In the near future, humankind's Project Starseed uses faster-than-light quantum-wave technology to send colonists to distant star systems. When the ninety-ninth - and final - ship lands on a bleak and icy world in the shadow of a dead star, the future looks grim for the colonists. First an exploration party disappears without a trace. Soon the colonists are besieged by sabotage and deadly conflict. Meanwhile, though billions of years have passed without life on the iceworld, the arrival of the humans has set something astir. This mysterious entity will determine the fate of the ship, and of a world poised between death and eternity.