[from inside flaps]
"No one remembers where they came from or where they're going. For hundreds of years, the starship Argonos, home to generations of humans, has wandered the galaxy, searching for signs of intelligent life. Yet in all that time, there has been no evidence of an alien civilization.
Now the ship is in crisis. In fourteen years, it hasn't made landfall due to one bad choice of star system after another. With no mission and no landfall, uncertainty and a deep restlessness have spread throughout the ship; many of the crew are clamoring to get off and start a new life. Though Captain Nikos has hung on to his position despite the pressures, his power and influence have seriously declined. The time is ripe for rebellion...and then the ship picks up a steady, unidentified transmission, luring them to a nearby planet.
What the exploration team finds is a long-abandoned human colony. But deep within the planet's steamy jungles lies horrible evidence of its fate: a cavernous chamber neatly filled with rows of skeletons, each one hanging on its own hook. Haunted by what they have seen, Argonosfs Executive Council orders the ship to leave.
Soon after, something is sighted--an enormous starship, utterly nonhuman, mysteriously empty and dead in space. Faced with their first encounter with alien life, they have no choice but to explore it. But are they entering a possible new habitable world...or a trap that will cost them their lives?"
The story's narrator is shunned because he has physical defects, but he is relied upon by the captain and the population as a whole because of his intelligence, reliability, good judgment and abilities
