America is a frozen wasteland. The Sahara is a lush verdant garden. Doomed cities rise from mountain tops and ocean floors, and sail over the seas. Disease is no more. And Earth now belongs to those who created humankind. John Starkman is among the humans who survived the end. A fugitive hunted by the new order, he has joined the underground resistance--and has now, unknowingly, become part of a cataclysmic war that has raged across the stars for untold millenia. Struggling only to save his own life, he may hold the power--genetically encoded in his chromosomes--to save the destiny of those who rule the galaxy.