Steve Cantwell returns to the desert colony of his childhood on Sirius' brutal second planet and finds only silence: the village abandoned, the well poisoned, and death already at work. In the ruins, an old Kumaji man tells him the settlers have fled after the water turned deadly, with the Kumaji in pursuit, and that the survivors are now staggering across five hundred miles of merciless desert with children, camels, and almost no water left. Caught between anger at the tribesmen and loyalty to the people who raised him, Steve gives the old man his canteen, then races off in his unicopter to find the refugee caravan before the wasteland claims it. When he finally lands among the exhausted colonists, he is met with bitterness from Tobias Whiting, who sees him as a deserter who returned too late. Steve also learns his aunt has died from the poisoned well, deepening the novel's bleak tension and emotional force. In this harsh frontier world of scarcity, resentment, and survival, home itself may be the most painful thing to lose. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.