A rogue planet, populated by strange machines known as Pyramids, has stolen the Earth from the Solar System, taking it off into interstellar space.

The global population has crashed to a hundred million, due largely to the radical climate changes that followed the arrival of the alien planet.

This constraining lifestyle frequently causes Citizens to succumb to mental breakdowns and run 'amok,' attacking anyone within reach.

He then returns to a more Earthly concern - whether or not the 'sun' will be regenerated, ending the current period of hunger and cold.

They find he doesn't entirely fit in there either, but hope he may get collected by an 'Eye', giving them a chance to measure this process in detail.

To the Pyramids, the human race is nothing more than a useful source of 'Components' for a complex world-machine devoted mostly to feeding these artificial and semi-organic beings.

The freed Snowflake then spies on the Pyramids, finding that they have been traveling for some two million years, and have collected many species as Components, but seem locked in meaningless rituals surrounding an alien creature at the world's North Pole.

In the meantime, they have modified the collection process of human Components so that it selects persons known to at least one of the eight people composing the Snowflake (which has become almost as ruthless and inhuman as the alien Pyramids).

While they are arguing, one of their number is taken over by the mind of the alien at the North Pole, who warns them that the Pyramids have noticed them and plan to wipe out half the planet to get rid of them.

He also sees that there is a need for someone to wire themselves back into the alien planet's surviving systems, to re-kindle the 'sun' every five years and perhaps return the Earth to its original orbit.