It first appeared in the March to June 1985 issues of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact before being published by Baen Books in July 1985.

Owing to the unique technological mechanisms of the novel, the same cast of characters appears in both parts, though it is not a time travel story.

A UN financed research lab is pursuing a strange goal: manipulate metabolism and brain function in order to eliminate the need for sleep.

The UN cuts funding for the zero-sleep lab and the industrialist hires their entire staff to work in his primary station.

His dying words to the chief scientist instruct her that his real motive for hiring them was to research suspended animation technology.

On a planet called Pentecost in the Eta Cassiopeiae system, a large human civilization of indeterminate technological level now exists.

Peron makes fast friends with the other top finalists and during their next cycle of challenges begin to uncover suspicious elements of the Immortals, Planetfest, and their entire society.

After the nuclear holocaust the self-sufficient space arcologies (with a total population less than 1 million) began to fragment and some went off looking for new planets, as their industrialist founder had intended.

Those left behind continued scientific research and tried to re-colonize Earth, but the severe nuclear winter led into 10,000 year ice age.

This was an accidental byproduct of their zero-sleep project, which revealed a way to slow human metabolism and consciousness such that they would remain fully aware, but perceive time at 1/2000th the normal rate.

Using their vastly superior technology, they control the new planet-based colonies from behind the scenes and use the Planetfest games as a recruiting method to reinforce their numbers.

While in orbit around Earth they detect that a large portion of the radio traffic throughout the Immortals' communication network seems to be coming from nowhere.

Peron's gang manages to evade security and stowaway aboard a supply ship bound for the headquarters.

However Immortals have interpreted some signals, which seem to indicate the Deep Space Beings predict that the stars in the spiral arm will all mysteriously go dark in the next 40,000 years; an impossibly short time on the cosmological scale.