The Alterra colony ship Cicada, bound for the desert world of Zezura, inexplicably diverts course and crash-lands on an uncharted ocean moon called Proteus. The world's extreme atmospheric pressure and heavy metal contamination means all human life will perish within months. To survive, the ship's AI uses "reprinting" technology to restore backed-up consciousness into new bodies, but the process causes severe memory loss. Decades after the original colonists vanish under mysterious circumstances, a new investigator is printed to uncover what happened to them and confront the secrets hidden beneath the alien ocean.