On a distant planet isolated from Earth since its colonization 20,000 years ago, a young boy's religious conviction is put to the test in a bound-and-weighted baptism of endurance beneath the waves of the ocean. He experiences a divine euphoria at the moment his breath gives out, and when he's brought back to the surface, the love of Beatrice, Daughter of God, flows through him with born-again contentedness. Years later as a biology student at the University, his conviction is thrown into turmoil when his own study of aquatic zooytes is used to challenge the source of his beliefs.