The only habitable portion of Nullaqua is a handful of islands at the bottom of an immense crater. Surrounding the islands is a sea of finest dust. And in that sea live the dustwhales whose bodies yield Flare, a potent, exhilarating drug. When Flare is outlawed, John Newhouse, drifter and addict, joins the dustwhaler Lunglance to obtain his own supplies. His trip is uncomfortable and dangerous, for he has reckoned without the rigours of the job, the deadly sharks and anemones, and without falling for Dalusa, the winged alien woman for whom human touch is agony.. And the last thing he has foreseen is what lies at the bottom of that unfathomed, silent sea...