Nation of aliens ‘Newcomers’, or ‘slags’ as they are known in the racist argot of the Los Angeles Police Department, are extraterrestrials with human-looking bodies but bulbous piebald heads which make them instantly recognizable. Genetically engineered for hard labour, the newcomers descend on California in the early twenty-first century and are allowed to stay by an untypically generous immigration department. At first they make a useful contribution to the workforce, specializing in the manual work for which they were made. But, within a few decades, calumny arrives. Newcomers become equated with all that is frightening and unpleasant: they get drunk and aggressive after tippling sour milk; their females are prone to prostitution; the ‘second generation’ engage in habitual street crime.