For a thousand years, humanity waged war with an alien species called the Hrangan, which caused the collapse of the Federal Empire.
[1] A nine-member team of Academy scholars from the planet Avalon led by the astrophysicist Karoly d'Branin are searching for the volcryn, an enigmatic alien species with advanced interstellar travel technology.
The main protagonist is Melantha Jhirl, a dark-skinned genetically engineered human with a head taller than the other scholars.
Due to limited funds, d'Branin has hired the services of the Nightflyer, a modified trader owned by captain Royd Eris.
Things start to take a turn for the worse after the xenotech Alys Northwind accidentally cuts her finger with a kitchen knife.
As tensions among the passengers escalate due to the ship's cramped and claustrophobic quarters, captain Royd tells the crew that he is the cross-sex clone of his late trader mother and has lived his entire life in zero gravity space.
Melantha manages to destroy the possessed corpses of Dannel and Lindran in the ship's mass conversion unit.
Before she dies, she intends to destroy the central crystal and clear the ship's computers before setting a course to the closest inhabited world.
[9] Nightflyers is set in the same fictional "Thousand Worlds" universe as several of Martin's other works, including Dying of the Light, Sandkings, A Song for Lya, "The Way of Cross and Dragon" and the stories collected in Tuf Voyaging.
[12] The film is about a group of scientists who begin a space voyage to find a mysterious alien creature, and in the process are victimized by the ship's malevolent computer.
It was directed by Robert Collector, using the pseudonym "T. C. Blake" as he left before post-production was completed,[12] and stars Catherine Mary Stewart, and Michael Praed.