In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine to question her own values.

High in their fortified city, protected by brutal mercenaries, the Sarkites live in magnificient luxury. Below them, in the eternal Spring of Florina, "the most beautiful planet in the Galaxy," the native Florinians labor ceaselessly in dire poverty to produce the precious kyrt fiber that brings wealth to their masters, the Squires of Sark. Suddenly there is a cryptic warning from space.