The crew finds a human boy raised by aliens, and a custody dispute follows.
The Enterprise rescues a group of teenagers from a damaged ship, and finds that one of them, Jono, is in fact a human boy, adopted and raised by the Talarians. The Federation wants to return him to his human family, but he has spent most of his life as a Talarian, and he is torn.
Picard attempts to learn what is best for Jono, even as the boy's adoptive father, Captain Endar, arrives to demand his son back. The captain is forced to face a difficult question about family and identity. The episode is a story of two cultures, and it shows Picard struggling with his own discomfort with children and his growing compassion for a young person caught between worlds.