It has taken a long time, but humankind has won its battle against the sea. Now Professionals like Walter Franklin patrol the infinite savannahs of the oceans, harvesting from the plankton prairies. But like that other great frontier, space, the sea has not yet yielded up all its secrets. And men like Franklin will never rest until its every fathomless mystery has been challenged....
In Venice, Frances Croy is working to leave the previous year behind: another novel published to little success, a scathing review she can't quite manage to forget, and, most of all, the real reason behind her self-imposed exile from London: the incident at the Savoy. Sequestered within an aging palazzo, Frankie finds comfort in the emptiness of Venice in winter, in the absence of others. And then Gilly appears.