Some secrets are meant to be kept. No one has ever ventured deeper into space than the four astronauts of Shepherd-1. The aim of their mission: to witness the creation of the cosmos. Using the sun as a lens, they are to align a flock of probes in such a way that the moment of the Big Bang becomes visible. For astronomer Christine, this is a dream come true. So she is bitterly disappointed when the first images are obscured by a kind of veil that prevents any insight. She works obsessively to find a solution, but when she finally succeeds in lifting the veil, she sees something that would have better been kept hidden...

The spaceship Shepherd-1 is on its way to the star closest to the sun. Halfway there, the crew succeeds in using gravitational lensing technology to take sharp pictures of the origin of the universe - and thus obtain the answer that reveals how the cosmos came into being and whether or not God had a hand in it. But no sooner does the crew tell Earth this than the radio communication goes silent, even though the ship is apparently functional. Is it a case of sabotage - or were the three astronauts overwhelmed with the answer that science and religion have been searching for for millennia? There is only one person who can figure it out: Former crew member Benjamin, who now lives on Earth, has his consciousness sent to Shepherd-1. Benjamin finds the spaceship empty. His friends seem to have fled. He is alone, 1.5 light years from the sun. There is no way back. But suddenly Benjamin realizes that he is not the only living being on board after all ...