 It is an homage to the thriller novels of Alistair MacLean.Prior to delivering a cargo to the nearby planet Xathru, Jordan McKell, a smuggler for a crime lord nicknamed Brother John and his shadowy boss, Mr. Antoniewicz, is on the planet Meima with his partner, Ixil, a member of an alien species called the Kalixiri.McKell is offered a job by a man named Alexander Borodin, whom he recognizes as the famous industrialist and sometime-archaeologist Arno Cameron.