Book 2 follows a science survey into the Third Quadrant, a desolate wasteland left by ancient asteroids. Scenes of friends and family back on the crew's home planets are woven through the story. New characters join with major and minor characters we met in the first book to crew the expedition. They explore a desert planet and intervene in the shunning of a young cave dweller, who joins them on the ship. While surveying an unexpected gas giant, they lose a crew member to its toxic gas cloud. The expedition crew moves on, not knowing he survived, and we follow his healing and acceptance into the planet's forest culture. The third planet the crew finds is too massive to approach, but the debris orbiting it proves to hold important clues. The different threads of narrative in the book come together as a shift in the currents of time and space, leaving people with very different memories of shared reality. The crew return home, but there are several surprises on the way. They find their lost crew member again, mourning for the love he left behind. Back on their home planets, there is still one more mystery to resolve.