November 2006: Earth is an amber cinder, all life annihilated by total nuclear war. A handful of settlers left on Mars are the sole survivors of the human race, facing a desolate future, cut off and isolated even from each other. Wilder finally meets his Martian 'counterpart'.

February 2004: The colonisation of Mars proceeds rapidly, the rockets arriving like 'silver locusts'. Settlers pour in, each in search of a dream - Fr Peregrine wants to meet Christ; the Lustigs want to find their missing son; the Parkhills want to make their fortune; and Wilder himself wants to meet a Martian...

January 1999: The Zeus Project makes its first manned flight to Mars. Its ultimate goal: colonisation. On Mars, Ylla dreams of the coming astronauts and her husband, Mr K, plots their doom... The second expeditions lands and finds a Mars a deceptively familiar but deadly home from home. Finally, Col. Wilder's Zeus III expedition arrives to find the Martians dead, wiped out by chicken pox. For one crew member, Spender, the thought of Earth culture tearing the planet apart is too much to bear.