A former deep-sea sailor saw firsthand the mental toll that long deployments at sea take on naval personnel. He spent more than a decade developing a series of intelligent mobile cruise platforms, all to provide naval crews from various countries with leisure and vacation services at sea. One business venture, one enormous unpaid debt owed by a foreign military; the ocean sensor arrays aboard the platforms keep detecting inexplicable signals during commercial testing, linking together a series of bizarre maritime incidents from around the world over many years. The merchant was originally driven only by profit, but inadvertently exposed humanity and attracted the attention of an extraterrestrial civilization. When a civilizational crisis arrives, the commercial debt from years past becomes a bargaining chip in the struggle among humanity's many factions.
