Bronwyn just wanted to go home to Earth, to her old house and her old friends and forget all about the aliens and the crash and the colony. She wanted to drink herself into insensibility, take enough drugs to forget everything for a whole week and bury her sorrows in the arms of a broad- chested young man.

When she woke, alone and afraid, in the infirmary, head pounding from the aftereffects of her drug intake, Bronwyn almost gave in to sobbing and screaming her heart out. ...