John Armstrong is a widower and disillusioned scientist working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. When he meets Fred Capistrano, a mysterious being from Nema who invites him to the planet to attend a university along with thirty scientists from other planets, John snatches the chance to escape his stale career and embark on an extraordinary adventure. Nema is many years ahead of Earth in development and has already endured a crisis that caused its progress to spiral out of control. As his studies begin at the University of Nema, John soon learns what its inhabitants did to survive...