When an advanced alien species offers the human race the secrets behind universal space travel, mankind jumps at the offer in this thrilling sci-fi tale of ambition gone awry. What had been humanity's hope for the most advanced starship ever created soon turns to disaster—military task forces, mutiny, and meteor showers all combine in forcing the ship, and the crew of 275 humans frozen in suspended animation, to return to Earth. But what awaits them back home—humans who have regressed to Neanderthal status that are now subservient to genetically enhanced crocodiles—is nothing like they ever imagined.