John Crichton, Earth astronaut lost in a universe he never new existed, would have answered the call for altruistic reasons alone. However, his desperate alien shipmate fugitives on the living ship called Moya had other plans. Survival!

Then Rygel XVI, the deposed ruler now on the throne of his own mind, recognized the ship's markings. This race knew the starways like the back of its ventral tentacle! However, inside the alien ship the crew found instead a mystery wrapped inside an enigma and shunted into a ghost-universe.

Would Crichton the wandering Earthman, Rygel the power-mad schemer, Ka D'Argo the haunted warrior, Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan the exotic blue priest, and Aeryn Sun the ex-Peacekeeper at war with herself find the key that would take them home? Or would the ship of dreams and ghosts add their troubled souls to its grisly collection in an galaxy beyond Death itself?