Eighteen years ago, astronaut Keith Stoner led a desperate mission to capture an alien ship barreling toward Earth. But the mission went awry—and Stoner stayed behind on the alien spaceship, in suspended animation. Finally, Stoner and the ship are recovered and Stoner is awakened. But something else is awakened too—an alien presence both mysterious and dangerous.

Keith Stoner had been in a state of suspended animation for eighteen years. It was eighteen years earlier that Stoner had been an American member of a joint U.S. - Soviet venture to capture an alien ship, but when the Soviets had to pull out, Stoner willfully persisted and it was then, during that time on the strange ship that Stoner fell into the strange state that was neither here, nor there.

Jo Camerata, the ambitious young student who fell in love with Stoner is now head of Vanguard Industries, which has recovered the alien ship. As a result, her company now controls the vast new technology and the fortune it reaps in - as well as control of Keith Stoner. What Camerata doesn’t know, however, is that someone else has been awake, someone who dwells deep within the labyrinths of Stoner’s mind.