Pierre is a chimpanzee who has been "uplifted"; taught human language and gained human intelligence. He is the first of his kind granted personhood by a government agency. They send him to the moon to do research, which he does with a robot, Tsuki. Tsuki and Pierre remain each other's only friends; the other humans on the moon could care less about a talking monkey and his robot companion. As Pierre does his research, he is always plagued by visions of his past life as a "regular" chimpanzee. He remembers snippets of his troop, and his mate, but he can't remember her name. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where Apollo 20 actually happened, but the astronauts onboard perished. While doing his research, Pierre stumbles across the bodies and bring them home. He and Tsuki part ways, and then he takes his first vacation, out to a beach somewhere. The story ends with him swinging from tree to tree, then sleeping, forgetting about his intelligence and personhood.