When Elizabeth and Jack open the package they believe they are looking into a toy box. It is Jack who notices they are breathing.
In 2150, in an isolated house on the shores of a small inlet in Sussex, something terrible has happened; a gross act that will change the face of history. Jack’s father, by dint of a clever deceit, has sent his son a group of indigenous people (The Lhaitiri) from the planet where he’s working as a geologist on a colonization project.
Despite being appalled by what her husband has done, Elizabeth is forced to deal with the situation. As yet unaware of their capabilities she can only hope to keep them alive. But when conversation is finally possible, so comes understanding.
And then there is Jack. In his view The Lhaitiri are little more than toys to his eight year-old mind and his experiments to see how they work are becoming life-threatening. He must, somehow, be stopped.
The question is, at only 12 centimetres tall, are they truly too small to worry about?