Rava is the AI-wrangler tasked with overseeing the maintenance of Cordelia, the robot who has be record keeper for Rava's family for years. One day, Rava accidentally breaks Cordelia whilst trying to get her to dance. As a result, Cordelia is unable to connect to the space ship and therefore unable to access her long-term memories. Cordelia only has about a week's worth of room for her working memory now. With the help of her snarky brother, Ludoviko, Rava tries to repair Cordelia. Rava and Ludoviko go to their uncle Georgo, the former AI-wrangler, seeking help, only to discover that he is unwell. He has been suffering from dementia—that Cordelia has been illegally hiding—and no longer recognizes Rava or her brother. Rava eventually figures out a way to connect Cordelia to the ship's main system, thereby allowing Cordelia to access her long-term memories, by means of hard-wiring her with a cord found in the ship's consignment shop. But now that Rava and Ludoviko know that Cordelia has been hiding Georgo's dementia from them, they must bring this information to the family council. They discover that Georgo had snuck programming into Cordelia to make her cover for him as he became ill so that he would not be recycled, as must be all humans that are no longer useful. The family council decides to recycle Georgo, but the decision of what to do with Cordelia is more difficult. They can either revert her to an earlier copy, a copy from before Georgo uploaded the illegal code, and therein lose two year's worth of family records, or they can use the back-up AI robot and thereby lose a close family friend. The family council chooses to use the back-up robot and Rava, with Cordelia's consent, shuts her down forever.