For many decades scientists have dreamed of sending deep-frozen humans on interstellar missions. While this dream may come true one day, there is already a much simpler technique available: the freezing of human embryos. But for long distance space travel this poses other challenges, most of all managing the artificial pregnancies and the raising of children. A large scale project has implemented a viable solution based on advanced biotechnology and highly sophisticated androids. But to prove that it can really work, the project's scientists go a step further. Somewhere in the Nevada desert and well hidden underground, they conduct an eighteen-year-long experiment using a young starship crew unaware of their true environment. Surrounded by complex simulations, the crew believes to approach a distant star system hosting a planet suitable for human colonization. What they also don't know is the fact that their embryos had been split prior to the implantation in the womb devices.

The scientists' bold plan is to send the twin embryos on the real mission. From both identical genes and an identical environment inside the starship, they derive the assumption that the future is a mere repetition of the present events. And indeed, about 42,000 years later the twins grow up with the very same android parents. But then things start to drift away from the original plan. The real starship crew now faces a constant battle for survival. Only their fortitude and strong determination to land on the extrasolar planet averts a disaster. The reward is overwhelming when the new exotic world awaits them.