It's 2021, and Thom and Lilian meet for the first time in Nebraska, where a crowd has gathered around one of the 'space whales' that have been falling from the sky. Thom talks about his experiences with the whales thus far: he's seen them at other landing sites, and when touching them, he has seen images of a far-off nebula. He gets dizzy for hours after touching one of these whale messengers. Thom has become what has been dubbed a 'Conversationalist,' someone who makes contact with these whales and tries to understand what they're here to tell us before the whale dies.

Lilian and Thom grow close in the following weeks and months. Lilian founds the Experiential Contact Internet Database (ECID), an organization created to attempt to better understand the meaning and purpose of the space whales. When Lilian and Thom touch a whale together, the experience is much more intense, for both of them, and it makes Lilian wonder what would happen if a large group of people made contact together, all at once.

Covertly, to avoid detection by the U.S. government, Lilian slowly forms a plan to bring together as many people as possible and as many space whales as possible, and to touch all the whales together simultaneously. Thom is terrified of the potential dangers of this, and he alerts the government to Lilian's plans. However, the authorities arrive too late to stop the contact, during which the creatures communicate to the humans present that the humans have passed a test. The stars are theirs, the creatures say, and they must venture into space like others before them.

The years pass; Lilian serves a decade in prison, and Thom loses touch with her. Thom marries and becomes a professor, but he never stops thinking about Lilian. After she is pardoned, Lilian undergoes a gene therapy which slowly transforms her into a space-whale messenger like the ones that visited Earth. In his old age, Thom smuggles himself out to the ocean, where many messengers are kept, and makes contact with the space whale messenger that was Lilian. He tells her that he was wrong, and that she should go, with his love. Moments pass, and then suddenly many star messengers rise far out at sea, launching themselves into space. Thom watches Lilian ascend last, burning brightly, heading for the stars.