In the spring of 2011, humanity discovers an impossible interstellar anomaly racing toward Earth at a speed scientists cannot explain. As panic spreads, governments prepare, universities shut down, and families rush to reunite, graduate students Mary Caldwell and Mike Reynolds try to hold onto their future together. Then the Passage arrives...
"Well, Corporal Westerburg," Doctor Henry Harris said gently, "just why do you think you're a plant?" As he spoke, Harris glanced down again at the card on his desk. It was from the Base Commander himself, made out in Cox's heavy scrawl: Doc, this is the lad I told you about. Talk to him and try to find out how he got this delusion. He's from the new Garrison, the new check-station on Asteroid Y-3, and we don't want anything to go wrong there. Especially a silly damn thing like this!
Sunlight filtered through the windows into the sleep-compartment. Tony Rossi yawned, then opened his black eyes and sat up quickly. He tossed the covers back and slid to the warm metal floor. It looked like a nice day. The landscape outside was motionless.In the dining compartment his mother and father had finished breakfast. Their voices drifted to him as he clattered down the ramp. A disturbed murmur; he paused to listen. What were they talking about? Had he done something wrong, again?
In the Hyborian age, the major events of Howard's pseudohistorical prehistory, both period before and after the time of the Conan stories. In describing the cataclysmic end of the Thurian Age, the period described in his Kull stories, Howard links both sequences of stories into one shared universe.