This Aurora Award-winning science-fiction novel introduces a battle for survival on a distant water world....

After a worldwide disaster strikes Earth, the planet is taken over by a fanatical religious theocracy. Scientist Victor Hansen flees with a staff of non-genetically modified humans and young members of his newly created race, the Selkies, to Marseguro, a distant water world.

But their peace and freedom is threatened when a traitor calls forth a strike force from Earth, and Victor's own grandson, Richard, is with them. What Richard Hansen discovers may alter not only his own destiny, but that of Marseguro and Earth as well.