Synopsis: A spacefarer with a bent for poetry and his sentient spacecraft meet alien civilizations. (adapted from the first page of the first edition): Life is rarely boring for Federation ambassador-at-large Gerard Manley. Whether he's negotiating a tricky treaty on a planet inhabited by ghosts, losing his heart to a passionate Sylvan beauty, or nearly losing his life n a brutal attack on a starbase, he finds more excitement than most men do in a dozen lifetimes. But Gerard Manley is also a haunted man, driven by dreams of a half-remembered past as Consort to Fairy Peg, ruler of the Ribble Galaxy, and obsessed with the origins of the "Tenderfoot" legend, an ancient cosmic myth with uncanny parallels to his own life. With the aid of 'Windy' (the starship 'Windhover') which serves him as confidante, confessor and comrade-at-arms, Manley sets out to unravel the intricate mysteries of his past.