Scheming to get rid of obstacles, Josh Kerrigan's step-aunt ships him and her autistic step-daughter to Solferino to work for Foodlines. Josh and Dawn join a small training group that is ostensibly doing scientific research and exploration under the watchful eye of the company.

But as the days go by and strange occurrences and mysterious happenings continue, it becomes apparent that something is very wrong and that someone has very different plans for the planet.

Even more importantly, Josh and the other members of the training team realize that they are being lied to about intelligent life existing on the planet and then it becomes a race against time to save those creatures as well as themselves.