This novel is as much about the human condition as it is an historical novel. Thomas Rooke, a somewhat naïve young lieutenant in the British Navy, arrives in New South Wales with the First Fleet. Gifted with an ear for languages and the ability for mathematics, he is tasked with setting up an observatory and plotting the southern skies. In his mostly solitary post on an outcrop somewhat removed from the rest of the camp, he is soon visited by local natives with whom he begins the process of developing a relationship through language and the offering of friendship. As his friendship develops, Thomas is drawn to the understanding of what connects human beings regardless of where they come from and how they live, and finds himself at odds with what his responsibilities as an officer in the navy actually mean.