A class-system has developed in which the commoners and poor serve in the lower levels and provide maintenance for the ship.

When a signal is received, a team aboard the Argonos prepare to make a landing on the first alien planet to be encountered in years.

Within the first few chapters it is clear that Nikos is in an increasingly dangerous situation and that tensions on the ship are beginning to rise.

Nikos asks Bartolomeo to join the team which is to land on the planet, which the Bishop names Antioch.

The first startling discovery the team makes foreshadows the epiphany of evil which looms over the Argonos for the latter part of the book.

The team was never informed of this, but Nikos decided that the Argonos should travel to where the signal had been sent, which ended up being the location of the alien ship.

There, this alien starship—a vast, immeasurable, structure far larger than the Argonos—lies dormant in the dead of space, and it appears just as silent and uninhabited as Antioch.

There has already been a number of deaths and other unfortunate incidents among previous exploratory team members while exploring the ship.

Some time after Bartolomeo assumes control of the operations aboard the alien ship, the mystery becomes even greater: a solitary old woman is found in a compartment of the ship which, unlike the rest of the explored sections, inexplicably has Earth-like gravity and air breathable to humans.

She says her name is Sarah and claims to have been from Antioch, and says the aliens saved her people, but can clarify nothing else in her delirious state.

Shortly after this decision is made, a young boy known by Bartolomeo sneaks aboard the alien ship, and Bartolomeo uncovers a horrifying part of the puzzle when he goes on board to bring the boy back to the Argonos: behind a door that the exploration team was not able to open on previous visits, Bartolomeo and the boy discover an enormous chamber containing horribly mangled corpses similar to the ones uncovered on Antioch, but in much greater quantity and more well-preserved because they had been frozen.

Bartolomeo calls an emergency meeting with the Executive Council and tells those taking care of "Sarah" to seal the room and sedate her.

Once the "Sarah" realizes something new is happening, her human shape begins to change somewhat and she displays an extreme amount of strength while trying to break out of the medical room.