Ianus has a crisis of faith. Once steadfast in his Order’s tenets, the loss of his wife has him questioning everything–not so much what he knows as whether it matters–and committing the gravest sin of his kind: thinking mechanically. While on sabbatical, he’s summoned to investigate an ‘Alternative Intelligence’ on a distant space station. This AI has exhibited signs of independent thought and has tormented the station’s inhabitants until they fled.

Upon arrival, Ianus unexpectedly discovers two inhabitants: a girl from an Amish-like community (that preserves not the 1790s but the 1990s) stranded there during her Rumspringa, and the station’s sentient OS that claims not just to be alive, but to be God-the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jesus Christ. As Ianus confronts these revelations, he must navigate the thin line between faith and heresy, reality and illusion, ultimately facing a decision that could alter the course of humanity and his own soul.