​​In the isolated thickets of a faraway planet, a linguist lies dead. Inscrutinator Shameesh Kulkarni must find out why. But no one wants to talk: not the prospectors searching for mineral wealth, not the archaeologists trying to piece together a ruined city, not the local schoolteacher, and certainly not the indigenous people whose language the dead woman was researching.

Only two beings are interested in helping Shameesh solve the murder: a digital replica of the victim herself, and the inquisitive octopod who befriended her. Three brains are better than one, even if one is a bot and another is an invertebrate, because there is more than one mystery here to solve.

Here, the landscape itself hides layers of centuries-old secrets?secrets that the inhabitants must protect at all costs. Shameesh's job is to reveal the truth?on a planet where the truth cannot be spoken.