Surviving crash-landings and monsters and island-eaters was only the beginning!

The Kimei family and a second group of castaways, led by Sergeant Campbell, had finally joined forces after both had been forced to land on the bizarre planet Lincoln, whose continents were huge floating coral colonies, inhabited by even stranger lifeforms. They had survived crash-landings and venom-filled bites and disease, their own despair, and even the destruction - and consumption! - of one of their floating islands, and had learned to live, even prosper, in their strange new home.

Far away, Lieutenat Susan Fisher slowly pieces together the mystery of what happened to the starship Outward Initiative...and begins to believe that - just possibly - some of the survivors might have escaped to a mysteriously unsuspected star system.

But even her preparations and the resourcefulness of the castaways may not be enough...for Lincoln has far worse in store.