Now a passenger on the Wanderer ship, Gil struggles to comprehend its galaxy-spanning quest and her place amongst the stars. She is helped by 998, the c-autom appointed by the craft-lect as her guardian, while it also deals with its own burgeoning duties as quasi-leader of its kind. The ship’s other recent passenger, One-oh, an ancient bio-lect and assumed sole survivor of an ancient race, has meanwhile retreated into self-imposed isolation – although dark secrets about a terrible past threaten to be unleashed. Minding its own business, a data-lect supervising one of the Wanderer data exchange portals is taken by surprise when a puzzling stranger makes an unexpected visit – its absurd claims of other realities can’t possibly be true, can they? Elsewhere, paradise is tirelessly tended to by its devoted workers, keen to aid their forgetful creator in remembering vital knowledge that was lost. The gardens require a steady influx of new seedlings to continue to flourish, but a new arrival could jeopardise everything.