In Nebula Award–winning author Jack McDevitt's ninth installment in the beloved Alex Benedict science fiction mystery series, humanity discovers new intelligent life lightyears away-only for it to disappear without a trace. Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel...

Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene, who has been mind-wiped. She has no memory of her life, or of her plea for assistance. The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds, where Alex uncovers a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval.

Sixty years after the disappearance of the passengers and crew of the luxury space yacht Polaris, found empty and adrift in space, Alex Benedict sets out to uncover the truth about the Polaris and to reveal the fate of its passengers.