Finding himself marooned on Lithia, young Reeve Calder is determined to make a home--even rebuild the planet. But he is a newcomer, soon to encounter the powerful forces already embedded in the transforming ecology.
There are the savage colonists, inhabiting the ruins of vanished power. There are the Somaformers, a doomsday cult tampering with adaptive genes. There is Loon, a feral girl who leads the marooned group by her mad, internal compass. There is Nerys, a young woman enslaved by the orthong, and determined to rise in their ranks.
Driven by a whispered clue from a dying man, Reeve and his companions must reach the great rift valley where the final reckoning awaits, one that will decide world dominance--or an unthinkable world cataclysm.