Laughing Humans are the descendants of a colonizing ship that crashed on the planet Bicanthra III 500 years earlier, and have been raised as animals in a zoo by the indigenous sentient beings of that planet. Their speech has atrophied because of their severe religious belief (one only speaks to praise god), but they laugh, giving rise to their name. They are a strongly female-dominated clan.

Hunter Rogue has lived her entire life providing food for her troupe of two dozen Laughing Humans and trying to escape from the zoo where she and her troupe are exhibits. She hates being confined by taboos or walls. She loves to explore and try new things. She longs to be allowed to speak like the Bicanthran gods, to be mated despite her troupe's strict laws on monogamy, and to teach her troupe that they are no longer zoo specimens.

Captain Angus McFarlan is one year away from retiring from a military career which confined him with its rules and regulations. In order to keep him from ruining his career in its twilight hours, he is given the dubious honor of rescuing and repatriating the troupe of Laughing Humans. Angus is fierce, dominant, and always in control, until he meets Hunter.

Hunter and Angus must lead the Laughing Humans into an existence delightfully different from their previous life. Speech, sex, and equality are all new concepts to which they must adapt.