Katja Olesk, doctor of botany and supervisor of the Velikaya Knyazhna's park—the acres of forest they are transporting to terraform their new world—wakes at the end of the ship's journey to discover that one of the park laborers had died, seemingly of old age after a lifetime in the park. Consumed by rage and paranoia, Katja loses her status on the ship.

Two years later she is exiled to Yuri Gagarin, a tiny colony on a hostile world, and demoted to simple gardening. There she enlists the aid of Des, a boisterous terraformer, to continue the research she's no longer allowed to do. But the research leads to horrifying discoveries of what the colony leaders have been hiding, and when a devastating illness strikes, Katja must face her greatest fears and return to the park...