Ariel MacClaren is an acolyte in the Church of the New Life, a religion that has swept Earth since the discovery of life on Delta Eridani 7. When a probe sent to the planet, renamed Grace, finds the advanced but inscrutable Kaalysti civilization, Church leader Reverend Pater Diego de Velasquez decrees that a Pilgrimage be sent to worship the extraterrestrials.

An expert in linguistics, Ariel is chosen to make the long Pilgrimage to Grace to act as interpreter. She is also commanded to be the breeding partner of Prelate Vincent Fitzroy, the cruel and fanatical commander of the Mission. But before they leave Earth Ariel finds a way out of her hated betrothal: scientists discover a complete map of Kaalite DNA. Using the pursuit of holy understanding as a bargaining tool, Ariel convinces the Reverend Pater that she should undergo an experimental transformation to become one of the Kaalysti. She will be no longer human, but also no longer Fitzroy’s bride.

Upon meeting the Kaalites she discovers that they are a noble and erudite race, free of violence but without any concept of deity. But Fitzroy finds their atheism intolerable and seeks to claim Grace for himself, expelling or killing the natives--and Ariel--in the process.

In the early years of the 23rd Century a global Great Awakening sweeps Earth, the extent and depth of which had never been seen in the history of mankind. The discovery of the Most Holy living on a planet 30 light years distant gave impeccable credibility and unimaginable credence to the Church of the New Life, a religion that had for a century professed that extra-terrestrials would be closer to God than any human could.

Its prophecy fulfilled its parishes and madrassas overflowing, the Church initiates a series of brutal pogroms to consolidate its power, aimed at the few non-believers who for one reason or another hadn’t fled from the impending tsunami of intolerance. Atheists and followers of other gods take refuge on Mars and on the Trojan asteroids, hoping to live in peace far from the religious zealotry, hoping the Church never reaches out with a 23rd Century Malleus Maleficarem.

But this is not to be, for great plans of domination are afoot, conceived and implemented by the deceptively cherubic Reverend Pater Charles Boykin. Mars and ultimately the asteroid colonies will feel the hammer of religious fanaticism wielded by Boykin’s minions while he embarks on an incredible scheme to rule the galaxy itself.

In the thirty years since the Kaalysti and their new adopted lair-daughter Ariel were driven from Lanta, fleeing to the depths of interstellar space, the humans who occupied their homeworld had been breeding prodigiously. Over three decades each woman had born an average of eight children, and the elder half of this generation was already reproducing.

Augmenting their fecundity, a second Arc had arrived, larger than the original, carrying more Pilgrims, soldiers, and another Scepter-equipped spacecraft, and a third enormous transport was in deceleration mode, due to arrive within two years. Gracious Emperor Fitzroy felt satisfied and secure with the fruitfulness of his growing realm. But two unexpected arrivals from the Sol System would ignite a confluence of cultures, the likes of which neither human nor Kaalite could have ever imagined.