In a forgotten village on the windswept tundra of a small planetary colony, a young man called Jem is the only Sanndai. He knows nothing of his own people but the stories told by the Torvik villagers: stories of how the Sanndai came from the sky, bringing weapons that made people disappear, and banished the Torviks to this harsh land.  Now that Jem is grown, the elderly midwife who raised him can no longer protect him. Strong-willed and defiant, Jem struggles to prove his worth, but he's shunned by most of the villagers.  A man with mad eyes who seems to know something of Jem's unknown past despises him most of all—a brutal man who could kill Jem without remorse.  If staying alive means leaving, Jem must have the courage to seek a new life outside the only world he has ever known—and to face the people he knows only from tales of their arrogance and cruelty.