With a terrified mother-to-be and two young trainees from the crippled Ship, they watched all that remained of their homeworld self-destruct in the chill night of the inhospitable planet that lies third from the star called Sol. And with the dawn came the infant who made them seven. There would be no help from the home planet; they would survive, or not, on their own. But what they could not know was that they were not alone, for this small world had already felt the invading touch of the dreaded Rhu'inn.

Unrestricted by time and space, able to live undetected in a human host, Rhu'inn are the enigma of the universe, the enemy of all human worlds. It will not be enough that the survivors learn to live alongside Earth's inhabitants; somehow the Seven must warn them -- and make themselves believed -- or perish with them.