Three thousand years ago, the seeds arrived from Earth on hundreds of worlds. The developed worlds formed the Network, connected only by radio and laser. Since the time of the seeds, nothing but information has traveled between the stars. Now a starship, The Child of Ambition, is changing that. Her first mission: to explore the dark worlds, the ones that failed.
Kali Hakoian, pilot-astronaut and war hero, thought landing on the super-Earth of Keto would be routine. The emptiest seed worldits global ocean matted with algae and crawling with hurricaneshides the oldest human ruins. Her crew of scientists: a dreamer, a believer, and a retired assassin. Their hypothesisself-termination of the seed base.
But when an act of sabotage strands her in the path of a superstorm, she's forced to escape with the man she trusts the least. They may never find out what happened to the settlersunless it happens to them. Can she trust her crew enough to find a way out of the darkness?