After the shocking first contact between humans and alien life on Mars, Carmen Dula and her husband board a tiny, long-range craft with five other humans and two Martians. They travel to a distant solar system that is home to the ",Others", - an enigmatic, powerful, and possibly immortal race. Once there, they manage to find enough common purpose to forge a delicate truce between human, Martian, and Other. By the time Carmen and her party are sent back to Earth, fifty years have passed - and th ...