Kion Danos is a POW, so far from home the light of his native sun hasn't yet reached the barren deserts of the alien prison world. Taken by the Kaarrk Swarm, along with millions of human and humansh prisoners on the collapsing frontiers and lost cities of the Dominion, Infantry Captain Kion Danos never loses his fervent desire to live, to return home to his wife and daughter. At the same time, a female combat surgeon and POW named Amela Brunvig dreams of escape while a prisoner in women's polar camp Aerag-78. As the two make their respective breaks, under hot pursuit by mercenaries and Sekurita as well as Kaarrk sky eyes, their lives intersect in a harrowing adventure across worlds. Along the way, they meet an exotic array of both enemies and allies, from a gorgeous but dead female pilot to a tragic ship, from a shadowy jungle skimmer to an army of escaped prisoners led by the enigmatic Private Lute, and ultimately to a gateway between all time and space-in the Temporale, a panoramic world of adventure created by John Argo. This novel is a node in the Up Time Sector of John Argo's Empire of Time series. For more info, see clocktowerbooks website. In the Temporale, Time Trains race between nodes of here and there, of now and time past or future. Can Kion and Amela ever find their way home among infinitely many times and places, many of which resemble their own? There is no place like home, and for each of them, there is only one spouse and one child; no alternate lives will make them whole. To make matters worse, as they search for a path home, they are pursued by Amela's merciless aerag commandant. Major Rulla Texel's agenda turns out to be larger than either the human or alien concerns about conquest and looting. Who is paying Texel to uncover the secrets of lost Earth and humankind's history? What will Texel do if Kion and Amela unwittingly help her locate the hidden cradle of humankind and all of its priceless secrets and treasures? Who are the power players from the ends of time and the universe, who pursue the threads of a story as big as the universe from creation to cosmopause? The adventure begins on this remote prison planet, and a lost gateway to infinitely many alternate universes...