For Emmett Helaman, life is what you make it. It is the year 2098 and Emmett is a widowed teacher and historian in the Asher Realm, a Mormon enclave established in the mountains east of Ogden. 21st Century attempts to adapt food staples to a changing climate have shrunken and decimated civilization so that humans exist as brutal scavengers in the cities and as refugees in a few Mormon realms scattered across America. Each year Emmett prepares his students to survive their mission work as they wander the country to spread the gospel and collect data. On occasion Emmett also ventures into the barren world, making trips into Ogden to search for ancient books left behind during the exodus to Asher. One night after reviewing a book on Mayan culture Emmett dreams of a fanciful rocketship image carved into the lid of a sarcophagus. Using the Realm's archives and ancient books he discovers that many times in human history identical concepts were recorded in cultures separated by time and distance. Emmett is convinced that somehow human minds can find each other through the darkness of time, and that he must deliver a warning to the past. As historian of a dying world there is no how or why in the process for Emmett to consider. There is only must.