In the 21st century, the scientist D’Brannin has decoded an alien signal from the Valkrens, and he’s assembled a team with questionable credentials to locate the source, including Audrey, Keelor, Darryl, Lilly, Jon Winderman (a class ten telepath), Jon's assistant Eliza, and Miranda (who narrates).

Royd holographically confides in Miranda that he is a cross-sex clone of his "mother," a telepath/telekinetic who died before he was incubated, and that he has been raised by the computer that runs the ship.

Jon takes some kind of enhancement drug and sees the apparent soul of the ship before killing Eliza.

Royd tells the team that he’s shut down the computer, but the cargo bay has been damaged and the ship has started to decompress, meaning implosion if they cannot patch it within three hours.

Adara, apparently not dead after all, turns the ship back on (though not the artificial gravity), and Keeler flies inside to kill it, followed by Darryl and Audrey.

[2] 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", "With Morning Comes Mistfall", and the stories collected in Tuf Voyaging.

[4] Screen and television rights were purchased by Vista in 1984, which produced a 1987 film adaptation with a screenplay co-written by Martin,[5] with writer/producer Robert Jaffe.

[7] While not a hit at theatres, Martin believes that the film saved his career, and that everything he has written since exists in large part because of it.