The planet Korar was a glittering jewel of a world, home to the galaxy's wealthiest people, but the jewel had a flaw: the huge slum called the Dipple, where the misfits, the penniless, the hopeless eked out a wretched existence--a fate which two young men hoped to escape.Troy Horan leaped at the chance to work in a shop in an upscale neighborhood, offering exotic creatures from other worlds to the wealthy. He thought his luck had changed--until his employer was murdered, and Troy had to hide in the mysterious ruins left by a vanished alien race; ruins which explorers had entered, and vanished. . . . Nik Kolherne had a face so hideously scarred that he wore a mask to cover it. Then he was recruited by a mysterious figure who offered Nik a new face--if, in return Nik would make a young heir think he was someone else. Now he was the only hope of the young heir's survival--if they could survive on a planet veiled in eternal night and swarming with deadly predators. . . .