Like the 400 other passengers traveling on the space freighter Argo, Scott Thorne expected the two-year voyage to Terranova to pass quickly while he slumbered in biostasis. Little did he know that the Argo would pass through a mysterious space-time anomaly and emerge 500 years later in a distant, unexplored region of space with no hope of ever returning to Earth. A renowned professor of planetology, Scott is enlisted by the crew to locate a hospitable world to colonize before the ship's power reserves are exhausted. With his own life and those of the other passengers hanging in the balance, Scott directs the Argo to Proxima Tauri IIIB, the smaller world of an intriguing double planet system. At first the destination appears to be a wise choice -- until the unprepared colonists land and discover what is waiting for them on the surface.