a moon which is home to the extremely popular Modhri coral. And there, of course, (this being the kind of novel it is) they learn secrets affecting the future of the Galaxy... and they are in the position to affect said future.

I must say that for the first half of the book or so I was annoyed. Zahn seemed to be driving his plot by a series of absurd coincidences and unlikely actions. But to be fair, he is aware of all this, and by the end of the book things are explained in a satisfying manner. The central idea of the book, and the eventually revealed good guys and (especially) Bad Guy, aren't terribly new ideas, but they are fairly well handled in this context. The book is pretty enjoyable, though the opening sections do drag a bit. As I suggested, Zahn redeems some of the weaknesses of the beginning by the end, and I ended up a pleased, but not really thrilled, customer.