A million light years from home and thousands of years into the future, the Founders establish a technology-free society on the world they named Iskendar. Ten thousand years since the Founders arrival, Hypatia Theon, known by the world as The Catalogue for her precise and near perfect memory, readies herself for inauguration as Assistant to the Great Librarian. In the darkness of the library Hypatia meets Jet, a stranger to Iskendar. He tells her he can slip between the worlds of humanity's future by creating gates from the words of humanity's ancient past. Hypatia is torn by new possibilities and new choices. Should she settle into a life's path that is influential, comfortable and certain or will the attraction of adventure, of a beautiful stranger, and facing a danger beyond logic win her heart?