The novel starts out with a scene from our contemporary Earth, where the protagonist, Amy, is getting ready to be cryogenically frozen along with her parents and 97 other passengers. These passengers, including Amy’s parents and excluding Amy, are all specialized in some field like gene splicing, crop developing, military commanders, etc. They are all being sent on a mission to find a replacement Earth in the system named Centauri, and start a civilization, because the waves of depression hitting US and the world have made them look at other places in space to start anew. Amy is being lied to right from the beginning. Instead of being frozen for 300 years, the government delays and adds another year when she could have had one more year to enjoy the beauty of Earth.
Then, the author fast forwards 300 years into the future. The story switches narration, and is through Elder’s perspective. Elder is the future leader of the spaceship named Godspeed. He accidentally stumbles upon the cryo chambers, which are purposely hidden from him and the mono-ethnic humans living aboard the ship.
The chaos is spread when Amy’s chamber is unlocked. It’s a struggle for her to fit in. First of all, she is prematurely unfrozen, and there’s a killer among them who is trying to unfreeze the rest of the passengers, which will lead to some deaths. Secondly, she is treated like a freak for her appearance, and is kept in the hospital ward with the rest of the mental patients. The people kept in the wards are actually normal with exceptional talents, and the drug doesn’t affect them at all. Thirdly, Amy & Elder discover that the history available in the library is manipulated with to keep the truth hidden, which leads them to the most shocking truth of the ship. Amy is actually unfrozen 350 years later, the ship’s progress is 250 years behind schedule, and they’re not even halfway there. When the news of not reaching the Centauri Earth on time flew around, it had caused massive suicides and disruption in the past and that is why one of the eldests (before their time period) was forced to use the drug, Phydus, to calm the chaos. The Eldest, before their time, covered up the details, and prescribed a new plan for the ship. The rest unaffected passengers were labeled ‘mental’ to keep them under control and were medicated regularly. The past leaders were just thinking of survival, because there is a chance that they might not ever make to the designated place.
The novel has many twists and turns in the story, some very unexpected. In the end of the book, Elder is faced with many tough decisions, some questioning his own leadership skills. Amy tries to reconcile with the fact that she has to live out her life in the small ship without her parents and no chance at a real life.
