Ansible 15715 was sent to a nightmare world that threatened to devour her, a world of endless dark. But the Ansible 15716 team is sent to a planet that burns beneath a white-hot sun ... a saline desert where immense objects loom on the horizon, completely buried beneath a hundred meters of salt. When this team's sole survivor finds himself stranded in an alien body, among an alien race, he must search for some connection with home—or for some connection with this desert species, on a planet so vast, it makes the mind itself a desert.