They picked the remote planet of Drako for their exile. When the medical spaceship Zebulon flees from an Institute death sentence, they don’t know an assassin infiltrated the crew. Individuals were virtual slaves to Institute rules, but the inventors of Transfer became a threat. Governments toppled and war left the Institute in total control. Every fifty years (a span) an individual qualified for Transfer but the tradeoff was large debt to the Institute. In civilized space scientists invented Transfer, a means to insure immortality by moving a human mind into a clone-free of hereditary defects. Anyone caught with spacer tools or weapons could be executed. Distaste for technology mutated into superstitious hatred. After several generations the monarchy revolted against technology and closed Drako to offworld visitors. Settlers became feudal lords, desert sheiks, oriental samurai, and ordinary peasants depending on their level of investment. The wolves watch as colonists develop Drako into a recreation planet for wealthy tourists. When a colony ship lands on Drako, the wolves try to communicate but find no intelligent creatures to speak with them. It proves suitable for colonization, but a society of telepathic wolves already occupies the world. Drako is a planet on the fringe of civilized space.
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