Near the end of the 21st century, corporations have replaced state and federal governments following a bitter civil war, making way for a rewritten Constitution and a new America. The planet is plagued by a runaway greenhouse effect and the once exotic diseases that come with it, exposing a dramatic rift between the untreated poor and the few who can afford a highly sophisticated regimen of nano-injections. But Abraham Trevis, the world's most influential CEO and a visionary astrophysicist, believes he has the answers to Earth's challenges.

Meanwhile, Dr. Brody Springer is a lonely astronomer who leads the Delphi research team for Abraham high in the Klamath Mountains of Northern California. Delphi, a revolutionary telescope array positioned at the far end of our solar system, can explore even the deepest reaches of the known universe. Brody has always been preoccupied by this vast sea of planets and stars, but now more than ever, as he copes with the unexplained death of his wife and fellow researcher, Hope - Abraham's adopted daughter. She enriched all of Brody's pursuits while Abraham had been a mentor to him. But now both are far out of reach.

As Brody attempts to preserve Hope's memory through a telling series of journal entries, Delphi discovers a planet in a distant star system that was never supposed to exist - and that Hope had predicted. Brody is left to defend its ghostly truth despite his training and the skepticism of his peers, and as one cosmic mystery unfolds, other more sinister events surface closer to home. An unstoppable force is ready to strike, and at stake is the vision of what humanity's future must be in a hostile universe that, through it all, still seems to offer signs of hope. A universe where a wife's love might prove stronger than gravity and faster than the speed of light.