Genetically modified lemurs? What could possibly go wrong?In the first part of the 81st Century, university professors still need to publish or perish.Rutherford Payne-Dougald, Professor of Xeno-pology at the Stratford Hyperspace and Intraluminal Theoretical, Technical and Industrial State University, thought he had found the ideal solution when he received a grant from the school's athletic department to create model basketball players by genetically enhancing and ensapientizing lemurs.Unfortunately, the plan went awry, leaving the professor out of a job and the lemurs, broke and unable to pay tuition, out of college and reduced to operating a seedy burlesque show in another star system of the Pan-Galactic Empire.Now, several years later, Payne-Dougald has gone completely off the deep end and well and truly become a mad scientist, vowing revenge upon the lemurs and upon the society that rejected him. The only thing standing between him and utter mayhem is the inexperienced and ill-equipped crew of the Pan-Galactic patrol cruiser Ivens.Can our heroes (such as they are) defend the innocent and enforce the law in the face of a corrupt, venal, and decaying society and bring the wicked to some sort of justice?