Alex Miller saved thousands of lives back in New York... but he killed thousands to do it. Now stranded on a hostile sea with countless refugees, he sees the hundreds of tiny, difficult decisions that need to be made every day to keep people alive. Samantha Hernandez has moved beyond humanity, becoming something else: an Archaean, part of the new breed that live and breathe the ancient ecology. Now she's having doubts; are they the future of the human race, or only the agents of its destruction? What they both understand is: this cannot abide. The Archaeans, and the men and women of Schaeffer-Yeager corporation, need a plan, if humanity is to survive in any form. But how to fight back when the Earth itself has become your enemy.