In the year 2788, only the disabled live on Earth--all the "norms" live on the colonies. Jarra is one in a thousand born every year with a natural immune deficiency that makes it impossible to live anywhere but Earth--she and those like her are considered evolutionary throwbacks, "apes." Jarra is one ape that sets out to prove to the norms that, while she may be confined to Earth, that doesn't mean she is any less human than they are.