Six months into a deadly plague on her adopted world, Oma, Dr. Audie Harwood has lost her sister and both parents. Her husband Morrow is all she has left when she is sent to Eden, a reclusive and hostile settlement. The central government has lost touch with Eden, and fears its inhabitants have fallen to the plague. Audie is shocked by what she finds in Eden, and soon finds herself racing for a cure that only she can find. A third of the planet's human inhabitants are dead or dying; Morrow is half a planet away; the residents of Eden barely tolerate Audie's presence. And if that's not enough, her research is stopped in its tracks by a pirate attack.