At Millennium's end, the Earth was poisoned beyond repair--and ships ventured out into the solar system in search of life-saving raw materials and new planets to colonize. Now it is 2083. No suitable worlds have been found and the Earth can sustain life no longer. In humanity's final moments, two renegade family units--a microcosm of a self-destructive society--rocket into the heart of a mysterious alien culture. Here an entity has been created for the purpose of preserving all life, but to do so, it must absorb the past, present, and the future of the universe.<P>In a distant realm of last, desperate hope, the flawed representatives of a near-dead world are searching for the key to humankind's survival. But it may already be too late...and it may always have been.