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 depressed police officer investigates whether a shopkeeper is performing amateur brain surgery in his back room. His findings subvert not only his expectations, but also his assumptions about mental health and crime in his city.