In the very far future, a woman takes the chance to leave Earth and look for a new planet to settle on. However, each time she's awoken from her stasis pod, she's confronted with the choice of whether to settle on an increasingly unfamiliar and strange planet that will force her to adapt into something non-human or whether to go back to sleep for thousands of years more, hoping for something better.

Is it better to have a human civilization devoid of art and culture than to have none at all? Three Earth ambassadors must whether to annihilate a space colony that has traded away human consciousness for a hive mind that feels nothing but the need for survival. In the distant future, three humans in possession of nuclear warheads must decide whether to allow a remarkable human variant species without consciousness to dominate the galaxy or destroy them forever.

On a far-future Earth, a young man accidentally commits adultery and is exiled to a distant planet that has undergone catastrophe—only to realize that this planet is an experiment to create a second Earth, and he has an opportunity to lead the inhabitants in building an interstellar empire.