Keith Stoner, astronaut and American member of a joint US-Soviet space mission sent to capture an alien space ship, falls into suspended animation when he offers his own body as hostage to the alien craft. Now, eighteen years later, Jo Camerata, the ambitious young student who fell in love with Stoner, is the head of the powerful multinational Vanguard Industries. Her recovery of the alien ship gives her control of new technology and the fortune it will reap. It also gives her control over Stoner. But the strange technology that preserved Stoner's life during the last eighteen years has imposed an alien consciousness on his brain - a consciousness that will not be controlled. Now that personality intends to explore this new world - and will let nothing stand in its way ..