In a far future, on a faraway planet, humans have become infected by the alien Wan, creatures that communicate by feeding each other poems composed of their own flesh. Obsessed alien and former human biologist Ing infects Frog, a barren slave girl, and Firdaus, deposed ruler of the human settlement, with the alien fungus. When a once-in-a-millennium Wan reproductive event threatens to destroy all human life on the planet, Frog and Firdaus must choose between transforming their loved ones into cadaverous toadstools and surviving - or watching them all die in a planetary holocaust. Unless Frog can come up with a third solution - with the help of her greatest enemy.