In the far future, a hard environment created problems for early colonies settling on the planet of Barset, destroying fertility rates in women. Their solution was unconventional - all pregnancy is offloaded to a handful kept away from the toxins. Claire was raised in the Outback, far away from all of that. But through an accident of birth, she's meant to be one of them - and a Noblewoman.
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Barset is a hard-scrabble planet full of proud colonies, but the early settlers encountered a problem -- toxins in the air and earth, impossible to avoid, which devastated their early fertility rates and nearly wound up ending the planet's colonization. But they found a solution, albeit unconventional -- pregnancies and childbirth would all be handled by select few women, given political power and the burden of childbirth. It's been centuries since those times. The Farm, where births happen, is taken for granted as a fact of life, if people even know about it.

One such person is Claire, daughter of power farmers in the Outback. She grew up with impossibly huge hips, a tendency to gain weight quickly, and strange bone structure. Her life is turned upside down one day, just after she turns 18, when she's approached by two men calling her a 'Nobewoman' and 'Lady Claire', insisting she's meant to return to where she was born to take her place as a political figure, as well as a permanently pregnant baby factory. Claire is outraged and furious, but political machinations beyond her power force the issue.

This world of politics and pregnancies is alien to her, and she hates and resents her inclusion in it. As her belly swells with a dozen children she never asked for, she must rise to meet the challenge of politics -- or else face consequences the globe over.