They fled their world to escape death, but it may have hitched a ride instead. The human colony of Anaranjado is a harsh world.

Alternately baked by relentless sun or frozen by endless night, only its people’s willingness to cybernetically augment themselves and their unnatural sense of collective harmony has allowed it to persevere for as long as it has. But that unity is about to receive its most serious test.

Because Anaranjado's sister colony, Coldgarden, has died, and Coldgarden's survivors are coming. Stefani and Karl find themselves separated, scattered across the planet's broiling day side.

Taken into custody by the colony's militia, Karl must maintain the illusion that he is the human he appears to be lest he be subjected to disturbing experimentation. Meanwhile, Stefani is running out of time to cure her baby from the deadly disease that has plagued the child from birth.

In the frozen depths of the planet's night side, Marri runs afoul of a strange cult which has entirely given up flesh in favor of machine. Rescued at Giana's behest, Marri must bury the hatchet with her former enemy to uncover the cult's secrets and what threat they may pose to the planet's residents, both old and new.

As this strange family attempts to find its way back to each other, tensions build and power players prepare their final moves. An elemental conflict is brewing, one between the order of Anaranjado and the chaos of Coldgarden.

But the real battle is something none of them expect. .