On September 6, 2004, over Montana, a disabled alien spacecraft collides with a small plane occupied by Mallory and Lucas Strong. Lucas is killed but the alien pilot uses his advanced technology to save Mallory and inhabit Lucas's body in an attempt to elude the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), ruthlessly intent on his capture and interrogation at any cost. Despite her grief, Mallory insists on assisting the alien's flight from capture as they make their way to Lucas's rescue point near Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah. During their flight, Mallory enlists the aid of long-time friend, David Brekke, a former CIA field agent and SETI scientist, who knows better than anyone what horrifying plans AFOSI has for the peaceful alien. Mallory experiences a harrowing nightmare that drives her into Lucas's arms, a being who, less than thirty-six hour before, was her husband, and they conceive a child. Mallory's pregnancy is anything but normal, but she delivers a baby boy whom she names Adam. Adam matures rapidly, and as he becomes a young adult, is possessed of the memories of both his human and alien fathers and displays telepathic and telekinetic abilities. He begins to tell David of the extensive explorations of his extraterrestrial father during five hundred survey missions to alien solar systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Incensed by his failure to capture the fugitives, the leader of the AFOSI team, Major Martin Gates, conducts a vicious and unauthorized raid on David Brekke's elderly mother's home. The lady dies during the incursion which enrages Adam and he confronts the AFOSI team members responsible but leaves them alive with a warning which they ignore. He inadvertently leaves evidence enabling AFOSI to trace him back to the family's hideout at a ranch in central Oregon and the entire family - less Adam - is taken into custody. Adam knows that the only way to secure his family's freedom is to exchange himself for them but in a thought-provoking and surprising conclusion finds an alternative that guarantees both his family's freedom and his own.
