He was a government employed scientist, pulled from a mundain two-month study aboard a research ship stationed off the coast of Alaska. Vance Carr's superiors send him to investigate and identify a mysterious object discovered in a glacier, an object soon found to be something beyond comprehension; or belief. With his colleages, Carr unravels a mystery whose origin not only dates generations into the future, but also the past. He soon finds himself caught up in the greatest paradox known to man, one whose outcome carries the fate of the world's population.