A young man's girlfriend frequently disappears from their life together in Berkeley for what she says are family emergencies. But after the couple gets matching tattoos, the man's tattoo begins to behave strangely, glittering and levitating over his skin — leading him to realize that perhaps his girlfriend, and the trips she takes, are not so ordinary as they may seem.

Aboard a human city ship headed for Proxima b, shadows begin to haunt the sleeping passengers. An engineer commits suicide, and a psychotherapist finds that these apparitions feed on human guilt. The only way to survive is to master and confront the mounds of guilt that each human passenger carries inside herself.

A 597-year-old cop on a distant planet comes to terms with his instincts to run from his feelings rather than face them during the worst storm his civilization has ever seen.