Set in the modern world of mostly North America, Michael Lang relates the story of how aliens came to offer a trade: the world's dead for their technology. Intrigued by the prospect of working for these powerful entities, Michael is one of many who sign up to pilot one of the massive vessels that collect the dead. These pilots act as mere figure heads, proof for the populace of the cooperation between human and alien, but never truly in control of the ships they travel in. Guided by a powerful artificial intelligence, and set upon a path that is not their own, they question the meaning of...