By the close of our century, the Lagrange Archipelago is clinically free of mental illness. When three notable colonists succumb to madness and death, the established order is threatened. The International Space Agency sends Inspector Charles Franklin Price and Dr Sybil McCreery to determine the precise origin and meaning of these events. At every turn, they are hindered by the enigmatic leader of the Lagrange Platform, Ching-shan, and his Court. Why? They cannot fathom. Only when they explore the dark worlds of physics and psyche do they find the ultimate truth of the Lagrange system's existence--where experiments into matter-antimatter conversion are not just the launching place for mankind into interstellar space, but the terminus for his terrifying encounter with something thoroughly alien to his spirit and species.