Young Janna has lived her fourteen years on the icy northern plains of a world that has forgotten its history. Now the arrival of Earthers -- descendants of the humans who first settled the planet many centuries before -- has violently upset the fragile balance of a developing civilization. The offworlders' advanced technologies and cruel indifference to local life have brought despair and destruction to Janna's home, robbing her of family, husband, child, and self. Haunted by a dead past -- mysteriously altered by the gift of three alien artifacts -- Janna must now redefine herself on a devastated planet she no longer recognizes, as she embarks upon a remarkable, transcendent journey into an uncertain future; moving steadily through this strange new world toward a startling realization about her role in the great cosmic order.