On a mission from the 11th millennium, and posing as a little girl, Time Juggler Merola Tsverin hunts for genetic samples in 21st century San Francisco. Along the way, she retrieves an artifact for a collector: a home-run baseball from 1998. This theft sets off consequences which threaten the shape of life on Earth. Merola herself is trapped in the 21st century and seeks a way forward to her own time. And when she fails to report in, her friend and mentor, Jongleur Chief Coel Rydin, must work backward to find Merola, correct her mistake, and set the world right. This novel of science fantasy spans 360 million years through intricacies of metaphysics, evolution, retribution ... and baseball.