After a woman's consciousness separates from her mind during a recon mission to an exoplanet, her boyfriend must violate colonial non-interference laws to reach the planet's southern continent and find the alien harboring her consciousness.

SYNOPSIS:

We witness two young adults enjoying a picnic outside of a National Weather Service office: a meteorologist named Mark and the love of his life, Samantha (a botany professor). Mark and Samantha's impromptu romantic dinner is interrupted by an NWS meteorologist imploring them to come inside and watch a news broadcast. During the broadcast, Mark and Samantha learn that oxygen has been detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called Caelarus. Extra-planetary life confirmed!

Shortly after the discovery of Oxygen in Caelarus' atmosphere, Samantha is approached by an astrophysicist named Dr. Salazar. He tries to recruit her into a top secret exoplanet reconnaissance project. However, he's vague on the details of the mode of travel. But it's clear that Samantha's recruitment has something to do with her photographic memory.

Only when Samantha learns she's developed a terminal illness does she agree to participate in the project, a project which involves quantum entanglement devices to induce a person's consciousness to separate from their body and travel light years in a matter of minutes. Participants of the project are referred to as eideticours (a combination of the words "eidetic" and "courier"). Eideticours utilize their photographic memories for celestial navigation--as memorization of complex star patterns is necessary for finding Caelarus and other exoplanets in a timely fashion. And locate Caelarus Samantha does!

Samantha's out-of-body recon missions are one hell of a rush--a rush that she keeps from Mark. She also doesn't tell him about her terminal diagnosis. And the lies and withholding begin to take a toll on their relationship. While Mark tries to uncover the truth behind Samantha's increasingly uncharacteristic behavior, Samantha performs another outbound to Caelarus to do a followup assessment of the planet's habitability. But something goes terribly wrong and her consciousness fails to reintegrate with her body on Earth. Instead, someone else's consciousness moves into her body--an alien consciousness!

Disoriented and frightened, the alien visitor ends up being committed to a psych ward and diagnosed with severe psychosis. When Mark comes to visit Samantha, he's shocked to discover that the love of his life is now a mere stranger, a stranger who flees from his comforting words and gestures of affection. The unrequited love is agonizing. But over time, after many visits, Mark begins building a rapport with her. However, before Mark can fully orient the new Samantha to her Earthly surroundings and begin learning her alien tongue, Samantha dies. Mark is as heartbroken as he is determined to one day journey to Caelarus to get some answers regarding the fate of Samantha's consciousness.

It's not until two decades later when a breakthrough interstellar engine is developed that Mark to able to journey to Caelarus as a colonist. While acclimating to colony life on the northern continent, Mark develops an intimate friendship with Beth, an eideticour like Samantha. When Mark experiences visions of Samantha in her new alien body during an intense aurora, he relates his experiences to Beth. She agrees to use her eideticour skills to help track down Samantha's new alien body on the southern continent. After numerous out-of-body recon missions, Beth and Mark gather a preponderance of evidence that suggests Samantha is alive and well in an alien woman's body--an alien who goes by the name Aasasanna.

In defiance of Colonial laws prohibiting contact with the native inhabitants on the southern continent, Mark and Beth steal the head colonial administrator's boat and chart a course for the southern continent--the only place where the native humanoid inhabitants can be found. They arrive at the southern continent after a long and arduous journey. The pair locate Samantha/Aasasanna. A tense and cathartic reunion between Mark and his soulmate plays out on an ocean beach aglow in the light of Caelarus' two moons. But when Mark asks Aasasanna to return with him to the colonial settlement, Aasasanna tells him she has no desire to go back, but that he can stay if he wishes.

After Aasasanna convinces the village elders--including her father, Izacoor--to let Beth and Mark stay at her home, the two humans are welcomed into the village at a ceremony at an amphitheater. And it's there that Mark and Beth are introduced to Aasasanna's fiance, Uzakael.

A heart-wrenching struggle plays itself out with Mark desperately trying to convince Aasasanna to get back together with him. Only after putting the two of them through the emotional wringer does Mark come to realize it's time to let go. Witnessing Aasasanna and Uzakael's wedding gives Mark some measure of closure. But it isn't until Beth contracts a serious illness that Mark understands how powerful his feelings for Beth have become and how terrified he is of losing another woman he loves.

Mark bites the bullet and uses the head admin's boat's radio to arrange an ocean rendezvous with a shuttle craft for an emergency evac. On the open ocean, while waiting for the shuttle's arrival, a squall moves in, nearly capsizing the boat. The shuttle arrives just in time to pluck Mark and Beth out of a tumultuous sea. A suborbital flight back to the colonial settlement ensues. Soon, Beth will receive the life-saving medicine she needs so she and Mark can embark on the next chapter of their lives together.