Deep sea. Deep space. First contact. Final days. Winner of the 2025 Reedsy Discovery Editors' Choice Awards. "Literate, big-brained SF that tells a whale of a tale." -Kirkus Reviews For marine biologist Soledad, it starts with the mass stranding and ghastly death of a thousand sperm whales. Working for the Cetacean Translation Institute-CETI-to understand whale communication, she uncovers increasingly bizarre and disturbing behavior among the deep-sea leviathans to which she has dedicated her life. For astronomer and former astronaut Jack Dash, it began with an accident on a spacewalk thirty years ago and is rekindled by a disappearing star. Working for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence-SETI-he probes the increasingly dark and obscure corners of deep space and time trying to fill in the blank spaces on the map. Their obsessive investigations entwine them in a mystery spanning the remotest places on Earth, the farthest ocean depths, and the emptiest regions of the night sky. What they discover shatters their understanding of the universe and our place in it. For both of them, it ends with missions requiring their unique expertise to safeguard the future of Earth's conscious life in a cosmos more terrifying than ever imagined. Ready to dive into the deep end and stare into the abyss?