The Variety: an island of suns surrounded by a huge cosmic vacuum. The five intelligent species that live there are trapped with no way of escaping, although they continue trying to develop their civilizations. Lina Kolbrand is a stellar pirate, captain of the ship Eurydice. In an audacious raid, she steals some incredibly valuable merchandise from the Urtians, mysterious intelligent beings who function as a collective entity and are the most highly developed species of The Variety. The disproportionate reaction of the Urtians seems to herald a total war against the rest of the intelligent species. But the Urtians have a very different aim. Before anyone else, they have understood that the universe in which they live is dying. The suns are burning out and the limits of The Variety are collapsing in on themselves. The entire cosmos is apparently disintegrating.