This fourth and concluding volume in Pohl's popular Heechee Saga takes place 100 years after the first, Gateway, when the discovery of abandoned alien spaceships opened the galaxy to human exploration.

Now allies, human and Heechee, are guarding against the Foe, a race of energy beings that has already wiped out several civilizations.

Millionaire Robin Broadhead, who has survived his physical death to become a computer-stored intelligence, tracks suspicious Foe - directed transmissions back to a Pacific island and the refugee children who have unwittingly carried the Foe to Earth. Robin's first contact with these beings becomes vital to human and Heechee existence.