Gaia Jones is on A-Ki space station for one reason, and it's not to schmooze the hermaphroditic aliens. She's out to make a name for herself and her restaurant. Not an easy task in A-Ki's tightly controlled, rigidly separated society. But her business plan gets complicated when she rushes to the aid of a dying alien?and finds herself the unwilling guardian of a shunned alien ghost named Kenjan. And the new owner of Kenjan's servant, Wave Walker.

Then Kenjan's grieving lover, the powerful leader of the Kishocha, offers her a dream and a nightmare rolled into one: a brand new store with a strange double purpose?half snack bar, half shrine to his dead beloved. The catch? She must spend the rest of her life there, tending Kenjan the Heretic's ghost. Or the entire station will be destroyed.