Matriarchs

Winga married Jakor to escape her restrictive home planet, Gaia, which was settled by Earthwomen. The somewhat paranoid governing council of Gaia fears the influence of other planets on the very religious matriarchy of Gaia. Winga wants to experience other ways of life, so she defies her culture and her mother, to marry an offworld man and leave Gaia. Unfortunately, Jakor dies on their honeymoon in what she is told is an accident. She doesn’t believe it was. Captain Rifkin Lile is told by his superior officer to marry – or at least pretend to marry -- Winga in order to gain entry to the planet and continue Jakor’s investigation of the possibility of drug smuggling on Gaia. Rif doesn’t want to marry Winga, Winga doesn’t want to marry Rif, but both find it expedient to make the match. Rif and Winga have to work out their relationship, pick their way through enormous cultural differences, figure out exactly what is going on and why, and determine what to do about the discoveries they eventually make about what is really happening on Gaia and why. If their relationship can withstand the strain, they will help make revolutionary changes to society on Gaia.