On her first assignment as a Rememberer, Vega travels to Small Home, the newest planet the Race adopted. The planet's inhabitants, the Caelings, are a friendly native species with an agrarian culture. Vega has heard reports of a native who performs miracles, and she wants to record him and other Caelings for her people because she knows that someday the Caelings will be gone. She takes her younger brother to assist her and travels into the backcountry to find this miracle worker.
The townspeople tell her amazing stories about Tantea, the teacher of miracles. When Vega meets him, she believes he is a charlatan until Tantea picks out the star she comes from in the night sky and convinces her. Yet, a miracle worker is hard to fool. When he finds out the Race's longevity and indifference always result in Vega's people destroying the native populations with their carelessness, he becomes furious and decides to grant Vega a miracle she inadvertently asked for-one that will throw her entire civilization into chaos but gives her people a chance at redemption.
