A young lute player is aided by a harmonizing spider who resides in her lute, unbeknownst to her. Though the spider becomes attached to the lute player, she continues to feel loneliness and longing for her home among other spiders in the forest of her birth.

When it is discovered that the human brain is key to interstellar travel, one impoverished tradesman must decide whether to sacrifice the wonderfully wise, but ultimately artificial, eagle brain residing inside a beautiful humanoid shell or his own. A desperately poor tradesman realizes his humanoid friend, a charming artificial intelligence, is the key to faster and more lucrative interstellar travel. But to achieve this, he must pry her brain from her body and risk killing her.